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***DRONE NEGATIVE***

Topicality

Topicality- Its
Its is possessive and indicates an agent of an action
Merriam-Webster no date
[Merriam-Webster, Full Definition of ITS, http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/its, Date Accessed June 28 2015, MM]
of or relating to it or itself especially as possessor, agent, or object of an
action <going to its kennel> <a child proud of its first drawings> <its final
enactment into law>

Violation: The affirmative regulates the private sector, states,


and local law enforcement
(see plan specific evidence it will usually make reference to law enforcement,
states, or the private sector needing regulation. Either the plan text cant resolve
that or they arent T, clarify that in CX. )

Standards: First is predictable limits the topic mandates


United States states federal government. Allowing extra
topical affirmatives allows for unpredictable expansions of affs.
This explodes the case list to any research done by any
individual or private entity within the US
Second is ground. The negative loses private actor CPs,
federal government critiques, the politics and spending disad,
as well as any other argument predicated on USFG action.
Third is topic specific education. We should debate on federal
surveillance programs like PRISM or FISA allowing private
affs expands the purview to unrelated mechanisms.

Topicality- Curtail
Interpretation: Curtail means to eliminate some part
Merriam-Webster no date
[Merriam-Webster, Full Definition of CURTAIL, http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/curtail, Date Accessed June 28 2015, MM]
curtail: to make less by or as if by cutting off or away some part

Violation: The affirmative imposes restrictions but does not


eliminate certain portions of the drone program
Predictable Limits: Allowing affs that keep the fundamental
surveillance infrastructure and impose small general
restrictions explodes topic limits. Our interp is good for the aff
as it still has multiple viable affs due to the scope of federal
surveillance there are many facets they can choose to
eliminate.
Ground: Regulations affs take away negative ground
transparency CPs, critiques and disads of negative state
action, and we cant debate why certain surveillance programs
should exist which is the core of the topic

Mexico Terror DA

Shell

1NC
Unfettered drone surveillance is helping stabilize the USMexican border
BBC, 14
[BBC, 13 November, BBC News, US-Mexico border 'patrolled by drones,
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30044702, accessed 6-27-15, DA]
The US government is using drones to patrol half of its border with Mexico, a report
by the Associated Press says. The strategy means that the US is increasingly able to move away from
using large numbers of border patrol agents along the entire frontier. The drones allow border control
agents to focus on areas of "greater threat", says the report . The US border
immigration system is under pressure in the face of a worsening border crisis.
According to an investigation by the news agency, there have been about 10,000
drone flights since the new border control strategy began in March 2013. are being
The unmanned drones deployed in an effort to control 900 miles (1,450 km) of
remote areas, allowing border patrol agents to focus their resources elsewhere, AP
says. Richard Gil Kerlikowske, the commissioner of the Border Patrol's parent agency, Customs and Border
Protection, said his agency only had "finite resources". "You want to deploy your resources to
where you have a greater risk, a greater threat.'' The drones focus on detecting
small changes in the landscape such as footprints, broken twigs and tyre tracks. A
border control agent is only sent to the area if the drone has picked up signs of human disturbance, said AP.

Privacy restrictions deny drones key areas- backyards take up


large areas of the border
Dayen, Fiscal Times-Weekly columnist, 11
[David, 10-21-11, FDL, Drone Surveillance Comes to the US-Mexico Border,
http://firedoglake.com/2011/12/21/drone-surveillance-comes-to-the-us-mexicoborder/, accessed 6-29-15, -MBk]
the
Department of Homeland Security will draw down those forces by 75% and shift the
mission considerably: The drawdown, which the department characterized as a transition, will begin in
January and should be completed by March . Several lawmakers told CNN the number of National Guard
After posting 1,200 National Guard troops at the US-Mexico border to stop crossings of undocumented immigrants,

troops on the border will be cut from 1,200 with responsibilities mainly on the ground to 300 who will support the border mission in
the air. The Department of Homeland Security said the change is possible because of a jump in the number of Border Patrol officers
in the region, an increase in technology and a drop in apprehensions at the border. Of course, the rabid xenophobes in the
Republican caucus disagreed with the moves, claiming we dont have operational control of the border and that more troops are
actually needed for security. But border arrests have dropped sharply, down 53% from 2008 to today, and 80% from 2000 levels.

dont think that the


militarization of the border will go away, even with National Guard troops leaving the picture. As the release
says, the remaining troops will support the border mission in the air . That includes, according
Whats more, Border Patrol officers have doubled in size since 2004. [contd.] But

to DHS, adding a number of new multi-purpose aerial assets that carry the latest surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.

where federal law enforcement


authorities are rapidly expanding a military-style unmanned aerial reconnaissance
operation along the U.S.-Mexico border a region that privacy watchdogs say
includes a lot of American back yards. Fans of the Predators say the $20 million aircraft are a perfect
Or, if you prefer, drones: This is the semi-covert cutting edge of homeland security,

platform to keep a watchful eye on Americas rugged borders, but critics say the drones are expensive, invasive and finicky toys that
have done little compared with what Border Patrol agents do on the ground to stem the flow of illegal crossers, drug smugglers

Much like the rest of our military commitments, we are moving from a
manpower-intensive mission to a secret, off-books, robot war mission, with
unmanned aerial vehicles dominating. Weve already heard about the increasing use of drones on US soil to aid
or terrorists.

law enforcement, so drones on the border was a logical and expected step. That doesnt make it particularly appealing.

Mexican instability ensures a terrorist catastrophe- controlling


the border is vital to a sustainable Mexico
Schaan, Fellow in Homeland and security terrorism, 08
[JOAN NEUHAUS, JANUARY 31, 2008, RICE UNIVERSITY, TESTIMONY BEFORE THE
MEXICAN AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE CAUCUS OF THE TEXAS HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVE,
http://bakerinstitute.org/media/files/Research/3bf3b86e/MALCandTHRtestimony_JSc
haan_022908-1.pdf, accessed 6-26-15, DA]
Mexico is struggling to maintain civil authority
against a potent adversary, and if not successful, the consequences will be dire.
According to studies conducted in Mexico, alien smuggling profits are now approaching drug
smuggling profits. The increased profitability has resulted in more professional and
ruthless smuggling organizations that now resemble drug smuggling organizations
and/or include drug smuggling organizations. As the more ruthless organizations take over increasing
First, let me comment on the smuggling organizations.

portions of the smuggling trade, anecdotal evidence indicates the prices are rising and operations are increasingly sophisticated.

Currently the flow of illegal immigrants is of such proportions that it overwhelms


immigration, law enforcement and the criminal justice systems of border states and
their communities. Houston alone has an estimated 400,000 to 450,000 illegal
immigrants. 4 From the point of view of civil authorities, the criminal organizations outman and
outgun law enforcement; they have extremely effective intelligence gathering ; brutal
intimidation tactics (including beheadings, torture, burnings and threatened decapitation of children); and deep pockets for
bribery. Allow me the opportunity to describe to you a phenomenon in the cycle of violence as experienced in other countries. As
civil authorities struggle to maintain control and are approaching the tipping point of control, law enforcement officials, elected
officials and judges are assassinated; police stations are attacked; organized crime influences and then controls elected officials,

Once past the tipping point, the organizations control a community,


and those that do not acquiesce to their activities must leave or face the
consequences. In its most extreme form, civil authorities cede entire geographic regions, and the lawless organizations
and the press is silenced.

develop enclaves of autonomy, as has been the case in Colombia and Lebanon. In recognizing the severity of the situation in
Mexico, President Calderon is taking unprecedented measures to combat organized crime. Mexico is in the throws of this struggle
as we speak, and in no place is it more evident than in Nuevo Laredo. The criminal organizations control the streets after midnight.
Judges, police chiefs and city councilmen have been assassinated. Executions and firefights occur on a regular basis and have
forced the American Consulate to close for as much as weeks at a time. Seventy percent of the businesses in Nuevo Laredo have
closed in the last few years, though some of the shop space has been reoccupied. Mexican businessmen are desperate to live on
the Texas side of the border, due to the multiple kidnappings a week. The local press has stopped reporting on crime after multiple
attacks on their personnel and offices, and the San Antonio Express News and the Dallas Morning Herald have pulled their Laredo

Without Borders lists Mexico as the most


dangerous country in the world except for Iraq for journalists. Last week, military elements arrived
reporters due to concerns for their safety. In fact, Reporters

in Nuevo Laredo to take charge of security in the area, due to lost confidence in the public security officials in the area. On
Tuesday, the Texas Department of Public Safety issued a warning against crossing the Mexican border. The struggles Mexican
authorities are facing are not dissimilar to what our counties and state are confronting as the phenomenon spills across the border.

The menace of organized crimes violence and corruption must be vigilantly


guarded against at all levels of civil authority, as evidenced by multiple arrests in
Texas the last year or two. Our law enforcement agencies are outmanned and
outgunned. The criminal organizations are not only armed with advanced weaponry
including assault rifles, grenades, and grenade launchers, but with rocket launchers
capable of bringing down an airplane, machine guns, and explosives, such as Tovex,
a highly explosive hydrogel. There are even suspicions the cartels assisted a

Mexican militant group in the bombing of energy infrastructure. The organized


criminal activity involves Texas and Texans. Arrests in Mexico regularly involve U.S.
persons and U.S. vehicles. Students crossing from Juarez to El Paso are being targeted by drug traffickers. Recently,
Mexican cartel members have ordered hits on persons in Texas. As David V. Aguilar, chief of the U.S. Border Patrol has said, " The
American public must understand that this situation is no longer about illegal
immigration or narcotics trafficking. It is about criminals and smuggling
organizations fighting our agents with lethal force to take over a part of American
territory so they can conduct criminal activity." As the volume of smuggling has increased, so have the
incidents in the next level of crime kidnapping, burglary and theft. Most kidnappings go unreported, even those involving

The city of Houston has


seen an increase in kidnapping in the immigrant community, whether legal or
illegal. At least one kidnapping ring was disrupted last year that preyed upon Hispanic immigrants. This may not be an unusual
American citizens, for fear of retribution. But the crime is not just occurring along the border.

phenomenon along the border, but it is relatively new to Houston. One can easily envision the organizations moving beyond the

Burglary and theft has increased with the general


level of smuggling in border communities. I have spoken with many Texans from rural communities who
immigrant population to more lucrative targets.

are fearful in their own homes and who do not leave their home unattended, because when they return, there are strangers in
their home. This is particularly difficult on couples living alone, because they no longer can leave their home together or at the
same time, even to go to the grocery store, for fear their home will be burglarized or occupied when they return. In one specific
case, an older rancher, who operated a ranch on the Rio Grande that had been in his family for generations, made the difficult

The effects
of this crime also are felt in Houston, where approximately 1,250 Ford F-250 and F350 trucks were stolen last year, many of which were later found to be involved in
smuggling operations along the border. Turning to the national security implications
of the border environment, extremists are wellaware of the United States inability
to control its borders, and use of the border is mentioned not infrequently in
extremist chat rooms in the context of discussing tactics and logistics. Extremists
have had their own smuggling operations in Mexico, and unaffiliated smuggling
organizations have expressed a willingness to assist extremists willing to pay the
price. A 2005 DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) report outlines an ongoing scheme in which multiple Middle Eastern drugdecision to sell the ranch, but he is having difficulty finding a buyer that is not associated with organized crime.

trafficking and terrorist cells operating in the United States fund terror networks overseas, aided by established Mexican cartels

Houston. From
an illegal activity perspective, the nature of the city provides a great operating
environment for criminals and terrorists anonymity, ease of entry and exit,
readily available resources, robust commercial trade. From a terrorist perspective,
Houston provides not only a good operating environment, but it is considered one
of the top five economic targets in the United States. Terrorist associates and
sympathizers are known to have been active in the Houston area and are believed
to have wellestablished networks. Their organizations have shown the means,
knowledge, capabilities and motivation to carry out terrorist operations.
with highly sophisticated trafficking routes. This is of particular concern to the metropolitan areas, such as

Even a death toll of a 1000 would be enough to trigger massive


retaliation by the US.
Conley, ACC chief of Systems Analysis Branch, 2003
(Harry, Not with Impunity Assessing US Policy for Retaliating to a Chemical or
Biological Attack, 3-5,
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj03/spr03/conley.html)
The number of American casualties suffered due to a WMD attack may well be the
most important variable in determining the nature of the US reprisal. A key question here is
how many Americans would have to be killed to prompt a massive response by the United States. The bombing of marines in

Lebanon, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 each resulted in a casualty count of roughly the same
magnitude (150300 deaths). Although these events caused anger and a desire for retaliation among the American public, they
prompted no serious call for massive or nuclear retaliation. The body count from a single biological attack could easily be one or two

events. Using the rule of


proportionality as a guide, one could justifiably debate whether the United
States should use massive force in responding to an event that resulted in
only a few thousand deaths. However, what if the casualty count was around 300,000? Such an unthinkable
orders of magnitude higher than the casualties caused by these

result from a single CBW incident is not beyond the realm of possibility: According to the U.S. Congress Office of Technology
Assessment, 100 kg of anthrax spores delivered by an efficient aerosol generator on a large urban target would be between two and

Would the deaths of 300,000 Americans be


enough to trigger a nuclear response? In this case, proportionality does not rule out
the use of nuclear weapons. Besides simply the total number of casualties, the
types of casualties- predominantly military versus civilian- will also affect the nature
and scope of the US reprisal action. Military combat entails known risks, and the emotions resulting from a
six times as lethal as a one megaton thermo-nuclear bomb.46

significant number of military casualties are not likely to be as forceful as they would be if the attack were against civilians. World
War II provides perhaps the best examples for the kind of event or circumstance that would have to take place to trigger a nuclear

A CBW event that produced a shock and death toll roughly


equivalent to those arising from the attack on Pearl Harbor might be
sufficient to prompt a nuclear retaliation. President Harry Trumans decision to drop atomic bombs on
response.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki- based upon a calculation that up to one million casualties might be incurred in an invasion of the Japanese
homeland47- is an example of the kind of thought process that would have to occur prior to a nuclear response to a CBW event.

nuclear retaliation is seen at the time to offer the best


prospects for suppressing further CB attacks and speeding the defeat of
the aggressor, and if the original attacks had caused severe damage that
had outraged American or allied publics, nuclear retaliation would be more
than just a possibility, whatever promises had been made.48
Victor Utgoff suggests that if

Impacts

Impact: 2NC- Terrorism Relation


Chance of lash out and miscalc are high
Ayson, Victoria strategic studies professor, 2010
(Robert, After a Terrorist Nuclear Attack: Envisaging Catalytic Effects, Studies in
Conflict & Terrorism, 33.7, Taylor and Francis)
Other considerations could work in the other direction, reducing the prospect of a nuclear response to nuclear terrorism. If the
identity and location of the responsible terrorist group was known with some precision, the use of a nuclear weapon against it could
easily exceed the maximum damage required for its destruction or incapacitation. The same objective might well be achievable by
the use of conventional weapons (although perhaps not if the group had hidden itself deep underground). But these operational

there could be a strong groundswell of public and elite


opinion favoring the use of the ultimate weapon against the group that was thought to have used it in
the first place. Concerns about collateral damage especially if the terrorist group was situated in a heavily
populated areamight not be especially pressing in the aftermath of a terrorist attack
that had already killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians. There might also be strong pressure for nuclear
considerations might still miss the point:

retaliation simply to be visited on the country that had been so malicious (or foolish or unlucky) to have hosted and/or supported the
group. Of course, the terrorist group's known leaders and operatives might well be dispersed, and it would seem especially
disproportionate to use multiple nuclear weapons on multiple individual human targets in multiple countries (if of course multiple
nuclear use was an option for the country making the response). But there might be situations in which rather than targeting the
terrorist group itself with nuclear retaliation, with potential collateral effects for a wider population involving the slaughter of
innocents, a deliberate decision might still be taken to launch an inter-state nuclear attack that might still bring with it very wide

If it was felt that the group was supportedand even directly assistedin its
attack by a state sponsor, the leadership, armed forces, and/or territory of that sponsor might be
regarded as open to nuclear bombardment. 39 (This is one reason why Iran's future leaders might
casualties and damage.

pause before passing any nuclear weapons they may acquire to Hezbollah.) The attacked state might decide it was more important
(or practicable) to act coercively against the state sponsor rather than the terrorist group, or that double coercion could apply here if
the terrorist group could be held responsible for the retaliation inflicted on its state sponsor. Most of the foregoing arguments for
carefully deciding on the extent of the military response to a terrorist nuclear attack assume a fairly cool process of rational
calculation where the long-term political consequences of any action are weighed up against the short-term need for something to

it is not certain that the aftermath of a nuclear attack would encourage


cool and calm decision-making processes. It is not clear exactly how much public pressure
would rise up demanding swift and dramatic action, but it might be wise to assume that this pressure
would be very significant. The depth of anger could be considerable and so could a mood of vengeance. Political leaders
might not even wait for this mood to emerge, but may anticipate it or be so
aggrieved personally and collectively as to decide on decisive action even before the full
facts were available. And it is quite likely that leaders could expect to find support for very extreme measures of
be done. But
relatively

response if they sought to implement them. That pressure could result in moves to lash out against terrorist groups in particular or
in generalin particular against the group (or groups) thought to be responsible for the nuclear attack, or in general against any
group known to have threatened the attacked country in recent times or to have been at all sympathetic with the perpetrators.

because nuclear weapons can have wide-area effects, they might in fact be
employed against general areas in which the terrorists were thought to exist (such as
Ironically,

some PakistanAfghanistan border areas) but where their precise locations was uncertain. Some advantages might be seen in
launching a somewhat indiscriminate response to an initially indiscriminate attack (an eye for an eye). State supporters
of the terrorist groups might expect a similarly wrathful response to fall on them. Of course, if the sponsor was a known possessor of
nuclear weapons a difficult decision would be presented to the retaliating country, although such a situation might also encourage a
disarming nuclear attack to remove from the state sponsor the opportunity to use their own nuclear weapons (although the
precision required to accomplish such disarmament by force is a rare commodity). A terrorist nuclear attack, and even the use of
nuclear weapons in response by the country attacked in the first place, would not necessarily represent the worst of the nuclear
worlds imaginable. Indeed, there are reasons to wonder whether nuclear terrorism should ever be regarded as belonging in the
category of truly existential threats. A contrast can be drawn here with the global catastrophe that would come from a massive
nuclear exchange between two or more of the sovereign states that possess these weapons in significant numbers. Even the worst
terrorism that the twenty-first century might bring would fade into insignificance alongside considerations of what a general nuclear
war would have wrought in the Cold War period. And it must be admitted that as long as the major nuclear weapons states have
hundreds and even thousands of nuclear weapons at their disposal, there is always the possibility of a truly awful nuclear exchange
taking place precipitated entirely by state possessors themselves. But these two nuclear worldsa non-state actor nuclear attack
and a catastrophic interstate nuclear exchangeare not necessarily separable. It is just possible that some sort of terrorist attack,
and especially an act of nuclear terrorism, could precipitate a chain of events leading to a massive exchange of nuclear weapons
between two or more of the states that possess them. In this context, today's and tomorrow's terrorist groups might assume the

place allotted during the early Cold War years to new state possessors of small nuclear arsenals who were seen as raising the risks
of a catalytic nuclear war between the superpowers started by third parties. These risks were considered in the late 1950s and early
1960s as concerns grew about nuclear proliferation, the so-called n+1 problem. It may require a considerable amount of imagination

nuclear terrorism could lead to such a massive


inter-state nuclear war. For example, in the event of a terrorist nuclear attack on the
United States, it might well be wondered just how Russia and/or China could plausibly be brought into the picture, not least
to depict an especially plausible situation where an act of

because they seem unlikely to be fingered as the most obvious state sponsors or encouragers of terrorist groups. They would seem
far too responsible to be involved in supporting that sort of terrorist behavior that could just as easily threaten them as well. Some

how might the United States react if it


was thought or discovered that the fissile material used in the act of nuclear terrorism had
come from Russian stocks, 40 and if for some reason Moscow denied any responsibility for nuclear laxity? The correct
possibilities, however remote, do suggest themselves. For example,

attribution of that nuclear material to a particular country might not be a case of science fiction given the observation by Michael
May et al. that while the debris resulting from a nuclear explosion would be spread over a wide area in tiny fragments, its
radioactivity makes it detectable, identifiable and collectable, and a wealth of information can be obtained from its analysis: the
efficiency of the explosion, the materials used and, most important some indication of where the nuclear material came from. 41

if the act of nuclear terrorism came as a complete surprise, and American


officials refused to believe that a terrorist group was fully responsible (or responsible at all)
suspicion would shift immediately to state possessors. Ruling out Western ally countries like the United
Kingdom and France, and probably Israel and India as well, authorities in Washington would be left with a
very short list consisting of North Korea , perhaps Iran if its program continues, and possibly Pakistan.
But at what stage would Russia and China be definitely ruled out in this high stakes game of
Alternatively,

nuclear Cluedo? In particular, if the act of nuclear terrorism occurred against a backdrop of existing tension in Washington's relations
with Russia and/or China, and at a time when threats had already been traded between these major powers, would officials and
political leaders not be tempted to assume the worst? Of course, the chances of this occurring would only seem to increase if the
United States was already involved in some sort of limited armed conflict with Russia and/or China, or if they were confronting each
other from a distance in a proxy war, as unlikely as these developments may seem at the present time. The reverse might well apply
too: should a nuclear terrorist attack occur in Russia or China during a period of heightened tension or even limited conflict with the
United States, could Moscow and Beijing resist the pressures that might rise domestically to consider the United States as a possible

Washington's early response to a terrorist nuclear attack


on its own soil might also raise the possibility of an unwanted (and nuclear aided)
confrontation with Russia and/or China. For example, in the noise and confusion
during the immediate aftermath of the terrorist nuclear attack, the U.S. president might be expected to
place the country's armed forces, including its nuclear arsenal, on a higher stage of alert. In such a
tense environment, when careful planning runs up against the friction of reality, it is just possible that Moscow
and/or China might mistakenly read this as a sign of U.S. intentions to use force (and
possibly nuclear force) against them. In that situation, the temptations to preempt such actions
might grow, although it must be admitted that any preemption would probably still meet with a devastating response. As
part of its initial response to the act of nuclear terrorism (as discussed earlier) Washington might decide to order
a significant conventional (or nuclear) retaliatory or disarming attack against the leadership of the
terrorist group and/or states seen to support that group. Depending on the identity and especially the location of these
targets, Russia and/or China might interpret such action as being far too close for their comfort, and
potentially as an infringement on their spheres of influence and even on their sovereignty. One far-fetched
perpetrator or encourager of the attack?

but perhaps not impossible scenario might stem from a judgment in Washington that some of the main aiders and abetters of the
terrorist action resided somewhere such as Chechnya, perhaps in connection with what Allison claims is the Chechen insurgents
long-standing interest in all things nuclear. 42 American pressure on that part of the world would almost certainly raise alarms in
Moscow that might require a degree of advanced consultation from Washington that the latter found itself unable or unwilling to
provide. There is also the question of how other nuclear-armed states respond to the act of nuclear terrorism on another member of
that special club. It could reasonably be expected that following a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States, both Russia and
China would extend immediate sympathy and support to Washington and would work alongside the United States in the Security
Council. But there is just a chance, albeit a slim one, where the support of Russia and/or China is less automatic in some cases than
in others. For example, what would happen if the United States wished to discuss its right to retaliate against groups based in their
territory? If, for some reason, Washington found the responses of Russia and China deeply underwhelming, (neither for us or
against us) might it also suspect that they secretly were in cahoots with the group, increasing (again perhaps ever so slightly) the
chances of a major exchange. If the terrorist group had some connections to groups in Russia and China, or existed in areas of the
world over which Russia and China held sway, and if Washington felt that Moscow or Beijing were placing a curiously modest level of
pressure on them, what conclusions might it then draw about their culpability? If Washington decided to use, or decided to threaten
the use of, nuclear weapons, the responses of Russia and China would be crucial to the chances of avoiding a more serious nuclear
exchange. They might surmise, for example, that while the act of nuclear terrorism was especially heinous and demanded a strong
response, the response simply had to remain below the nuclear threshold. It would be one thing for a non-state actor to have broken

the nuclear use taboo, but an entirely different thing for a state actor, and indeed the leading state in the international system, to do
so. If Russia and China felt sufficiently strongly about that prospect, there is then the question of what options would lie open to
them to dissuade the United States from such action: and as has been seen over the last several decades, the central dissuader of
the use of nuclear weapons by states has been the threat of nuclear retaliation. If some readers find this simply too fanciful, and
perhaps even offensive to contemplate, it may be informative to reverse the tables. Russia, which possesses an arsenal of
thousands of nuclear warheads and that has been one of the two most important trustees of the non-use taboo, is subjected to an
attack of nuclear terrorism. In response, Moscow places its nuclear forces very visibly on a higher state of alert and declares that it is
considering the use of nuclear retaliation against the group and any of its state supporters. How would Washington view such a
possibility? Would it really be keen to support Russia's use of nuclear weapons, including outside Russia's traditional sphere of
influence? And if not, which seems quite plausible, what options would Washington have to communicate that displeasure? If China
had been the victim of the nuclear terrorism and seemed likely to retaliate in kind, would the United States and Russia be happy to
sit back and let this occur? In the charged atmosphere immediately after a nuclear terrorist attack, how would the attacked country

phrase how dare they tell us


what to do immediately springs to mind. Some might even go so far as to interpret
this concern as a tacit form of sympathy or support for the terrorists. This might not
help the chances of nuclear restraint.
respond to pressure from other major nuclear powers not to respond in kind? The

Extinction
Barrett, Carnegie Mellon Engineering and Public Policy PhD, 2013
(Anthony, Analyzing and Reducing the Risks of Inadvertent Nuclear War Between
the United States and Russia, Science & Global Security: The Technical Basis for
Arms Control, Disarmament, and Nonproliferation Initiatives, Volume 21, Issue 2,
Taylor & Francis)
War involving significant fractions of the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, which
are by far the largest of any nations, could have globally catastrophic effects
such as severely reducing food production for years, 1 potentially leading to
collapse of modern civilization worldwide, and even the extinction of humanity. 2
Nuclear war between the United States and Russia could occur by various routes,
including accidental or unauthorized launch; deliberate first attack by one nation; and inadvertent attack. In
an accidental or unauthorized launch or detonation, system safeguards or
procedures to maintain control over nuclear weapons fail in such a way that a
nuclear weapon or missile launches or explodes without direction from leaders. In a
deliberate first attack, the attacking nation decides to attack based on accurate information about the state of
affairs. In an inadvertent attack, the attacking nation mistakenly concludes that it is under attack and launches
nuclear weapons in what it believes is a counterattack. 3 (Brinkmanship strategies incorporate elements of all of
the above, in that they involve intentional manipulation of risks from otherwise accidental or inadvertent launches.
4 ) Over the years, nuclear strategy was aimed primarily at minimizing risks of intentional attack through
development of deterrence capabilities, and numerous measures also were taken to reduce probabilities of

For purposes of deterrence, both U.S. and


Soviet/Russian forces have maintained significant capabilities to have some forces
survive a first attack by the other side and to launch a subsequent counter-attack .
However, concerns about the extreme disruptions that a first attack would cause in the
other side's forces and command-and-control capabilities led to both sides
development of capabilities to detect a first attack and launch a counter-attack
before suffering damage from the first attack . 5 Many people believe that with the
end of the Cold War and with improved relations between the U nited States and Russia,
the risk of East-West nuclear war was significantly reduced . 6 However, it also has
been argued that inadvertent nuclear war between the U nited States and Russia has
continued to present a substantial risk. 7 While the United States and Russia are not
actively threatening each other with war, they have remained ready to launch
nuclear missiles in response to indications of attack. 8 False indicators of nuclear attack could
accidents, unauthorized attack, and inadvertent war.

be caused in several ways. First, a wide range of events have already been mistakenly interpreted as indicators of

attack, including weather phenomena, a faulty computer chip, wild animal activity, and control-room training tapes

terrorist groups or other actors might cause attacks


on either the United States or Russia that resemble some kind of nuclear attack by
the other nation by actions such as exploding a stolen or improvised nuclear
bomb, 10 especially if such an event occurs during a crisis between the U nited States
and Russia. 11 A variety of nuclear terrorism scenarios are possible. 12 Al Qaeda has
sought to obtain or construct nuclear weapons and to use them against the U nited
States. 13 Other methods could involve attempts to circumvent nuclear weapon launch control safeguards or
exploit holes in their security. 14 It has long been argued that the probability of inadvertent nuclear
war is significantly higher during U.S.Russian crisis conditions , 15 with the Cuban Missile
loaded at the wrong time. 9 Second,

Crisis being a prime historical example. It is possible that U.S.Russian relations will significantly deteriorate in the

There are a variety of ways for a third party to raise


tensions between the United States and Russia, making one or both nations more likely
to misinterpret events as attacks. 16
future, increasing nuclear tensions.

Impact: 2NC- Mexico Collapse Run


Mexican collapse causes arms race and global instability
Haddick, specializes in US national security policy and
emerging security issues,10
[Robert, September 10, Foreign Policy, http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/09/10/thisweek-at-war-if-mexico-is-at-war-does-america-have-to-win-it/, accessed 6-27-15, DA]
Most significantly, a strengthening Mexican insurgency would very likely affect Americas
role in the rest of the world. An increasingly chaotic American side of the border,
marked by bloody cartel wars, corrupted government and media, and a breakdown
in security, would likely cause many in the United States to question the importance
of military and foreign policy ventures elsewhere in the world. Should the southern
border become a U.S. presidents primary national security concern, nervous allies
and opportunistic adversaries elsewhere in the world would no doubt adjust to a
distracted and inward-looking America, with potentially disruptive arms races
the result. Secretary Clinton has looked south and now sees an insurgency. Lets hope that the United States
can apply what it has recently learned about insurgencies to stop this one from getting out of control.

Mexican Govt. Collapse will lead to sustained violence and risk


of nuclear weapons being stolen
Debusmann, Bureau chief and correspondent for LA, Europe,
and US, 2009
[Bernd, January 9, New York Times Among top U.S. fears: A failed Mexican state,
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/world/americas/09iht-letter.1.19217792.html,
accesed 6-27-15, DA]
What do Pakistan and Mexico have in common? They figure in the nightmares of U.S. military planners trying to
peer into the future and identify the next big threats. The two countries are mentioned in the same breath in a justpublished study by the United States Joint Forces Command, whose jobs include providing an annual look into the
future to prevent the U.S. military from being caught off guard by unexpected developments. "In

terms of
worst-case scenarios for the Joint Force and indeed the world, two large and
important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and
Mexico," says the study - called Joint Operating Environment 2008 - in a chapter on "weak and failing states."
Such states, it says, usually pose chronic, long-term problems that can be managed over time. But the littlestudied phenomenon of "rapid collapse," according to the study, "usually comes as
a surprise, has a rapid onset, and poses acute problems ." Think Yugoslavia and its
disintegration in 1990 into a chaotic tangle of warring nationalities and bloodshed on a horrific scale. Nuclear-armed
Pakistan, where Al Qaeda has established safe havens in the rugged regions bordering Afghanistan, is a regular
feature in dire warnings. Thomas Fingar, who retired as the chief U.S. intelligence analyst in December, termed
Pakistan "one of the single most challenging places on the planet." This is fairly routine language for Pakistan, but

Mexico's
mention beside Pakistan in a study by an organization as weighty as the Joint Forces Command, which controls
almost all conventional forces based in the continental United States, speaks volumes about growing
concern over what is happening south of the U.S. border . Vicious and widening
violence pitting drug cartels against each other and against the Mexican state have
left more than 8,000 Mexicans dead over the past two years. Kidnappings have
become a routine part of Mexican daily life. Common crime is widespread. Pervasive
not for Mexico, which shares a 2,000-mile, or 3,200-kilometer, border with the United States.

corruption has hollowed out the state. In November, in a case that shocked even
those (on both sides of the border) who consider corruption endemic in Mexico, the
former drug czar No Ramrez was charged with accepting at least $450,000 a
month in bribes from a drug cartel in exchange for information about police and
anti-narcotics operations. A month later, a Mexican army major, Arturo Gonzlez,
was arrested on suspicion that he sold information about President Felipe Caldern's
movements for $100,000 a month. Gonzlez belonged to a special unit responsible
for protecting the president. Depending on one's view, the arrests are successes in a publicly declared
anticorruption drive or evidence of how deeply criminal mafias have penetrated the organs of the state .
According to the Joint Forces study , a sudden collapse in Mexico is less likely than in Pakistan, "but
the government, its politicians, police, and judicial infrastructure are all under
sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels. How that
internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on
the stability of the Mexican state." It added: "Any descent by Mexico into chaos would
demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security
alone." What form such a response might take is anyone's guess, and the study does not spell it out, nor does
it address the economic implications of its worst-case scenario. Mexico is the third
biggest trade partner of the United States (after Canada and China) and its third-biggest
supplier of oil (after Canada and Saudi Arabia). No such ties bind the United States and Pakistan. But the
study sees a collapse there not only as more likely but as more catastrophic. It would bring "the
likelihood of a sustained violent and bloody civil and sectarian war, an even bigger
haven for violent extremists and the question of what would happen to its nuclear
weapons. That 'perfect storm' of uncertainty alone might require the engagement of
U.S. and coalition forces into a situation of immense complexity and danger." The
study then warns of "the real possibility that nuclear weapons might be
used."

Uncontrolled terrorism risks nuclear war


Ayson, Professor of Strategic Studies and Director of the
Centre for Strategic Studies: New Zealand at the Victoria
University of Wellington, 10
[Ronald, July, After a Terrorist Nuclear Attack: Envisaging Catalytic Effects, Studies
in Conflict & Terrorism, Volume 33, Issue 7, Available Online to Subscribing
Institutions via InformaWorld, accessed 6-28-15, DA]
But these two nuclear worldsa non-state actor nuclear attack and a catastrophic
interstate nuclear exchangeare not necessarily separable. It is just possible that
some sort of terrorist attack, and especially an act of nuclear terrorism, could
precipitate a chain of events leading to a massive exchange of nuclear weapons between
two or more of the states that possess them. In this context, todays and tomorrows terrorist groups might assume
the place allotted during the early Cold War years to new state possessors of small nuclear arsenals who were seen
as raising the risks of a catalytic nuclear war between the superpowers started by third parties. These risks were
considered in the late 1950s and early 1960s as concerns grew about nuclear proliferation, the so-called n+1
problem. It may require a considerable amount of imagination to depict an especially plausible situation where an
act of nuclear terrorism could lead to such a massive inter-state nuclear war. For example, in the event of a terrorist
nuclear attack on the United States, it might well be wondered just how Russia and/or China could plausibly be
brought into the picture, not least because they seem unlikely to be fingered as the most obvious state sponsors or
encouragers of terrorist groups. They would seem far too responsible to be involved in supporting that sort of
terrorist behavior that could just as easily threaten them as well. Some possibilities, however remote, do suggest
themselves. For example, how might the United States react if it was thought or discovered that the fissile material

used in the act of nuclear terrorism had come from Russian stocks,40 and if for some reason Moscow denied any
responsibility for nuclear laxity? The correct attribution of that nuclear material to a particular country might not be
a case of science fiction given the observation by Michael May et al. that while the debris resulting from a nuclear
explosion would be spread over a wide area in tiny fragments, its radioactivity makes it detectable, identifiable and
collectable, and a wealth of information can be obtained from its analysis: the efficiency of the explosion, the
materials used and, most important some indication of where the nuclear material came from.41 Alternatively,

American officials refused to believe


that a terrorist group was fully responsible (or responsible at all) suspicion would shift
immediately to state possessors. Ruling out Western ally countries like the United Kingdom and France,
if the act of nuclear terrorism came as a complete surprise, and

and probably Israel and India as well, authorities in Washington would be left with a very short list consisting of

at what stage would Russia


and China be definitely ruled out in this high stakes game of nuclear Cluedo? In particular, if the act of
North Korea, perhaps Iran if its program continues, and possibly Pakistan. But

nuclear terrorism occurred against a backdrop of existing tension in Washingtons relations with Russia and/or
China, and at a time when threats had already been traded between these major powers,

would officials and

political leaders not be tempted to assume the worst? Of course, the chances of this occurring
would only seem to increase if the United States was already involved in some sort of limited armed conflict with
Russia and/or China, or if they were confronting each other from a distance in a proxy war, as unlikely as these
developments may seem at the present time. The reverse might well apply too: should a nuclear terrorist attack
occur in Russia or China during a period of heightened tension or even limited conflict with the United States, could
Moscow and Beijing resist the pressures that might rise domestically to consider the United States as a possible

Washingtons early response to a terrorist nuclear


attack on its own soil might also raise the possibility of an unwanted (and nuclear aided)
confrontation with Russia and/or China. For example, in the noise and confusion during the
immediate aftermath of the terrorist nuclear attack, the U.S. president might be expected to place
the countrys armed forces, including its nuclear arsenal, on a higher stage of alert . In such
a tense environment, when careful planning runs up against the friction of reality, it is
just possible that Moscow and/or China might mistakenly read this as a sign of U.S.
intentions to use force (and possibly nuclear force) against them. In that situation, the temptations
to preempt such actions might grow, although it must be admitted that any preemption would probably still
perpetrator or encourager of the attack?

meet with a devastating response. As part of its initial response to the act of nuclear terrorism (as discussed earlier)

Washington might decide to order a significant conventional (or nuclear) retaliatory or disarming
attack against the leadership of the terrorist group and/or states seen to support that group. Depending
on the identity and especially the location of these targets, Russia and/or China might interpret such
action as being far too close for their comfort, and potentially as an infringement on their spheres
of influence and even on their sovereignty. One far-fetched but perhaps not impossible scenario
might stem from a judgment in Washington that some of the main aiders and abetters of the terrorist action resided
somewhere such as Chechnya, perhaps in connection with what Allison claims is the Chechen insurgents longstanding interest in all things nuclear.42 American pressure on that part of the world would almost certainly raise
alarms in Moscow that might require a degree of advanced consultation from Washington that the latter found itself
unable or unwilling to provide. There is also the question of how other nuclear-armed states respond to the act of
nuclear terrorism on another member of that special club. It could reasonably be expected that following a nuclear
terrorist attack on the United States, both Russia and China would extend immediate sympathy and support to
Washington and would work alongside the United States in the Security Council. But there is just a chance, albeit a
slim one, where the support of Russia and/or China is less automatic in some cases than in others. For example,
what would happen if the United States wished to discuss its right to retaliate against groups based in their

If, for some reason, Washington found the responses of Russia and China deeply
underwhelming, (neither for us or against us) might it also suspect that they secretly were
in cahoots with the group, increasing (again perhaps ever so slightly) the chances of a major
exchange. If the terrorist group had some connections to groups in Russia and
China, or existed in areas of the world over which Russia and China held sway, and
if Washington felt that Moscow or Beijing were placing a curiously modest level of
pressure on them, what conclusions might it then draw about their culpability ? If
territory?

Washington decided to use, or decided to threaten the use of, nuclear weapons, the responses of Russia and China
would be crucial to the chances of avoiding a more serious nuclear exchange. They might surmise, for example,

that while the act of nuclear terrorism was especially heinous and demanded a strong response, the response

It would be one thing for a non-state actor to


have broken the nuclear use taboo, but an entirely different thing for a state actor ,
and indeed the leading state in the international system, to do so. If Russia and China felt sufficiently strongly
about that prospect, there is then the question of what options would lie open to them to
dissuade the United States from such action: and as has been seen over the last several decades, the
central dissuader of the use of nuclear weapons by states has been the threat of
nuclear retaliation. If some readers find this simply too fanciful, and perhaps even offensive to contemplate,
simply had to remain below the nuclear threshold.

it may be informative to reverse the tables. Russia, which possesses an arsenal of thousands of nuclear warheads
and that has been one of the two most important trustees of the non-use taboo, is subjected to an attack of nuclear
terrorism. In response, Moscow places its nuclear forces very visibly on a higher state of alert and declares that it is
considering the use of nuclear retaliation against the group and any of its state supporters. How would Washington
view such a possibility? Would it really be keen to support Russias use of nuclear weapons, including outside
Russias traditional sphere of influence? And if not, which seems quite plausible, what options would Washington

If China had been the victim of the nuclear terrorism


and seemed likely to retaliate in kind, would the United States and Russia be happy
to sit back and let this occur? In the charged atmosphere immediately after a
nuclear terrorist attack, how would the attacked country respond to pressure from
other major nuclear powers not to respond in kind? The phrase how dare they tell
us what to do immediately springs to mind. Some might even go so far as to interpret
this concern as a tacit form of sympathy or support for the terrorists. This might not
help the chances of nuclear restraint
have to communicate that displeasure?

Impact: 2NC- Relations Scenario


The plan wrecks the Us-Mexico security relationship- spills
over to other areas
Baker Institute Policy Report, 9
[James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy of Rice University, April 2009,
Developing the U.S.Mexico Border Region for a Prosperous and Secure
Relationship, http://pages.ucsd.edu/~dmares/Border%20Security%20Prosperity.pdf
, p. 1-2, accessed 6-25-15, DA]
Daily news reports seem to imply that problems developing at the border stand to derail common goals. However,

Creative localized solutions to the challenging


set of issues that surround the U.S.Mexico border could hold the key to building a
stronger overall bilateral partnership and constructive joint future, rather than
serve as the flashpoint for tensions between the two neighbors. Both Mexican
President Felipe Caldern and U.S. President Barack Obama have a unique
opportunity in the next four years to advance common goals such as economic
prosperity and security. This report on the U.S.Mexico border aims to aid
policymakers in forging stronger and sustainable U.S.Mexico bilateral relations with
the use of more coordinated approaches to border issues. Sponsored by the James A. Baker
III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston, Texas, this study investigates the
important role of border institutions, civil society, cross-border transnational
populations, and localized, small-scale problem-solving as a first defense against
the deteriorating conditions at the borderbe they humanitarian, economic, or
security-related. By better understanding life along each side of the U.S.Mexico border, we hope to
it is our contention that the exact opposite is true.

demonstrate the great potential of this vibrant region to play a positive role in both the U.S. and Mexican
economies and intertwined transnational Developing the U.S.Mexico Border Region for a Prosperous and Secure

the border can be a


stepping stone toward a lasting friendship between the United States and Mexico,
and positively influence citizens on both sides of the boundary. The border should be
Relationship communities. Rather than represent a zero-sum unilateral dilemma,

where one can best see the benefits for the two countries of collaborating and cooperating on issues of major

Instead, the border is increasingly becoming an area of tension, conflict, and


unilateral policies and actions that are more likely to hinder, rather than promote,
common goals. This report, coordinated by Erika de la Garza, the program director of the Baker Institutes
concern.

Latin American Initiative, and David Mares, Baker Institute Scholar for Energy Studies, includes findings from nine
papers (see page 16). Commissioned by the Baker Institute, the papers analyze a number of topics relevant to the

the social and economic burden that migration places on border


communities on both sides, the impact of inadequate physical and human
infrastructure at the border, and the need for collaborative efforts to combat
organized crime. By examining these important components of border relations
and making policy recommendations, we hope to shed light on the building blocks
for more constructive dialogue and policies that will enhance U.S.Mexico relations.
borders future, including

President Obama has assumed office at a time of uncertainty in U.S.Mexico relations. Despite the foreign and
domestic challenges that his administration confrontsincluding ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a global
financial crisis, and a severe economic recessionU.S.Mexico relations

must be a top

priority. His visit to Mexico in April 2009 and high-level dialogue with President Caldern, as well as his recent
commitment of US$700 ISSN 1941-6466 2 million to fund border law enforcement activities, is a good starting
point. Funding that will help professionalize law enforcement capabilities in border cities and towns is extremely
important. It has been shown that raising the standards for evidentiarybased procedures and citizens rights has
enhanced the effectiveness of border law enforcement rather than hinder its efforts.

The use of

anonymous tip lines and surveillance has also played a constructive role
in arming local law enforcement with improved information about illegal
activities and drug smugglers. U.S. policy in recent years has failed to
recognize the critical importance of the benefit of positive relations with Mexico. A
continuation of this neglect by Washington, D.C., risks further deterioration in a
bilateral relationship already under severe strain. Mexico faces serious challenges
in the years to come that will be of grave importance to the United States as well.
Mexico is under severe pressure as violence related to drug trafficking increases,
and Calderns policy of giving the military a leading role in combating organized
crime is increasingly coming into question. At the same time, Mexico faces another possible crisis
as its oil production continues to sink, throwing into possible jeopardy a major source of income for government

Mexico faces an uncertain future at a time of


international financial crisis. The global economic downturn has eliminated jobs in
both countries and threatened the ability of workers in the United States to send
remittances to Mexico. More than ever before, Mexico and the United States need
to work closely together to enhance security in the border region and to allow their
economic ties to reach full potential.
expenditures. In addition, like the United States,

Positive US-Mexico relations are key to trade and boosts the


economy- Mexico key to the US economy
Montealegre, diplomatic courier contributor, 13
[Oscar, Jan 25, Diplomatic Courier, U.S.-Mexico Relations: Love Thy Neighbor,
http://www.diplomaticourier.com/news/regions/latin-america/1331-us-mexicorelations-love-thy-neighbor, accessed 6-25-15, DA]
Mexico is the United States third largest trading partner ,
Every day, at least a billion dollars of goods flows across the

It is not common knowledge that


behind Canada and China.

border. Yet, Mexico is frequently negatively caricaturized, primarily with images of migrants illegally crossing the
border into the U.S. and stealing U.S. jobs. Instead of viewing Mexico as a valuable partner that
can benefit the U.S. in many facets, it is perceived as a liability, a region that
cultivates corruption and violence and is the root of the current U.S. immigration
problem that has spurred controversial rogue measures like Arizonas SB 1070. In matters of foreign policy,
Mexico is an afterthoughtour attention and resources are diverted to the Middle East or to grand
strategies based on pivoting our geopolitical and economical capacity towards Asia. With the U.S.
economy performing at a snail-like pace, an emphasis on exports has re-emerged,
but the bulk of the exporting narrative revolves around Asia. This is unfortunate,
because our neighbor to the south has quietly positioned itself to be the next jewel
in the emerging markets portfolio. For example, Market Watch (a Wall Street Journal subsidiary)
recently published a bullish article on Mexico with the following headline: Mexico: Investors New China. The
Economist published an opinion piece titled The Global Mexican: Mexico is open for business, highlighting Mexican
companies that are investing locally and in the U.S. and arguing that Mexico is fertile ground for more investment,

according to The Financial Times, BRIC countries


(Brazil, Russia, India, and China) are no longer the flavor of the month; Mexico is now taking
over that distinction
especially in the manufacturing sector. And

Economic decline leads to war


Royal, director of cooperative threat reduction at the U.S.
Department of Defense, 2010

[Jedediah, Economic Integration, Economic Signaling and the Problems of Economic


Crises, Economics of War and Peace: Economic, legal and Political Perspectives, ed
Goldsmith and Brauer, p. 213-214]
Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the likelihood of external conflict. Political science
literature has contributed a moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and
defence behaviour of interdependent states. Research in this vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and
national levels. Several notable contributions follow. First, on the systemic level, Pollins (2008) advances Modelski
and Thompson's (1996) work on leadership cycle theory, finding that rhythms in the global economy are associated
with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and the often bloody transition from one pre-eminent leader to the

economic crises could usher in a redistribution of


relative power (see also Gilpin. 1981) that leads to uncertainty about power balances, increasing the risk
of miscalculation (Feaver, 1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain redistribution of power could lead
next. As such, exogenous shocks such as

to a permissive environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power (Werner. 1999).
Separately, Pollins (1996) also shows that global economic cycles combined with parallel leadership cycles impact
the likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small powers, although he suggests that the causes and
connections between global economic conditions and security conditions remain unknown. Second, on a dyadic
level, Copeland's (1996, 2000) theory of trade expectations suggests that 'future expectation of trade' is a
significant variable in understanding economic conditions and security behaviour of states. He argues that
interdependent states are likely to gain pacific benefits from trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future

if the expectations of future trade decline , particularly for difficult to


replace items such as energy resources, the likelihood for conflict increases, as states will be
inclined to use force to gain access to those resources . Crises could potentially be the
trigger for decreased trade expectations either on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves
trade relations. However,

by interdependent states.4 Third, others have considered the link between economic decline and external armed

Blomberg and Hess (2002) find a strong correlation between


and external conflict, particularly during periods of economic downturn.

conflict at a national level.

internal

conflict
They write: The linkages between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing.
Economic conflict tends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favour. Moreover, the presence of a
recession tends to amplify the extent to which international and external conflicts self-reinforce each other.

Economic decline has also been linked with an increase in the


likelihood of terrorism (Blomberg, Hess, & Weerapana, 2004), which has the capacity to spill across borders
(Blomberg & Hess, 2002. p. 89)

and lead to external tensions. Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government.
Diversionary theory" suggests that,

when facing unpopularity arising from economic decline ,

sitting governments have increased incentives to fabricate external military conflicts


to create a 'rally around the flag' effect. Wang (1996), DeRouen (1995). and Blomberg, Hess, and Thacker (2006)
find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated. Gelpi
(1997), Miller (1999), and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that the tendency towards diversionary tactics
are greater for democratic states than autocratic states, due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more
susceptible to being removed from office due to lack of domestic support. DeRouen (2000) has provided evidence

periods of weak economic performance in the United States, and thus weak
Presidential popularity, are statistically linked to an increase in the use of force. In
summary, recent economic scholarship positively correlates economic integration
with an increase in the frequency of economic crises, whereas political science
scholarship links economic decline with external conflict at systemic, dyadic and
national levels.5 This implied connection between integration, crises and armed conflict has not featured
showing that

prominently in the economic-security debate and deserves more attention. This observation is not contradictory to
other perspectives that link economic interdependence with a decrease in the likelihood of external conflict, such as
those mentioned in the first paragraph of this chapter. Those studies tend to focus on dyadic interdependence
instead of global interdependence and do not specifically consider the occurrence of and conditions created by
economic crises. As such, the view presented here should be considered ancillary to those views.

Impact: 2NC- Grid Scenario


Mexican border terrorist threat could take out the grid- key to
survival and security
World Net Daily, 14
[9/4, World Net Daily, ISIS THREAT LOOMS OVER U.S. HOMELAND,
http://mobile.wnd.com/2014/09/isis-threat-looms-over-u-s-homeland/, accessed 627-15, DA]
ISIS bluster that threatens the U.S. Long-known al-Qaida links to south-of-the-border
drug cartels. A porous U.S-Mexico border. Gunshots at a California power plant. The individual reports may not cause
immediate alarm, but a panel of experts who have connected the dots on threats
against the U.S. is warning that the nation needs to be looking at the big picture
and preparing its defenses appropriately. Now. The warnings come from a panel set up by the Secure the Grid Coalition at the
Washington-based Center for Security Policy. At a National Press Club news conference this week were Frank Gaffney, former assistant secretary of defense for international security
affairs and now president of the CSP; threat expert Dr. Peter Vincent Pry; Ambassador Henry F. Cooper; actress and activist Kelly Carson; and F. Michael Maloof, a former senior security
policy analyst in the office of the secretary of defense and now a senior writer with WND. Hes authored A Nation Forsaken on the dangers to the U.S. from an attack on its power grid,

There have been multiple reports of ISIS terrorists in Iraq and


Syria making statements threatening an attack on the U.S. homeland. And its welldocumented that al-Qaida, the Muslim terror worlds bad boy before ISIS arrived , is
linked closely with drug cartels, many of which have a presence inside some
1,200 of Americas large cities. Further, the U.S. southern border now easily can be
crossed illegally. And there already may have been a dry run attack on the U.S.
power grid, which, in a collapse, would leave Americas defense capabilities
severely handicapped. Such concerns have been underscored in recent days by an interview Judicial Watch had with U.S. intelligence officials and the Texas
Department Safety. It confirmed that ISIS is present across the Texas border in Juarez, Mexico , where
especially from electromagnetic pulse.

an intelligence unit has picked up increased chatter in recent days. While Mexican authorities have denied ISIS presence in Mexico and its ability to illegally enter the U.S., Maloof
pointed out that three hardened Ukrainian criminals walked into the U.S. from Mexico undetected and have yet to be apprehended. Similarly, there has been evidence uncovered that
various nationalities from Pakistan and various Arab countries have entered the U.S. undetected, taking advantage of the porous southern border. Put it all together, panel members

the threat the U.S. is facing should be considered


immediate and substantial. Its all related, Maloof said. One thing leads to
another Its the domino effect. He noted a series of incidents at a Metcalf power plant in San Jose, California, that suggest someone still
said at a news conference in Washington on Wednesday, and

unknown has been exploring what it takes to bring down a major component of the nations grid. Former Rep. Allen West bluntly called the situation a dry run for something bigger.
WND reported the utility company, whose operation was disabled in the attack, has offered a $250,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators. West explained, On

snipers waged a 52-minute attack on a central California electrical


substation. According to reports by Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, the sniper attack started when at least one
person entered an underground vault to cut telephone cables, and attackers fired
more than 100 shots into Pacific Gas & Electrics Metcalf transmission substation ,
knocking out 17 transformers. Electric officials were able to avert a blackout, but it took 27 days to repair the damage, he wrote. My
concern is that this may have been a dry run for something far bigger. We should be demanding an
update on the investigation as to the perpetrators of this attack who escaped without detection, he said. WB248Pry pointed out that jihadists already
are aware of the vulnerability of a countrys grid system by having knocked out
completely the entire grid of the country of Yemen last June. The Metcalf attack came one day after the Boston
April 16, 2013,

Marathon bombing that killed three people and wounded 264 others. The Boston Marathon suspects are from the Russian North Caucasus, which prompted the Federal Bureau of
Investigation to get involved in the investigation of the sniper attack on the transformers. There is a large community of Chechen and North Caucasus immigrants in the San Jose area.
Chechen jihadists also have been very prominent in Syria where it is battling to overthrow the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. There also were reports only days after
the California sniper attack of a shoot-out when a security guard at the TVA Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Spring City, Tennessee, was confronted by a suspect at 2 a.m. TVA spokesperson
Jim Hopson said the subject traveled up to the plant on a boat and walked onto the property. When the officer questioned the suspect, the individual fired multiple shots at the officer.

, the California plant,


after spending millions of dollars on heightened security, again was targeted by a
break-in attempt, authorities have reported. Maloof explained after the news
conference that the big picture underscores the potential for an ISIS threat on the
grid. He pointed out how al-Qaida, which is known to have drug cartel links and likely sleeper agents in the United States through those organizations, has been morphing into
The officer shot back, and when he called for backup, the suspect sped away on his boat, reports said. And just a few days ago

ISIS, and the belligerent threats made against the U.S. by that group. And he noted that the U.S. grid remains vulnerable and taking it down in any significant way could cause

the U.S., since the nations food, fuel, energy, banking and communications
industries all are dependent on electricity. Whenever you start tampering with the grid, youre affecting the
life-sustaining critical infrastructures, Maloof said. Our entire survival is based on
technology and electronics that, in turn, are based on the electrical flow. If thats
interrupted for any period of time, there are catastrophes over a wide geographic
area. Reports just this week revealed social media chatter shows Islamic State militants are keenly aware of the porous U.S.-Mexico border, and are expressing an increased
interest in crossing over to carry out a terrorist attack. A law enforcement advisory said, A review of ISIS social media messaging
during the week ending August 26 shows that militants are expressing an increased
interest in the notion that they could clandestinely infiltrate the southwest border of
U.S., for [a] terror attack. Maloof explained at the news conference that Americas enemies know the vulnerabilities of our grid they will at some
point try to attack. The threat is there, he said. ISIS operatives can easily come through the [southern] border. And because they [ISIS] have
proxies in the U.S., the potential for a catastrophe exists. The president could take his pen and make [the
calamities for

problem] a priority, he said. At the federal level they dont have a plan, so the state and local level wont have a plan.

Impact: 2NC- Turns Economy


Mexico Collapse Would Tank the Economy
Moran, RGEs senior on political risk, 09
[Michael, Global Economics Vice President and Executive Editor and August 7, Word
Press, Six Crises, 2009: A Half-Dozen Ways Geopolitics Could Upset Global
Recovery, https://fbkfinanzwirtschaft.wordpress.com/2009/08/07/six-crises-2009-ahalf-dozen-ways-geopolitics-could-upset-global-recovery/, accessed 6-27-15, DA]
the American media than Iraq these days is the horrific
drug-related violence across the northern states of Mexico, where Felipe Calderon
has deployed the national army to combat two thriving drug cartels, which have
compromised the national police beyond redemption. The tales of carnage are
horrific, to be sure: 30 people were killed in a 48 hour period last week in Cuidad
Juarez alone, a city located directly across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. So
far, the impact on the United States and beyond has been minimal . But there also isnt
much sign that the army is winning, either, and that raises a disturbing question : What if Calderon loses?
The CIAs worst nightmare during the Cold War (outside of an administration which
forced transparency on it, of course) was the radicalization or collapse of Mexico.
The template then was communism, but narco-capitalism doesnt look much better.
A story receiving more attention in

The prospect of a wholesale collapse that sent millions upon millions of Mexican refugees fleeing across the
northern border so far seems remote. But

Mexicos army has its own problems with corruption,


and a sizeable number of Mexicans regard Calderons razor-thin 2006 electoral
victory over a leftist rival as illegitimate. With Mexicos economy reeling and the
traditional safety valve of illegal immigration to America dwindling, the potential for
serious trouble exists. Meanwhile, Mexico ranks with Saudi Arabia and Canada as the
three suppliers of oil the United States could not do without. Should things come
unglued there and Pemex production shut down even temporarily, the shock on oil markets could
be profound, again, sending its waves throughout the global economy .
Long-term, PEMEX production has been sliding anyway, thanks to oil fields wellbeyond their peak and restrictions on foreign investment.

Walls

2NC- Link Wall


Four new links
First is deferenceCongress intervention in data collection always allows the
executive branch to collect too much data, which makes
surveillance ineffective.
Zeisberg, Brown University Research associate at the Political
Theory Project, 04
[Mariah Zeisberg, PhD in Politics from Princeton, Postdoc Research Associate at the
Political Theory Project of Brown University; INTERBRANCH CONFLICT AND
CONSTITUTIONAL MAINTENANCE: THE CASE OF WAR POWERS; June 2004; found in
Word document, can be downloaded from
www.brown.edu/Research/ppw/files/Zeisberg%20Ch5.doc, AMM]
The first significant argument of pro-Presidency insularists is that
flexibility is a prime value in the conduct of foreign affairs, and especially
war. Implicit in this argument is the recognition that the executive is functionally superior to Congress in
achieving flexibility and swiftness in war operations, a recognition I share. The Constitution cannot be
meant to curtail the very flexibility that may be necessary to preserve the nation;
and yet, according to the insularists, any general norm which would include
Congress in decision-making about going to war could only undermine that
flexibility. Writing on the War Powers Act, Eugene Rostow predicts that it would, put the
Presidency in a straightjacket of a rigid code, and prevent new categories of action
from emerging, in response to the necessities of a tense and unstable world. In fact,
Rostow believes, [t]he centralization of authority in the president is
particularly crucial in matters of national defense, war, and foreign policy,
where a unitary executive can evaluate threats, consider policy choices,
and mobilize national resources with a speed and energy that is far
superior to any other branch. Pro-presidency insularists are fond of
quoting Hamilton, who argued that [o]f all the cares or concerns of
government, the direction of war most peculiarly demands those qualities
which distinguish the exercise of power by a single hand. This need for
flexibility, some insularists argue, is especially acute given modern
conditions, where devastating wars can develop quickly. Today, many
foreign states have the power to attack U.S. forces - and some even the
U.S. mainland - almost instantly, and in such a world it is impracticable to
require the President to seek advance authorization for hostilities. Such a
requirement would simply be too risky to U.S. security. We furthermore face
a nuclear age, and the system of deterrence that operates to contain that threat
requires that a single person be capable of responding to nuclear attack with
nuclear weapons immediately. Rostow writes, the requirement for advance authorization would collapse
the system of deterrence, making preemptive strikes by our enemies more likely. Hence, modern conditions

While this does not mean that Congress has


no role to play in moments of crisis, it does mean that Congress should understand
its role largely in terms of cooperating with the President to support his negotiations
require the President to act quickly, and often alone.

and decisions regarding relationships with foreign powers. Rostow writes, Congress
should be able to act effectively both before and after moments of crisis or potential
crisis. It may join the President in seeking to deter crisis by publicly defining national policy in advance, through
the sanctioning of treaties or other legislative declarations. Equally, Congress may participate
formally in policymaking after the event through legislative authorization of
sustained combat, either by means of a declaration of war, or through legislative
action having more limited legal and political consequences. Either of these devices, or both
in combination, should be available in situations where cooperation between the two branches is indicated at many

In other
words, for Congress to understand itself as having any justifiable role in
challenging executive security determinations, especially at moments of
crisis, would be to undermine the strength that the executive requires in
order to protect the nation. Conflict in this domain represents political degradation.
points along an arc ranging from pure diplomacy at one end to a declaration of war at the other.

Second is the goldilocks argument


Current surveillance regulations are in a goldilocks zone- any
change is those regulations could end effective usage
Mattingly, Bloomberg political correspondent, 13
[Phil, 6-19-13, Bloomberg Business, FBI Uses Drones in Domestic Surveillance,
Mueller Says, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-06-19/fbi-usesdrones-in-domestic-sureillance-mueller-says, accessed 6-28-15, -MBk]
The FBI uses drones in domestic surveillance operations in a very,
very minimal way, Director Robert Mueller said. Mueller, in Senate testimony today, acknowledged for the
June 19 (Bloomberg) --

first time that the Federal Bureau of Investigation uses very few drones in a limited capacity for surveillance.

Its very seldom used and generally used in a particular incident when you need
the capability, Mueller said when asked about the bureaus use of pilotless aircraft with surveillance
capabilities. It is very narrowly focused on particularized cases and particularized
needs. Muellers remarks about the FBIs use of drones -- and the regular use of the vehicles by other law
enforcement agencies -- come as lawmakers and civil liberties groups are raising concerns about the reach of the
government in the wake of the disclosure of two highly classified National Security Agency surveillance programs.
Leaks by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden to the Washington Post and the U.K.s Guardian
newspaper exposed programs that sweep up telephone call data from millions of U.S. citizens as well as Internet
traffic that the Obama administration says involves foreigners based outside the U.S. suspected of plotting terrorist

The revelations about the surveillance programs have reignited a


political debate that has repeatedly flared since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. about
the balance between civil liberties and protection from terrorism. Lawmakers, including Senate Judiciary
Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, and civil liberties groups have raised concerns about the impact
on privacy of drones used by federal law enforcement agencies . The Homeland
Security Department regularly deploys drones to oversee the southern border . This is a
attacks. Privacy Concerns

burgeoning concern for many of us, Senator Mazie Hirono, a Hawaii Democrat, said of drone use, by the

The Federal Aviation Administration estimates


there may be about 10,000 active commercial drones in five years. Bills have been
introduced in at least 18 states to limit or regulate such aircraft , according to the National
Conference of State Legislatures. The FBI only uses unmanned aerial vehicles when theres a
specific operational need to conduct surveillance on stationary objects , said a U.S. law
enforcement official briefed on their use. The bureau must first get FAA approval, said the official,
who asked not to be identified discussing internal procedures. Drone Use The FBI used a drone at a
hostage standoff in Alabama earlier this year, when Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, took a five-year-old boy
government as well as by private companies or individuals.

hostage and barricaded himself in an underground bunker. After almost a week, the FBIs Hostage Rescue Team
breached the bunker, killing Dykes and rescuing the child. Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, said during a March hearing

the domestic use of drones to conduct surveillance and


collect other information will have a broad and significant impact on the everyday
lives of millions of Americans going forward. Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, held the
on drones that he was convinced that

Senate floor for almost 13 hours in March over concerns that the U.S. could use armed drones to attack Americans
on U.S. soil. Paul, who filibustered the nomination of eventual Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan,
was told in a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder that the president didnt have that authority. FBI Guidelines

Mueller said the FBI is in the initial stages of formulating privacy


guidelines related to its drone use. There are a number of issues related to drones that will
need to be debated in the future, Mueller said. Its still in its nascent stages, this debate. Senator Mark Udall, a
Colorado Democrat who has introduced a bill in Congress designed to set regulations and privacy protections for
private use of unmanned aerial systems, said he was concerned that the FBI was using drone technology before
finalizing privacy guidelines. Unmanned

aerial systems have the potential to more


efficiently and effectively perform law enforcement duties, but the American people expect
the FBI and other government agencies to first and foremost protect their constitutional rights, Udall said today in

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a June 15


operation of unmanned aircraft makes our forces on
the ground more effective and that privacy concerns are regularly weighed and
addressed by an office embedded within the department. We are constantly making
sure that we are abiding by restrictions and doing what we need to do from a border
security perspective without invading Americans rights, Napolitano said in the interview for the program,
a statement. Border Security

Bloomberg Television interview that the

Political Capital with Al Hunt.

Third is transparencyTransparency undermines the effectiveness of government


aerial surveillance programs FBI air force demonstrates
Gillum, Sullivan, and Tucker, 15
[Jack Gillum, Eileen Sullivan, and Eric Tucker, Associated Press authors, 6/3/2015,
Huffington Post, FBI Confirms Wide-Scale Use Of Surveillance Flights Over U.S.
Cities, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/02/fbi-surveillanceflights_n_7490396.html, accessed 6/29/15, AMM]
The FBI is operating a small air force with scores of
low-flying planes across the U.S. carrying video and, at times, cellphone surveillance
technology -- all hidden behind fictitious companies that are fronts for the
government, The Associated Press has learned. The planes' surveillance equipment is generally used without a
ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) --

judge's approval, and the FBI said the flights are used for specific, ongoing investigations. In a recent 30-day period,

Aerial
surveillance represents a changing frontier for law enforcement, providing what the
government maintains is an important tool in criminal, terrorism or intelligence
probes. But the program raises questions about whether there should be updated policies protecting civil liberties
the agency flew above more than 30 cities in 11 states across the country, an AP review found.

as new technologies pose intrusive opportunities for government spying. The FBI confirmed for the first time the
wide-scale use of the aircraft, which the AP traced to at least 13 fake companies, such as FVX Research, KQM
Aviation, NBR Aviation and PXW Services. Even basic aspects of the program are withheld from the public in

"The FBI's aviation


program is not secret," spokesman Christopher Allen said in a statement. "Specific
aircraft and their capabilities are protected for operational security purposes." Allen
added that the FBI's planes "are not equipped, designed or used for bulk collection
activities or mass surveillance." But the planes can capture video of unrelated criminal activity on the
censored versions of official reports from the Justice Department's inspector general.

ground that could be handed over for prosecutions. Some of the aircraft can also be equipped with technology that
can identify thousands of people below through the cellphones they carry, even if they're not making a call or in
public. Officials said that practice, which mimics cell towers into coughing up basic subscriber information, is rare.
Details confirmed by the FBI track closely with published reports since at least 2003 that a government surveillance
program might be behind suspicious-looking planes slowly circling neighborhoods. The AP traced at least 50 aircraft
back to the FBI, and identified more than 100 flights since late April orbiting both major cities and rural areas. One
of the planes, photographed in flight last week by the AP in northern Virginia, bristled with unusual antennas under
its fuselage and a camera on its left side. A federal budget document from 2010 mentioned at least 115 planes,
including 90 Cessna aircraft, in the FBI's surveillance fleet. The FBI said it also occasionally helps local police with
aerial support, such as during the recent disturbance in Baltimore that followed the death of 25-year-old Freddie
Gray, who sustained grievous injuries while in police custody. Those types of requests are reviewed by senior FBI

The surveillance flights comply with agency rules, an FBI spokesman


said. Those rules, which are heavily redacted in publicly available
documents, limit the types of equipment the agency can use, as well as
the justifications and duration of the surveillance. Details about the flights come as the
officials.

Justice Department seeks to navigate privacy concerns arising from aerial surveillance by unmanned aircrafts, or
drones. President Barack Obama has said he welcomes a debate on government surveillance, and has called for
more transparency about spying in the wake of disclosures about classified programs. "These are not your
grandparents' surveillance aircraft," said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union,
calling the flights significant "if the federal government is maintaining a fleet of aircraft whose purpose is to circle
over American cities, especially with the technology we know can be attached to those aircraft." During the past
few weeks, the AP tracked planes from the FBI's fleet on more than 100 flights over at least 11 states plus
Washington, D.C., most with Cessna 182T Skylane aircraft. These included parts of Houston, Phoenix, Seattle,
Chicago, Boston, Minneapolis and Southern California. Evolving technology can record higher-quality video from
long distances, even at night, and can capture certain identifying information from cellphones using a device known
as a "cell-site simulator" -- or Stingray, to use one of the product's brand names. These can trick pinpointed
cellphones into revealing identification numbers of subscribers, including those not suspected of a crime.

Officials say cellphone surveillance is rare, although the AP found in recent weeks FBI flights
orbiting large, enclosed buildings for extended periods where aerial photography would be less effective than
electronic signals collection. Those included above Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and the Mall of
America in Bloomington, Minnesota. After The Washington Post revealed flights by two planes circling over
Baltimore in early May, the AP began analyzing detailed flight data and aircraft-ownership registrations that shared
similar addresses and flight patterns. That review found some FBI missions circled above at least 40,000 residents
during a single flight over Anaheim, California, in late May, according to Census data and records provided by the
website FlightRadar24.com. Most flight patterns occurred in counter-clockwise orbits up to several miles wide and
roughly one mile above the ground at slow speeds. A 2003 newsletter from the company FLIR Systems Inc., which

"Aircraft
surveillance has become an indispensable intelligence collection and
investigative technique which serves as a force multiplier to the ground
teams," the FBI said in 2009 when it asked Congress for $5.1 million for the program. Recently,
makes camera technology such as seen on the planes, described flying slowly in left-handed patterns.

independent journalists and websites have cited companies traced to a bank of Virginia post office boxes, including
one shared with the Justice Department. The AP analyzed similar data since early May, while also drawing upon
aircraft registration documents, business records and interviews with U.S. officials to understand the scope of the

The FBI asked the AP not to disclose the names of the fake
companies it uncovered, saying that would saddle taxpayers with the expense of creating new cover
companies to shield the government's involvement, and could endanger the planes and
integrity of the surveillance missions. The AP declined the FBI's request because the
operations.

companies' names -- as well as common addresses linked to the Justice Department -- are listed on public
documents and in government databases. At least 13 front companies that AP identified being actively used by the
FBI are registered to post office boxes in Bristow, Virginia, which is near a regional airport used for private and
charter flights. Only one of them appears in state business records. Included on most aircraft registrations is a
mysterious name, Robert Lindley. He is listed as chief executive and has at least three distinct signatures among
the companies. Two documents include a signature for Robert Taylor, which is strikingly similar to one of Lindley's
three handwriting patterns. The FBI would not say whether Lindley is a U.S. government employee. The AP
unsuccessfully tried to reach Lindley at phone numbers registered to people of the same name in the Washington
area since Monday. Law enforcement officials said Justice Department lawyers approved the decision to create
fictitious companies to protect the flights' operational security and the Federal Aviation Administration was aware of
the practice. One of the Lindley-headed companies shares a post office box openly used by the Justice Department.
Such elusive practices have endured for decades. A 1990 report by the then-General Accounting Office noted that,
in July 1988, the FBI had moved its "headquarters-operated" aircraft into a company that wasn't publicly linked to

The FBI does not generally obtain warrants to record video from
its planes of people moving outside in the open, but it also said that under a new policy it
the bureau.

has recently begun obtaining court orders to use cell-site simulators. The Obama administration had until recently
been directing local authorities through secret agreements not to reveal their own use of the devices, even
encouraging prosecutors to drop cases rather than disclose the technology's use in open court.

Fourth is security relationsEliminating drones would bring back Mexico to its state of
terror and unconventional threats surveillance is key to
maintain effective border cooperation
Baker Institute Policy Report, 9
[James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy of Rice University, April 2009,
Developing the U.S.Mexico Border Region for a Prosperous and Secure
Relationship, http://pages.ucsd.edu/~dmares/Border%20Security%20Prosperity.pdf
, p. 1-2, accessed 6-25-15, DA]
Prior to September 11, 2001, efforts were in place to create seamless borders that would improve regional
economic performance from BrownsvilleMatamoros all the way to San Diego-Tijuana. Between 1993 and 2006,
Mexicos agricultural exports to the United States increased by US$6.7 billion while those from the United States
to Mexico rose by US$7.3 billion. Texas border cities have reaped most of the benefits on the U.S. side because of
transportation and customs services that can handle the maquiladora trade; in the process, distribution facilities
and administrative offices fueled the growth in industrial real estate, and jobs were generated in the legal,
accounting, and financial professions. As the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas concluded, In short, maquiladoras

Today the promise of a


seamless border is gone, and it is only likely to regain traction with a concerted and
proactive policy to address existing problems of human and physical infrastructure
and improved procedures and funding for law enforcement. Despite positive
developments in earlier decades, the challenges posed by accelerating
globalization and international terrorismas well as the fact that the trade in illicit
drugs is passing through an especially unstable and violent periodmake the
border area particularly important and more complicated for both countries. After the
help the Texas border region move up the economic ladder (Vargas 2001).

attacks of September 11, 2001, protecting the United States from another terrorist act became a U.S. priority.
However, the concept of protection has been narrowly defined when it comes to Mexico, with the United States
largely ignoring the impact on a relationship that had experienced an historic degree of cooperation predicated on
long-term mutual benefit following the 1994 signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Mexico has had to understand its new relationship with the United States in light of this drastically heightened

Mexico itself is entering a new stage of


confrontation with increasingly daring and ruthless drug traffickers. Thus, Mexican
policymakers are becoming sensitized to the challenges of fighting unconventional
threats. Such threats are not unique to the United States and Mexico. Governments
around the world are increasingly confronted with security threats from forces that
operate transnationally and rival, outmatch, or simply evade the coercive capability
of domestic police forces. The new challenges that states face from transnational crime and terrorism
preoccupation with national security. At the same time,

are due to the same factors that have boosted legitimate economic activity (e.g., freer trade under NAFTA and
financial deregulation). Claims that sovereignty is at risk when laws are violated at the border polarize rhetoric
and emotions, reducing a complex situation to a singular focus that obscures areas of mutual interest. Terrorism
and drug lords are not the only causes 3 for the difficulties facing the United States and Mexican economies.
Globalization has generated its share of challenges, opening the door to more competitors in the production of
goods and services, tightening commodity markets, and facilitating the free movement of capital to the highest
bidder. Indeed, the two countries face a trilogy of challengessecurity, migration, and economic and social
developmentthat impacts virtually every other issue confronting national policymakers and citizens alike, and
anchors the border agenda. It must be recognized that economic and social development are critical to manage
the drive to migration and the stresses it creates.

As democratic societies, Mexico and the

United States seek to develop their human and material capabilities in ways that
meet the needs of their societies. Such development cannot proceed efficiently and
effectively when people fear for their security, either as citizens of a nation under
attack or as individuals subject to domestic harassment, violence, corruption, or a
paucity of material goods and services that meet basic human needs. Although
migration is primarily a social and economic phenomenon, the movement of large numbers of people disrupts
both the communities they leave as well as the communities in which they settle or temporarily congregate
during their journey. The disruptions affect not only these communities, but also the individual migrants. The
region along the international border bears the brunt of the adjustments as both nations struggle to adopt and

Deterioration in the management of the bilateral


relationship by national policymakers is evident locally in the growing problems
buffeting citizens along the border: polarization of attitudes, reduced economic
interaction, increasing levels of violent crime, and a worsening environment. Yet,
implement their national policies.

stakeholders do not always play a constructive role in the dialogue to ease common problems. Rather, specific
environmental and citizens groups block individual infrastructure that might ease environmental and congestion
problems overall, and local law enforcement faces budgetary constraints that greatly constrict its ability to be
effective. Meanwhile, funding goes to national resources that will be less effective in local communities. The
actions of several national policymakers and stakeholder groups show an unfortunate lack of understanding of
the fact that prosperity and security for the nation and its border regions are interdependent. As the United States
moves forward with a new president and Mexico heads into midterm elections, it is an appropriate moment to
take stock of what is happening on the border and consider how to improve the current situation. Some argue
that the United States needs to vigorously pursue a comprehensive seal the border policy until Mexico solves its
domestic problems. But the border problems do not reside only inside Mexico.

Trade, water, illegal and


legal U.S. arms trade, money laundering, and energy infrastructure trends on the
U.S. side of the border are a major influence on the health and well-being of
Mexican border communities, as is U.S. immigration policy. Through actions that suggest the
problems all originate in Mexico, the United States harms its own interests and risks producing an unappealing
political outcome: the election of a stridently anti-American regime similar to those already in power in an
increasing number of Latin American nations today, like Venezuela and Nicaragua.

2NC- Drones Effective


Drones provide affective surveillance- stats prove
Becker, U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, 13
[Andrew, 4/04, The Daily Beast, New Drone Report: Our Border Is Not as Secure as
We Thought, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/04/new-drone-reportour-border-is-not-as-secure-as-we-thought.html, accessed 6/27/15, DA]
The border crossers were spotted with a new, all-seeing radar system developed for
use in the Afghanistan War and patrolling above the U.S.-Mexico border in parts of
Arizona since March 2012. The system can reveal every man, woman, and child
under its gaze from a height of about 25,000 feet. Between October and December, records
show, the remotely operated aircraft detected 7,333 border crossers during its
Arizona missions. Border Patrol agents, however, reported 410 apprehensions
during that time, according to an internal agency report. The sensor was credited
with providing surveillance that led to 52 arrests and 15,135 pounds of seized
marijuana. Dubbed VADER (Vehicle and Dismount Exploitation Radar) and conjuring images of the Star Wars
villain, the sensor can cover a wide swath of land and follow movement as it happens.
The system, which is on loan from the U.S. Army, is used to identify roadside bombers in war zones. Customs and
Border Protection officials, who aim to buy two systems for the agency, have touted the systems effectiveness and

Yet its
unique abilities could shine an uncomfortable light on the agencys ability to
effectively patrol the border. The radar system is providing the Border Patrol with an important snapshot
testified before Congress that it is changing the Border Patrols long-term strategy on securing the border.

to judge what it calls situational awarenesswhats actually happening at the border. But it has left the agency
grappling to measure its own success and define security. Using the system, remote operators can track vehicles

The technology allows the


aircraft to fly above bad weather or dust storms that otherwise might ground it,
while it sends signals to ground stations that display the human targets as moving
dots or black-and-white images. The internal Customs and Border Protection intelligence report
and people on foot in real time and distinguish humans from animals.

outlines several limitations of the system, including the obviousit cant tell the difference between a U.S. citizen
and noncitizen. On-the-ground video and other sensors are sometimes needed to confirm these so-called nefarious
tracks. And simply identifying someone crossing the border is just the first step. On the ground, Border Patrol
agents often are not available to respond because of rugged terrain or other assignments. As a result, thousands of
people have slipped through. At the Border Patrol, theyre known as gotaways. In one week in January, for
instance, the sensor detected 355 dismounts, or on-foot movement, on the U.S. side of the border in Arizona.
Border Patrol agents caught 125 of those, about 35 percent, while an additional 141 people evaded apprehension
and 87 more turned back south to Mexico. Two were unaccounted for. The sensor detections led to more than 1,100

has proven to be an extremely effective system in


countering threats and supporting the ground commanders mission in theater,
Boomer Rizzo, a Department of the Army civilian who helps run the radar program,
said in an email. This sensor can track smaller and slower moving targets that
traditional radar systems are not able to effectively operate against.
pounds of seized drugs. VADER

Drones are perfect platform for border control


Booth, Jerusalem bureau chief for the Washington Post, 11
[William, December 21, 2011, Washington Post, More Predator drones fly U.S.Mexico border; http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/more-predator-drones-fly-usmexico-border/2011/12/01/gIQANSZz8O_story.html, accessed 6/24/15; DA]

In the dead of night, from a trailer humming with surveillance monitors, a pilot for the U.S. Customs and Border
Protection agency was remotely flying a Predator drone more than 1,000 miles away. From an altitude of 15,000
feet, over the desert ranchlands of Arizona, the drones all-seeing eyeball swiveled and powerful night-vision
infrared cameras zeroed in on a pickup truck rattling along a washboard road. Hey, wheres that guy going? the
mission controller asked the drones camera operator, who toggled his joystick, glued to the monitors like a
teenager with a Christmas morning Xbox. This is the semi-covert cutting edge of homeland security, where federal
law enforcement authorities are rapidly expanding a military-style unmanned aerial reconnaissance operation along

Fans of
the Predators say the $20 million aircraft are a perfect platform to keep a watchful
eye on Americas rugged borders, but critics say the drones are expensive, invasive
and finicky toys that have done little compared with what Border Patrol agents do
on the ground to stem the flow of illegal immigrants, drug smugglers or
terrorists. Over Arizona, the Predator circled a ranch, as unseen and silent as a hunting owl. On a bank of
the U.S.-Mexico border a region that privacy watchdogs say includes a lot of American back yards.

computer screens, the monitoring team watched the truck, which appeared in ghostly infrared black and white, turn
and pull up by a mobile home. In the yard, three sleeping dogs quickly woke up, their tails wagging. Welcome
home, one of the agents said. A popular security solution

Eight Predators fly for the Customs and

Border Protection agency five, and soon to be six, along the southwestern border. After a slow rollout
that began in 2005, drones now patrol most of the southern boundary, from Yuma, Ariz., to Brownsville, Tex. For

Predators are the new, sexy, futuristic fix for immigration control. They are
irresistible to border hawks and the Drone Caucus in Congress, who consider the
aircraft a must-have technology to meet the threat of spillover violence yet
unrealized from Mexican drug cartels . Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.) has said that the drones
are so popular that a Predator could be elected president . Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Tex.)
pronounced domestic drones invaluable. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) called them
ideal for border security and counter-drug missions. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a GOP
supporters,

presidential contender, argues that the solution to security along the frontier is not a border fence but more
Predators. In his trips to testify on Capitol Hill, Michael Kostelnik, the retired Air Force general and former test pilot
who runs the Office of Air and Marine for the CBP, said he has never been challenged in Congress about the
appropriate use of domestic drones. Instead, the question is: Why cant we have more of them in my district?

Planning documents for the CBP envision as many as 24 Predators and


their maritime variants in the air by 2016, giving the agency the ability to deploy a
drone anywhere over the continental United States within three hours. The drones,
Kostelnik said.

though operated by the CBP, have been deployed to assist sister law enforcement agencies. This month, the Los
Angeles Times reported that Predators were used in North Dakota to help police run down a trio of ordinary crime
suspects in a cow pasture. These unarmed Predator Bs are the same as the aircraft known for lethal hunter-killer
missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, except they dont carry the missile package. One of the first Predators
deployed by the border service crashed in 2006 when its remote pilot, a contractor for the plane manufacturer
General Atomics, turned off the engine by mistake. The plane missed a residential area by 1,000 feet as it plunged.

U.S. protocols require the drones to stay on the American side of the Rio Grande.

We

dont do Mexico, said Lothar Eckardt, director of the Homeland Security Departments National Air Security

But the aerial platforms do peer a little over the fence


into Mexico. What can they see? We can see cows, pigs, coyotes, sometimes rabbits, Lothar said. At 20,000
Operations Center in Corpus Christi.

feet, you can see windshield wipers, you can see if a person is running or walking, you can see backpacks
sometimes. We can see Border Patrol, but not their uniforms, and so we can communicate with them and say,
Wave your arms, and that way we can distinguish between our guys and the bad guys. Privacy and cost
concerns Privacy watchdogs are concerned about the use of drones over domestic airspace. The loss of privacy is
real. You want to sunbathe in the nude on your own property? Now you cant be sure nobody is watching you, said
Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union. Americans will have to wonder if our
enthusiasm for catching illegal immigrants is worth sacrificing our freedoms. U.S. courts allow law enforcement to
conduct surveillance from helicopters and airplanes, and privacy protections end when the public ventures
outdoors. The domestic Predators surveillance cameras do not allow them to see through windows. Despite its
initial reluctance, the Federal Aviation Administration allows the drones to fly a high-altitude corridor along the
Mexican and Canadian borders but forbids them over congested urban areas for safety, not privacy, concerns.
Because of the orientation of the runway at the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station, the Predators are grounded when
the wind direction requires them to pass over a neighboring suburb. The mission over the Arizona ranchlands last
month was typical. The Predator was searching for scouts who hide in the brush and signal with a cellphone when
smugglers can attempt to cross with a load of marijuana or humans. The drone did not find any scouts that night.
The night before, however, they helped the Border Patrol in Texas capture a dozen illegal migrants. The Predators
reached a milestone in June, having flown 10,000 hours.

The Homeland Security Department

reported that their drone operations have led to the apprehension of 4,865
undocumented immigrants and 238 drug smugglers since the program began.

US drones necessary to fight dug and immigration war Drones


Necessary to Fight the Drug and Immigration War
Thompson, and Mazzetti, both Pulitzer Prize-winning New York
Times correspondents, 11
[Ginger and Mark, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times correspondents, MARCH 15,
2011, New York Times, U.S. Drones Fight Mexican Drug Trade,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/americas/16drug.html?_r=0, accessed
6/24/15, DA]
the Obama administration has begun sending
drones deep into Mexican territory to gather intelligence that helps locate major
traffickers and follow their networks, according to American and Mexican officials.
The Pentagon began flying highaltitude, unarmed drones over Mexican skies last
month, American military officials said, in hopes of collecting information to turn over to
Mexican law enforcement agencies. Other administration officials said a Homeland
Security drone helped Mexican authorities find several suspects linked to the Feb.
15 killing of Jaime Zapata, a United States Immigration and Customs EnforcementImmigration agent.
President Obama and his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Caldern, formally agreed to
continue the surveillance flights during a White House meeting on March 3. The
Stepping up its involvement in Mexicos drug war,

American assistance has been kept secret because of legal restrictions in Mexico and the heated political
sensitivities there about sovereignty, the officials said. Before the outbreak of drug violence in Mexico that has left
more than 34,000 dead in the past four years, such an agreement would have been all but unthinkable, they

and Mexican officials declined to comment


publicly about the introduction of drones in Mexicos counternarcotics efforts. But
some officials, speaking only on the condition of anonymity, said the move was evidence of the two
countries deepening cooperation in efforts to prevail over a common threat. In
addition to expanding the use of drones, the two leaders agreed to open a counternarcotics
fusion center, the second such facility in Mexico, where Mexican and American
agencies would work together, the officials said. In recent years, the United States has steadily
stepped up its role in fighting Mexican drug trafficking, though officials offer few details of the cooperation. The
greatest growth involves intelligence gathering, with Homeland Security and the
American military flying manned aircraft and drones along the United States
southern border and now over Mexican territory that are capable of peering
deep into Mexico and tracking criminals communications and movements, officials
said. Pentagon, State Department, Homeland Security

said. In addition, the United States trains thousands of Mexican troops and police officers, collaborates with
specially vetted Mexican security units, conducts eavesdropping in Mexico and upgrades Mexican security
equipment and intelligence technology, according to American law enforcement and intelligence officials. It
wasnt that long ago when there was no way the D.E.A. could conduct the kinds of activities they are doing now,
said Mike Vigil, a retired chief of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration. And the only
way theyre going to be able to keep doing them is by allowing Mexico to have plausible deniability. In addition to
wariness by Mr. Calderns government about how the American intervention might be perceived at home, the
Mexican Constitution prohibits foreign military and law enforcement agents from operating in Mexico except
under extremely limited conditions, Mexican officials said, so the legal foundation for such activity may be shaky.

In the United States, lawmakers have expressed doubts that Mexico,


whose security agencies are rife with corruption, is a reliable partner.
Before Mr. Obama met with Mr. Caldern at the White House, diplomatic tensions threatened to weaken the
cooperation between their governments. State Department cables obtained by WikiLeaks had reported criticism of

the Mexican government by American diplomats, setting off a firestorm of resentment in Mexico. Then in
February, outrage in Washington over Mr. Zapatas murder prompted Mexican officials to complain that the
United States government paid attention to drug violence only when it took the life of an American citizen. In the
end, however, mutual interests prevailed in the March 3 meeting after a frank exchange of grievances, Mexican
and American officials said. Mr. Caldern told Mr. Obama that his country had borne the brunt of a scourge driven
by American guns and drug consumption, and urged the United States to do more to help. Mr. Obama, worried
about Mexico falling into chaos and about violence spilling over the border, said his administration was eager to
play a more central role, the officials said. The leaders emphasized the value of information sharing, a senior
Mexican official said, adding that they recognized the responsibilities shared by both governments in the fight
against criminal organizations on both sides of the border. A senior American administration official noted that
all counternarcotics activities were conducted at the request and direction of the Mexican government.

Mr.

Caldern is intensely nationalistic, but hes also very pragmatic, said Andrew Selee, director of the Mexico
Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Hes not really a fan of the
United States, but he knows he needs their help, so hes willing to push
the political boundaries. Mexican and American officials said that their cooperative efforts
had been crucial to helping Mexico capture and kill at least 20 high profile drug
traffickers, including 12 in the last year alone. All those traffickers, Mexican officials
said, had been apprehended thanks to intelligence provided by the United States.
Still, much of the cooperation is shrouded in secrecy. Mexican and American authorities, for example, initially
denied that the first fusion center, established over a year ago in Mexico City, shared and analyzed intelligence.
Some officials now say that Mexican and American law enforcement agencies work together around the clock,
while others characterize it more as an operational outpost staffed almost entirely by Americans. Mexican and
American officials say Mexico turns a blind eye to American wiretapping of the telephone lines of drugtrafficking
suspects, and similarly to American law enforcement officials carrying weapons in violation of longstanding

Officials on both sides of the border also said that Mexico asked the
United States to use its drones to help track suspects movements. The officials
said that while Mexico had its own unmanned aerial vehicles, they did not have the
range or highresolution capabilities necessary for certain surveillance activities.
One American military official said the Pentagon had flown a number of flights over
the past month using the Global Hawk drones a spy plane that can fly higher
than 60,000 feet and survey about 40,000 square miles of territory in a day. They
cannot be readily seen by drug traffickers or ordinary Mexicans on the ground.
Mexican restrictions.

But no one would say exactly how many drone flights had been conducted by the United States, or how many
were anticipated under the new agreement. The officials cited the secrecy of drug investigations, and concerns
that airing such details might endanger American and Mexican officials on the ground. Lt. Col. Robert L. Ditchey,
a Pentagon spokesman, said Tuesday that the Department of Defense, in coordination with the State
Department, is working closely with the Mexican military and supports their efforts to counter transnational
criminal organizations, but did not comment specifically on the American drone flights. Similarly, Matt Chandler,
a Homeland Security spokesman, said it would be inappropriate to comment on the use of drones in the Zapata
case, citing the continuing investigation. Though cooperation with Mexico had significantly improved, the
officials said, it was still far from perfect. And American officials acknowledged there were still internal lapses of
coordination, with the Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security and the Drug Enforcement Administration at
times unaware of one anothers operations. More than anything, though, officials expressed concern about

I think
most Mexicans, especially in areas of conflict, would be fine about how much the
United States is involved in the drug war, because things have gotten so scary they
just want to see the bad guys get caught , said Mr. Selee of the Wilson Center. But the Mexican
reigniting longstanding Mexican concerns about the United States usurping Mexicos authority.

government is afraid of the more nationalistic elements in the political elite, so they tend to hide it.

Domestic drones are reshaping crime response and present


revolutionary forms of evidence for juries
Francescani, Reuters reporter, 13
[Chris Francescani, New York State Press Association News Story of the Year, 1995,
Peabody award, 2002, March 4, 2013, Reuters, Domestic drones are already

reshaping U.S.crime-fighting, http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/04/us-usadrones-lawenforcement-idUSBRE92208W20130304, accessed 6.27.15, AM]


a small network of
police, first responders and experts is already flying unmanned aircraft. These
operators say rapidly evolving drone technology is already reshaping disaster
response, crime scene reconstruction, crisis management and tactical
operations. Critics of U.S. domestic drone use worry about privacy and safety. Several dozen local police
departments, federal agencies and universities have special FAA permits to fly drones in U.S. airspace. " Like a
lot of law enforcement agencies, our first thoughts were, 'Cool! Let's use it for
tactical missions - for chasing bad guys across the county,'" said Ben Miller, a Mesa
As U.S. authorities grapple with how to regulate the use of unarmed drones in U.S. skies,

County, Colorado, sheriff's deputy. "But the reality is you'll have a mission like that once or twice a year," he said.
"The

real utility of unmanned aerial systems is not the sexy stuff. It's the crime scene
and accident reconstruction." Miller's department in rural western Colorado has the widest approval
to fly drones of any local law enforcement agency in the U.S. Mesa has flown 40 missions in just over
three years, "none of them surveillance," said Miller, who crafted the department's
drone program and spent a year devising training protocol for fellow deputies before
receiving FAA approval. "We can now bring the crime scene right into the jury box,
and literally re-enact the crime for jurors," he said. Miller can program the department's GPSenabled, 3.5-pound DraganflyerX6 quad copter to fly two concentric circles, at two elevations, capturing about 70
photos, for about $25 an hour. He then feeds those images into online digital mapping software, which creates a
virtual crime scene that he uploads to his iPad. Holding the iPad with one hand, Miller recently demonstrated for

Miller
said the same technique can often eliminate the need to shut down highways after
accidents so investigators can take accurate measurements. "For most small law
enforcement agencies like ours, the revolution is not in the equipment, but in the cost," he
said. Recent applications to the FAA, obtained by the civil liberties group Electronic Freedom Foundation, indicate
Reuters how 3-D digital reconstruction can serve as a road map for investigators, and, soon, for juries.

many police want drones for drug investigations, covert surveillance and high-risk tactical operations. Domestic
drones currently cost anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000 for a small system like the DraganflyerX6, which stays
aloft only 15 minutes, to more than $1 million for sophisticated fixed-wing drones that can remain aloft for hours.

Military models are also being used by the Department of Homeland Security, which
has a fleet of at least 10 unarmed Predator drones, powerful enough to identify a
tennis shoe from 60,000 feet up. First-generation drones can't yet carry an onboard sense-and-avoid
system, a requirement of manned aircraft. Experts said mass-produced, drone-mounted sense-and-avoid
technology is still two to five years away. FAA officials are required to open U.S. skies in 2015 to widespread use of

Texas pilot Gene


Robinson has been designing and flying domestic drone systems custom-made for
disaster and emergency response for more than a decade. Robinson said his drone
has flown dozens of search missions for law enforcement agencies in 29 states
and four countries, locating 10 missing persons after traditional search-and-rescue
resources were exhausted.
unmanned aircraft by public agencies and private industry. PRESSING THE BOUNDARIES

2NC- Congress Links XT


The executive has the ability to administer the use of legal
force effectively even in the absence of formal legal
procedures
Issacharoff, New York University Professor of Constitutional
Law, 13
[Samuel Issacharoff, Reiss Professor of Constitutional Law, New York University
School of Law. and Richard H. Pildes, Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law,
New York University School of Law; CoDirector, NYU Program on Law and Security,
Drones and the Dilemma of Modern Warfare, PUBLIC LAW & LEGAL THEORY
RESEARCH PAPER SERIES WORKING PAPER NO. 13-34 Star Chamber=politicized
secret court from 15th century England, symbol of abuse, AMM]
Procedural Safeguards
As with all use of lethal force, there must be procedures in place to
maximize the likelihood of correct identification and minimize risk to
innocents. In the absence of formal legal processes, sophisticated
institutional entities engaged in repeated, sensitive actions including the
military will gravitate toward their own internal analogues to legal
process, even without the compulsion or shadow of formal judicial review.
This is the role of bureaucratic legalism63 in developing sustained institutional
practices, even with the dim shadow of unclear legal commands. These forms of
self-regulation are generated by programmatic needs to enable the entitys own
aims to be accomplished effectively; at times, that necessity will share an
overlapping converge with humanitarian concerns to generate internal protocols or
process-like protections that minimize the use of force and its collateral
consequences, in contexts in which the use of force itself is otherwise justified. But
because these process-oriented protections are not codified in statute or reflected in judicial decisions, they
typically are too invisible to draw the eye of constitutional law scholars who survey these issues from much higher
levels of generality. In theory, such review procedures could be fashioned alternatively as a matter of judicial review
(perhaps following warrant requirements or the security sensitivities of the FISA court), or accountability to
legislative oversight (using the processes of select committee reporting), or the institutionalization of friction points
within the executive branch (as with review by multiple agencies). Each could serve as a check on the development
of unilateral excesses by the executive. And, presumably, each could guarantee that internal processes were
adhered to and that there be accountability for wanton error. The centrality of dynamic targeting in the active
theaters such as the border areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan make it difficult to integrate legislative or
judicial review mechanisms.

Conceivably, the decision to place an individual on a list


for targeting could be a moment for review outside the boundaries of the
executive branch, but even this has its drawback. Any court engaged in the
ex parte review of the decision to execute someone outside the formal mechanisms
of crime and punishment risks appearing as a modern variant of the Star
Chamber.64 Similarly, there are difficulties in forcing a polarized Congress as a
whole to assume collective responsibility for decisions of life and death and the
incentives have turned out to not to be well aligned to get a subset of Congress,
such as the intelligence committees, to play this role effectively. 65

Congress hampers US surveillance efforts empirics prove


Wall, senior official at Alston and Bird, 12
[Andru Wall, senior official at Alston and Bird, Demystifying the Title, 10-Title 50
Debate: Distinguishing Military Operations, Intelligence Activities & Covert Action,
Harvard National Security Journal, AMM]
Congresss failure to provide necessary interagency authorities and
budget authorizations threatens our ability to prevent and wage warfare.
Congresss stubborn insistence that military and intelligence activities inhabit
separate worlds casts a pall of illegitimacy over interagency support, as well as
unconventional and cyber warfare. The U.S. military and intelligence agencies work together more
closely than perhaps at any time in American history, yet Congressional oversight and statutory authorities sadly

After ten years of war, Congress still has not adopted


critical recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission regarding congressional
oversight of intelligence activities. Congresss stovepiped oversight sows confusion over statutory
remain mired in an obsolete paradigm.

authorities and causes Executive Branch attorneys to waste countless hours distinguishing distinct lines of authority
and funding.

Our military and intelligence operatives work tirelessly to


coordinate, synchronize, and integrate their efforts; they deserve
interagency authorities and Congressional oversight that encourages and
supports such integration.

Uniqueness

Uniqueness: 2NC- Relations Brink


Relations are on the brink- any change in security policy risk
backlash
Castillo, International and Public Affairs Degree, 13
[Mariano, May 2, CNN, Security dominates talk of U.S.-Mexico relations,
http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/02/world/americas/mexico-us-relations/index.html,
accessed 6-26-15, DA]
Ahead of their meetings in Mexico City this week, President Obama and Mexican President Enrique Pea Nieto

But reports that Mexico is


restructuring the way it cooperates with American officials on security matters -- in
essence restricting communication -- threaten to impose a shadow over the positive
economic story the leaders want to tell. The apparent friction highlights the critical
security relationship and illustrates the complexities of U.S.-Mexico relations . "We
spend so much time on security issues between the United States and Mexico that
hinted that they wanted to put economic ties atop their agenda.

sometimes I think we forget this is a massive trading partner, responsible for huge amounts of commerce and huge
numbers of jobs on both sides of the border," Obama said this week. But writing a new narrative on U.S.-Mexico
relations that doesn't lead with Mexico as a major transit point for narcotics, or the United States as a market
hungry for the drugs, isn't easy. That was made clear by the spate of news reports this week on both sides of the
border about changes to how Mexico cooperates with the Americans. Under the new rules, all U.S. requests for
collaboration with Mexican agencies will flow through a single office, Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong
confirmed to Mexico's state-run Notimex news agency. It is a drastic change from recent years, when U.S. agents
enjoyed widespread access to their Mexican counterparts. So in the days leading up to Obama's arrival in the
Mexican capital, the buzz was not about the economy, but whether Mexico was being uncooperative with the United
Osorio Chong downplayed the idea that the change signified a retreat in security cooperation. The
United States "should have the confidence that things are on a good path," he told
Notimex. In a conference call with reporters, Obama administration official Ben Rhodes
said it was natural that Pea Nieto, who has been in office for only five months,
would want to revisit its security structure. "We're currently working with the Mexicans to

States.

evaluate the means by which we cooperate, the means by which we provide assistance, and we're certainly open to
discussing with Mexico ways to improve and enhance cooperation, streamline the provision of assistance," said
Rhodes, who is the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications. " Our

goal is not to have


a certain amount of presence in terms of security efforts in Mexico; it's to cooperate
with the Mexicans so that we can meet the interests of both our countries." But
analysts say impact of the changes should not be underestimated. U.S. officials who had built rapport and personal
relationships with Mexican counterparts now have an obstacle to their communication, said George Grayson, an
expert on Mexican security issues and professor of government at the College of William & Mary. "The door is not

security will
likely remain a key part of how U.S.-Mexico relations will be judged . Among
wide-open like it used to be," he said. There is a lot to boast of on the economic front, but

U.S. officials, there is an unspoken concern about whether Pea Nieto will merely give lip service to the the idea of
security cooperation or whether he will provide real substance, said David Shirk, former director of the Trans-Border
Institute in San Diego. "I've talked to many people at very high levels that have expressed these concerns," Shirk
said. "There is a kind of wait-and-see attitude. I think U.S. ofificals want to give Pea Nieto the benefit of the
doubt." What is clear is that Pea Nieto rejects the "kingpin" strategy of his predecessor, Felipe Calderon, who
made the capture of cartel leaders the centerpiece of his security plan. A number of high-ranking drug cartel
leaders were killed or captured during Calderon's term, but the results usually backfired -- new leaders rose in their
place, rival cartels fought for the leftovers and a high level of violence persisted.

Pea Nieto has talked

about focusing on violence reduction , and engaging in educational, social and economic reforms. But
this broad vision has not yet produced a defined security strategy. "The question is, what (do) you replace the
kingpin strategy with?" Grayson said. The changes to protocols between U.S. and Mexican officials are likely part of
the process to figure that out, but one that could rankle the United States, said Tony Payan, a Mexico expert and
fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.

Uniqueness: Mexico Risk Now


Mexican Government at risk of collapsing- Internal corruption
and skyrocketing crime
Galen, senior fellow at the Cato Institute and editor to The
National Interest, 15
[Ted, January 29, The National Interest, Watch Out, America: Mexico May Be the
Next Failed State, http://nationalinterest.org/profile/ted-galen-carpenter, accessed
6-29-15, DA]
When Enrique Pea Nieto became president of Mexico in December 2012, there was considerable hope that the
violence that had roiled that country so badly over the previous six years might subside. Pea Nieto seemed
determined to adopt a different approach than his predecessor, Felipe Caldern, to the problems of drug trafficking

Caldern had used the military to wage open warfare on the


countrys powerful drug cartels during his presidency, and the results were
calamitous. More than 60,000 perished in drug-related violence during those years,
and at least another 25,000 disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Early in
his presidency, Pea Nieto de-emphasized the confrontational strategy, returning to
the more ambivalent posture toward drug trafficking that the Mexican government
had maintained throughout the decades before Calderns escalation . And for a time, that
lower-key approach seemed to work. Although violence between rival cartelsand between
various cartels and the governmentdid not disappear, it did subside . That was
and organized crime.

especially true in Ciudad Jurez, Nuevo Laredo, Tijuana and other cities on the border with the United States, which
had been the epicenters of bloodshed during Calderns administration. But the encouraging trend has reversed in
an alarming fashion in recent months. Although some once-dominant trafficking organizations, such as the Gulf
Cartel and La Familia, have faded or disappeared entirely, new and equally ruthless competitors have taken their

Vigilante groups, which have been


on the rise for several years as government forces seemed unable or unwilling to
maintain order and defeat the cartels, have gained even greater prominence since
mid-2014. The spike in vigilantism is especially troubling because it reflects a
growing lack of public confidence in Mexicos police and criminal-justice systems.
Unfortunately, there are ample reasons for that lack of confidence. Mexico has long
been afflicted by pervasive corruption, with drug cartels and other criminal
organizations easily penetrating governmental institutions. But developments over
the past few months suggest that some of those institutions do not merely exhibit
mundane corruption, but may be compromised in horrific ways. The most troubling
incident took place in September 2014, when students from a teachers college
disappeared in the western state of Guerrero. The students had shown the temerity
to conduct a protest demonstration against the mayor of Iguala and his wife .
Evidence soon emerged that the students were likely murdered and their bodies
burned. Worse, there are strong indications, including eyewitness accounts from two individuals who survived the
attack, that elements of both the police and the army, along with enforcers
from a local drug cartel, were responsible for the massacre. The ensuing scandal
place. Among the latter are the Knights Templar and Los Viagras.

is rocking Pea Nietos administration, as angry demonstrators in several cities have demanded his resignation.

Concerns that Mexico might become a failed statewhich had gained traction
during the most turbulent years of Calderns presidency are again on the rise.
Such concerns are excessive, since Mexico has an array of powerful institutions ranging from the Catholic Church to
well-organized political parties to a significant (and growing) legal business community. Mexico is not Somalia,
Bosnia, Yemen, Sudan or other failed states, where such stabilizing features are largely absent; nor is it fractured by

Nevertheless, the recent


developments are worrisome. Overall, the drug cartels remain as powerful and
ruthless as ever, and some of those organizations are branching out into human
trafficking, the hijacking of oil shipments, extortion and other criminal activities to
augment their income from the drug trade . Although the challenge they pose to the authority of the
bitter ideological or religious conflicts, as those countries have been.

Mexican government may have become less blatant during Pea Nietos administration, such groups remain very
powerful players, and in some areas of the country verge on constituting a parallel government.

Uniqueness/ AT: Alt Causes to Stability/ Mexico


Unstable Now
Reforms have the potential to resolve economic and security
concerns moving on many sectors
IMF, International Organization of 188 countries promoting and
surveying economic growth, 14
[International Monetary Fund, November 17, Mexicos Economy Shows Steady
Growth Fueled by Key Reforms,
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2014/car111714a.htm, accessed 6-2815, DA]
Major reforms in the energy, telecommunications, education, and financial sectors
have been designed to unlock potential growth in Mexico. Robert Rennhack, the senior reviewer for the Mexico
team, told IMF Survey that these reforms are really quite profound and can transform
the economy. In an interview, he explains the results of the recent checkup of the Mexican economy. IMF Survey: Economic activity in
Mexico has picked up, and GDP is projected to grow by 2 percent in 2014. Broadly ,
what are some of the factors contributing to this pick-up in activity? Rennhack: The Mexican economy is recovering. It had
grown by just 1.1 percent last year, and now it's likely to recover further, with
growth forecast at around 2 percent this year. Were expecting that to happen because the United States is growing much

more rapidly than we had thought and Mexico has very close ties to the U.S. economy. In fact, a lot of Mexicos manufacturing exports go to the United States, so better growth in the

the construction sector in Mexico is beginning


to recover. It had collapsed in the last year for a variety of reasons, and now we're
seeing signs of a recovery. Also, monetary and fiscal policy in Mexico are supporting
growth. IMF Survey: What are some of the risks to growth going into 2015, and how is Mexico prepared to manage them? Rennhack: We expect growth
in Mexico to pick up to 3 percent next year , in large part on the back of a sustained
U.S. recovery, the continued pick-up in construction, and the stance of demand policies. There is also excess capacity in the economy right now, and we expect some
rebound as more of the capacity is utilized. In addition, you'll get some bounce to growth because of the effect of
structural reforms. Mexico has adopted about ten structural reforms, and many of
these reforms should begin to contribute to higher investment, probably starting in
the second half of the year. One risk is that the implementation of the reforms is somehow delayed. The secondary legislation has been approved by
Congress, and now the reforms are in the phase of issuing the necessary regulations. It will be key to sustain this momentum. Another potential risk is
security, which has been a drag on growth. The government has adopted several
measures aimed at improving the situation, which is quite complex, and will
maintain its efforts to address this issue. IMF Survey: What are some of the structural reforms, and how are they affecting growth?
Rennhack: They've adopted many different structural reforms that are really quite
profound and can transform the economy. Most importantly, they've completely
changed the energy sector. For 75 years this was run by a state-owned monopoly. There was virtually no private sector participation in the energy sector.
United States translates into better growth for Mexico. The second reason is that

Now they've opened the door for private participation in virtually all dimensions of the energy sector. So the private sector can invest in oil exploration, development, and production.
Private firms will be able to refine oil and sell it at the retail level, generate their own electricity, and invest in natural gas. So this is a complete transformation, and given Mexico's vast
energy reserves this should lead to much more investment in the sector and ultimately raise production. The telecommunication sector is being completely reformed. Previously this
had been dominated by several large firms that accounted for 80 percent or so of the market. Now the government has implemented regulation that creates an incentive for the
dominant firms in the sector to shrink, and also opens the door for competition in the sector. This could bring down the cost of internet services, and a whole array of communication

A comprehensive financial sector reform has


been adopted that changes many different laws. All of these changes point in the
direction of improving the access of small businesses to the financial system, and
trying to raise credit as a share of GDP. There was also anti-trust reform for markets outside of telecommunications. Many of Mexico's
services. By lowering the cost of information this reform could promote growth.

markets have been dominated by lack of competition. So through greater anti-trust enforcement the government can promote competition that can lower costs and expand investment

Labor market reform is another area where Mexico has moved forward,
creating a number of incentives to move workers into the formal labor sector, which
and growth.

has higher productivity. The country also embarked on a comprehensive education reform that creates much more performance-based assessment of
teachers and also introduces a number of other steps to improve the quality of education. I think those are the key reforms. All of these have the potential to boost growth by making
the economy more efficient and by stepping up energy production. We estimate a boost to growth on the order of a half a percentage point to a point per year over the medium term.
The fact that Mexico introduced a lot of reforms together allows for them to benefit from the synergies of the reforms. So overall this is very positive for the Mexican economy.

Answers To

AT: No Risk of Terror


Risk of nuclear terrorism is high and growing they have the
means and motive
Kroenig, Associate Professor and IR @ Georgetown, 14
(R. Davis Gibbons and Matthew Kroenig, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brent
Scowcroft Center on International Security at The Atlantic Council. The Next
Nuclear War, http://www.matthewkroenig.com/Kroenig_The%20Next%20Nuclear
%20War.pdf)
Since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, scholars, analysts, and politicians have focused on the nexus of
nuclear weapons and terrorism. In his closing statement at the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit, President Obama
concluded, We've agreed that nuclear terrorism is one of the most urgent and serious threats to global security.88

evidence indicates that


terrorist organizations have both expressed a desire for nuclear weapons and
made attempts to buy or seize nuclear material. Declassified documents from the United
States suggest Osama bin Laden directed his associates to purchase uranium .90 In
addition, Chechnya-based separatist groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba in South Asia, and Aum Shinrikyo in
Japan have also expressed the desire for nuclear weapons in the past.91 Most analysts consider
it unlikely that a state would knowingly provide a terrorist group with a bomb, but it is conceivable that a
group could steal one. This fear is especially acute in the case of Pakistan, where an
unstable government with a growing nuclear arsenal exists in an area with many terrorist
Though there has been some debate on how seriously this threat should be taken,89

organizations. The government of Pakistan has taken steps in recent years to allay these fears, yet reason for

terrorist group could attain a nuclear capability is


by obtaining fissile material and constructing its own crude nuclear bomb . The main
challenge for terrorist organizations seeking this capability is finding sufficient fissile material. Approximately
8 kilograms of plutonium or 25 kilograms of highly enriched uranium (HEU) is
necessary for a bomb. Since 9/11, the United States, Russia, the IAEA, and other partners have taken on a
concern remains.92 A second means by which a

number of efforts to decrease the risks of terrorists accessing nuclear material. UN Security Council Resolution
1540, the 2005 Amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, and the 2005
International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism all seek to increase global cooperation to

the global stocks of HEU and plutonium are decreasing , but


the sheer volume of global fissile material makes this an on-going challenge and
the U.S. budget for these activities has recently been cut. Unlike nuclear-armed
states, it would be relatively difficult to deter terrorists from taking action.93 In other words,
if efforts to keep nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands ever fail, we may
witness a nuclear 9/11.
prevent nuclear terrorism. Overall,

AT: US-Mexico Not K2 economy


US-Mexico commerce is key to the global economy
Selee, Senior Advisor Mexico Institute, and Wilson, associate
Mexico institute, 12
[Andrew and Christopher, November 2012, Wilson Center, A New Agenda with
Mexico,
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/a_new_agenda_with_mexico.pdf,
accessed 6-25-15, DA]
Commerce between the United States and Mexico is one of the greatyet
underappreciatedsuccess stories of the global economy . In fact, in 2011 U.S.-Mexico
goods and services trade reached the major milestone of one-half trillion dollars with virtually no
recognition.1 The United States is Mexicos top trading partner, and Mexico which has gained
macroeconomic stability and expanded its middle class over the last two decades is the United States second
largest export market and third largest trading partner. Seventy percent of bilateral
commerce crosses the border via trucks, meaning the border region is literally
where the rubber hits the road for bilateral relations . This also means that not only California and
Baja California, but also Michigan and Michoacn, all have a major stake in efficient and secure border management.j

AT: Drones Kill Relations


Drones are a joint operation with limited US presence in
Mexico- its all requested
Licn, Asociante Press Corespondent, 11
[Adriana Gmez, 03/17/2011, El Paso Times, US drones help fight Mexico drug
cartels, http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_17631672, accessed 6-27-15, DA]
The U.S. government has begun deploying drones into Mexico after Mexican
officials requested U.S. aircraft to help them fight drug-trafficking
organizations. Although U.S. agencies remained tight-lipped Wednesday on flying drones over Mexico, the
chief of the Mexican National Security Council, Alejandro Poir, admitted that his
government asked for this type of support to gather intelligence. Poir in a statement said
the Mexican government defines the operations, most of which take place in border areas. "When these
operations take place, they are authorized and supervised by national
agencies, including the Mexican Air Force," Poir said Wednesday. Furthermore, Poir
said, the governments were not breaking any national sovereignty laws
because they were simply assisting in gathering intelligence. The drones are for
surveillance only and are not armed. The announcement came the day The New York Times
published a story revealing that U.S. agencies have been sending an undetermined number of Global Hawk drones
to interior Mexico since last month. Homeland Security drones flew along the U.S.-Mexico border in past years to
gather intelligence on organized crime. Global Hawks are military drones that have been used for surveillance

Global Hawks can look over


areas as large as 40,000 square miles. The newspaper cited officials who spoke anonymously
missions in Afghan istan as well as for relief efforts in natural disaster zones.

because the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, who reportedly operate the drones,
did not publicly comment. "All

U.S. cooperation with Mexico is at the government of


Mexico's invitation and is fully coordinated with the government of Mexico ," said Matt
Chandler, Homeland Security spokesman. Chandler declined to comment specifically on the use of
unmanned aircraft in Mexico. Department of Defense officials did not return calls on Wednesday. U.S. Rep. Michael
McCaul, R-Texas, is the chairman of a Homeland Security subcommittee. McCaul said he did not know that drones

But McCaul
said it is a positive sign to increase the role of the United States in the Mexican drug
war. Mexico, he said, has been reluctant to accept U.S. intervention, but he said times are changing. "It's a
flew over Mexico before Wednesday. "They are probably trying to do it under the radar," he said.

significant departure in the right direction," he said. "We are seeing the (Mexican President) Felipe Caldern
administration welcoming our military presence." McCaul said he learned from agencies on Wednesday that a drone

Mexican law enforcement capture gang members in connection to the murder


of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent Jaime Zapata . He was killed
on a highway in San Luis Potos on Feb. 15. The drones may also set a precedent to devise a
joint military operation with Mexico, McCaul said. When President Caldern visited the White
helped

House on March 3, he said, officials sought to be "very open-minded and search for more creative solutions." "It
seems to me that we are experiencing extraordinary circumstances that call for extraordinary actions by our
governments," Caldern said. Mexican army and embassy officials declined to comment on the U.S. drones flying
over Mexico, and instead referred inquiries to the National Security Council. Earlier this week, Jurez Mayor Hctor
Murgua hosted Carlos Pascual, the U.S. ambassador in Mexico, to discuss national security matters. Murgua
appeared welcoming to ideas such as placing ICE agents on the ground in Jurez. He also said he is pleased to
receive any support the neighboring country could give to the city of 1.3 million that has been ravaged by drugcartel violence. Murgua refused to comment on whether he and Pascual spoke about the drones, calling it a matter

request of the Mexican


government shows the two countries' relations are deepening, said Eric Olsen,
senior associate at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars' Mexico
Institute in Washington, D.C. "Of course these kinds of operations are shrouded in secrecy," he said.
of "national security." The fact that U.S. drones are flying inland by the

"There is enormous sensitivity, but there is also a realization that the threat posed by drug cartels is severe." Olsen
said the U.S. presence is still
American agents are not armed.

limited. There are no law enforcement operations on the ground, and

Bennett Counterplan

Information
First some background,
Right now, states are regulating drone use. Most states have banned it, and others
have skeletal frameworks to prevent their use. For example, Some states, like
Florida, Utah, and Montana, generally preclude police from using drones, unless
officers obtain a judicial warrant founded on probable cause or confront an
emergency. States also have independent privacy laws that will be applied to
drone use. This includes the prevention of filming campers or fishers.
Whats important to note, is that the states are regulating public (governmental)
use of drones. Private drone usage is regulated by the Federal Aviation
Administration. The FAA has regulations due by the end of September to
incorporate drone usage, however they only play a marginal role in privacy
regulation. The issue is that private drones will be allowed surveil just as much as
government drones. Thats concerning.
Federal drone regulation is minimal. No bill regarding privacy has been passed
through congress as per the writing of this paper. Edit: Congress has introduced bills
one would require a warrant before drones are used.
Now for the issues with the AFF plan,
The argument to make with this CP is that the plan regulates too much and too
quickly. The FAA and the states will regulate slowly and not as much as the AFF.
There are a 2 reasons why thats good. 1) It doesnt link to the Terror DA
surveillance can still happen and only the worst instances of privacy violations are
reprimanded. 2) Over regulating the drones causes their price to get jacked up
which would probably collapse the industry.
Lastly is the solvency question,
The CP should be able to resolve the AFF. It might be slower, but it still solves. It also
maintains a slow federal role so you can sweep up the feds key warrant. The
difference between the federal action of the plan and the federal action of the CP is
that in the CP it is slow and doesnt regulate. Good luck.
To note The FAA is a federal agency. Its in the executive branch. Federal
involvement isnt necessarily bad. Whats bad is too much too quickly.

1NC
Text: The FAA should conduct a study on the implications of
UAS integration into national airspace on individual privacy.
The fifty states should utilize this study to regulate and litigate
private drone use
That solvesThe counterplan incrementally adjust done policy- its slower
approach avoids the links to surveillance good and doesnt
overregulate the drone industry which turns solvency
Bennett, Brookings National Security Law Fellow and Lawfare
Managing Editor, 14
[Wells C. has a B.A. from Georgetown University and a J.D. and L.L.M. from Duke
University School of Law, September 2014, Brookings Institute, Civilian Drones,
Privacy, and the Federal State Balance,
http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports2/2014/09/civilian-drones-and-privacy,
accessed 6/27/15, GE]
private universities and
companies can and do fly surveillance-capable aircraft, both with and without the
specific blessing that the FAA requires.9 As unmanned flight technology matures and
grows ever cheaper, it will find its way into more private hands. The already swift
clip will quicken, once the FAA writes rules for wider domestic drone flight. Suffice it to
say private actors will soon operate drones in equal if not greater numbers than the
government doesand also acquire the potential to undertake just as much
surveillance. As pressing as the question of how best to safeguard public
privacy, is the question of how best to safeguard its understudied
counterpart, private privacy. The urgency is reflected in a handful of legislative proposals
concerning drone surveillance, and in a decision reportedly forthcoming from the Obama Administration. Though
details remain sketchy, the White House is set to order the National
Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to develop, in
consultation with various stakeholders, voluntary privacy guidelines for commercial
drone use.10 This essay examines the current division of labor between state and federal governments, with
But thats just the thing: private aircraft matter, too. These days individuals,

respect to civilian drones and privacy. It proceeds in three parts, the first of which recognizes the most compelling
reason, put forward by advocates of a state-based regime, for the states primacy in shielding private privacy

Theres already a state law fabric meant to safeguard those very


rights, one woven of common law doctrines, statutes, and laws meant to
account for drone surveillance in particular. This body of law will be
increasingly relevant as more private drones fly, and civilian drone surveillance
becomes more common. And, as the drone federalists rightly point out, currently
there is no firm consensus about how best to safeguard privacy rights from nongovernmental drone surveillancesomething a top-down, federal
approach would require. Still, as the essays second section explains, the FAAs involvement
rights.

in private drones and surveillance, though small, has been quietly increasing since
2012. This rather subtle development informs an argument at the heart of the third segment: the
FAAs emerging presence in private privacy and unmanned aerial
surveillance supports a continued role for the agency in addressing the issue.
Doing so would be consistent with recent practice. Moreover, incrementally adjusting the status
quo, perhaps by having federal aviation officials take away the worst privacy
violators drone flying credentials, would even be a good idea . A fourth section offers
concluding thoughts.

2NC

Bennett: 2NC- Solves Wall


States are key they have existing legislation and priorities
the plan is preemptive and wont solve privacy implications
the feds have no momentum
Bennett, Brookings National Security Law Fellow and Lawfare
Managing Editor, 14
[Wells C. has a B.A. from Georgetown University and a J.D. and L.L.M. from Duke
University School of Law, September 2014, Brookings Institute, Civilian Drones,
Privacy, and the Federal State Balance,
http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports2/2014/09/civilian-drones-and-privacy,
accessed 6/27/15, GE]
On one side of the first question are certain members of Congress and civil liberties
advocates, who have called for a robust federal approach to drones and privacy.2
On the other are drone federalists: scholars and policymakers who generally
oppose enactment of a preemptive, federal drone statute, and who would in any
event keep federal regulation to a minimum or reserve it for discrete subjects only.
In recent years, only states have passed legislation meant to account for
Americas drone experiment and its implications for privacy. In that sense,
momentum isnt with the feds: the FAA, for example, pointedly refused to
regulate privacy in a broad fashion (though, as explained below, it nevertheless
undertook some drone privacy work later). And unlike some state houses, the U.S.
Congress hasnt seriously considered or passed a bill to set general privacy
standards or to regulate drones and privacy specifically. Meanwhile, state legislators
mostly have their sights set on a particular class of dronethat flown by
governments. The past few years have seen a raft of proposed and enacted laws,
principally or exclusively aimed at restricting drone surveillance by public
officials. Some states, like Florida, Utah, and Montana, generally preclude police
from using drones, unless officers obtain a judicial warrant founded on probable
cause or confront an emergency.5 Virginia probably takes the gold medal in this
regard, having banned, with some exceptions, all public drone operation by state
personnel until July 2015.6 We can guess the reasons behind the governmentcentric approach: the states unique power to imprison; the Constitutions
traditional protections against public rather than private action; and the fact that,
like much in the realm of technica, the drone was initially developed for government
applications and only afterwards transitioned to private ones. Drones had been a
staple of military activities abroad for years, long before Congress even thought
about widespread civilian operations. And, owing to the FAAs current licensing
scheme, drone pilots are frequently police or border security officers.7 It thus makes
intuitive sense to prioritize policymaking for public aircraftwhich the
states largely have done that so far.8

States and the FAA solve they have existing frameworks and
the ability to regulate non-governmental drones
Bennett, Brookings National Security Law Fellow and Lawfare
Managing Editor, 14
[Wells C. has a B.A. from Georgetown University and a J.D. and L.L.M. from Duke
University School of Law, September 2014, Brookings Institute, Civilian Drones,
Privacy, and the Federal State Balance,
http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports2/2014/09/civilian-drones-and-privacy,
accessed 6/27/15, GE]
Some say the federal government should be principally responsible for regulating
drones,1 nongovernmental actors, and privacy; others have suggested a blended
approach, with states taking center stage and the national government cast in a
supporting role. This essay takes essentially the latter position. As drones are folded
further into American airspace, states should take the initiative, both by
applying longstanding liability rules and by devising new ones. But we also should
take advantage of the Federal Aviation Administrations (FAA) small but
growing competence in nongovernmental drones and privacyand have the agency
perform a kind of superintendence function. Remotely controlled flying robots are
increasingly cheaper, and at times more capable of sustained flight, than some
manned counterparts. Many can be outfitted with imaging or other recording
equipment, which is increasingly more affordable and widely available. An airborne
droid might take in more information over a much longer period of time than a
human eye or ear; and it might also find its way to areas where other aerial
platforms might not be able to go. In this way, drones pose real if manageable
privacy risks. And policymakers have aimed to manage them following Congresss
call to broaden drones access to the skies by late 2015. The timing raises any
number of big-ticket privacy questions. Two are recurring: which arm of the
government (states or feds) ought to balance a proliferating technologys benefits
against its privacy costs; and which drones (government or private) will present the
greatest threats to privacy.

Absent safeguards drones compromise privacy the plan


mechanism is key to slow FAA privacy enforcement while
maintaining a marginal federal role
Bennett, Brookings National Security Law Fellow and Lawfare
Managing Editor, 14
[Wells C. has a B.A. from Georgetown University and a J.D. and L.L.M. from Duke
University School of Law, September 2014, Brookings Institute, Civilian Drones,
Privacy, and the Federal State Balance,
http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports2/2014/09/civilian-drones-and-privacy,
accessed 6/27/15, GE]
Without adequate safeguards, expanded use of UAS and their integration into
the national airspace raise a host of concerns with respect to the privacy of

individuals. For this reason, the FAA is directed to conduct a study on the
implications of UAS integration into national airspace on individual privacy. The
study should address the application of existing privacy law to UAS integration;
identify gaps in existing law, especially with regard to the use and retention of
personally identifiable information and imagery; and recommend next steps for how
the FAA can address the impact of widespread use of UAS on individual privacy as it
prepares to facilitate the integration of UAS into the national airspace.42 Note the
next steps phrase and its gesture towards future FAA privacy work. It would be
wrong to over-read the language above, much as it would be wrong to over-read the
FAAs malleable privacy rules for drone-test ranges. Congress is not making the FAA
the foremost guarantor of privacy rights in the United States; it is not giving the FAA
the authority to sue for egregious privacy lapses; it is not calling for the FAA to
become some aviation focused outpost of the Federal Trade Commission. Instead,
the legislature is simply doing what the FAA has been doing for a while: reiterating
the FAAs traditional remit in aviation safety, rejecting any implied dilution of its
safety portfolio, and yet also quietly imposing modest new privacy responsibilities.
Its more mission creep than power grab. That mission creep should inform our
thinking about civilian drones, private privacy, and federal-state cooperation. The
work of the FAA since 2012 can be plotted out as data points on a white board. And
when connected, these suggest a slightly upward trajectory. Federal regulators
gradually are taking on (unilaterally, or on instructions from Congress) more work, in
addressing the privacy and technology tradeoffs posed by domestic drones. Call this
informing dialogue, regulating privacy or something else; the label doesnt
matter especially. More important is the fact that federal oversight of civilian
dronesmarginal though that oversight may beis on the upswing.

The CP is a prerequisite -the AFF takes a too much to fast


approach prevents drone development and hampers privacy
the FAA alone solves
Bennett, Brookings National Security Law Fellow and Lawfare
Managing Editor, 14
[Wells C. has a B.A. from Georgetown University and a J.D. and L.L.M. from Duke
University School of Law, September 2014, Brookings Institute, Civilian Drones,
Privacy, and the Federal State Balance,
http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports2/2014/09/civilian-drones-and-privacy,
accessed 6/27/15, GE]
A lack of mission-critical data cuts against having the federal government dive
headlong into crafting liability rules for civilian drones and privacy. It would be hard
to design a preemptive, national-level policy without knowing more about what
sorts of drones will fly, what sorts of privacy rules will survive a first round of legal
review, and so forth. State regulation and drone integration together will
furnish some key answers to those questions over time. To put the point
somewhat differently, the principal drone federalist arguments seem mostly
correct. But theres a downside, and it hints at small regulatory space that federal
officials shouldnt be shy about filling. A lot of surveillance, intrusions on privacy,

and First Amendment litigation will have to happen before workable and broadly
applicable solutions come fully into view. As that process goes forward, the national
governmentthe FAA in particularhas sufficient experience to minimize the shortrun privacy costs. It should take further steps to minimize them as domestic drone
integration proceeds, and without fretting too much about diluting the agencys
heartland expertise in aviation safety. The dividing line between safety and privacy
isnt especially neat or obvious, as the post-FMRA years amply demonstrate.49 And
when all is said and done, the FAA will have a basic fluency in drone privacy, as well
as a broad and deep understanding of drone safety, perhaps the two most critical
pieces of the of domestic drone puzzle. The combination is unique and should not
go to waste, as civilian drones grow less novel and more commonplace, and the
country mulls the best approach to private privacy and aerial surveillance.

Bennett: 2NC- States Solve Wall


States solve drone regulations they avoid privacy concerns
with civilian use and avoid rejection from courts.
Kaminski, Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School, 2013
[Margot E., Executive Director of the Information Society Project, Research Scholar,
May 2013, Drone Federalism: Civilian Drones and the Things They Carry, California
Law Review Circuit 4 Calif. L. Rev. Circuit 57, lexis, date accessed 6/25/15, Evann]
Laws governing civilian drone use risk restricting the ability
of civilians to engage in legitimate and even essential information gathering . These
restrictions will be made in the name of privacy, but they are still restrictions on speech. Courts
FIRST AMENDMENT CONCERNS

have not yet determined whether privacy or speech triumphs in this conflict, or more subtly, how privacy and
speech interests interact. We are at the beginning of this conversation, not the end of it. n20 One recent example of

behavior that raises these tensions between privacy and the First Amendment is
cellphone recording of police activity. States may want to afford citizens protection from being
videotaped or audio-recorded without consent, reasoning that such technologically aided recording creates a

there are good


arguments that the First Amendment itself requires privacy measures; pervasive
surveillance, whether created by private or public actors, has the potential to chill
both association and speech. n22 But in recent years, a number of courts have recognized
First Amendment protection for videotaping and audio-recording in public. n23 This
permanent record that is qualitatively different from note-taking or memory. n21 In fact,

protection is founded on a right to gather information, as part of speech or a precursor to it. n24 In a strange twist
to this already-complex issue, the police in a number of states have used the wiretap laws that protect citizens from
being videotaped without consent to arrest citizens who videotape police activity. n25 Thus, a law that was intended
to be privacy protective may in fact prevent oversight over [*62] government functions, thereby empowering law

Courts have split over how they handle these


cases. The First Circuit recently found that there is a clearly established First Amendment right to record the
enforcement rather than restricting it.

police. n26 The Eleventh Circuit has noted that there is a First Amendment "right to record matters of public
interest," subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions. n27 The Seventh Circuit considered the Illinois
eavesdropping statute, which makes it a felony to audio record a conversation unless all parties to the conversation
consent, regardless of whether the communication was private. The Seventh Circuit found that the statute "restricts
far more speech than necessary to protect legitimate privacy interests; as applied to the facts alleged here, it likely
violates the First Amendment's free-speech and free-press guarantees." n28 The Third Circuit, by contrast, found
that there is no clearly established right to record police officers; the "right to record" is heavily contextual, so it is
difficult to determine whether the right exists in a given fact pattern that courts have not yet considered. n29 And
notably, even those courts that found a First Amendment right to record have heavily weighed the context of such
recordings. Courts have looked to the fact that the subjects were government officials, in public places, or that the
action as a whole was a matter of public interest. n30 There are thus substantial unanswered questions about how
broad or narrow the First Amendment right to record is, and how broad or narrow privacy measures must be to not
impinge on it. One intuition that frequently arises in privacy cases, both under tort law and under the Fourth
Amendment, is that the location of the recording matters. A First Amendment right to record is most likely to
outweigh privacy concerns [*63] in a public space, where one person's privacy collides with other peoples'
experience and memory. n31 But creating a special delineation for privacy laws by restricting their application to
non-public spaces runs into problems on both ends: public acts sometimes occur in private spaces; and private acts

States might follow this location intuition, and ban drone


use over private property. The proposed Missouri drone privacy law, for example, bans video surveillance
sometimes occur in public spaces.

on any individual's property without consent. n32 So does the proposed Texas Privacy Act. n33 Such laws follow
popular intuitions about privacy, because they protect a visual trespass where physical trespass is not allowed.
However, they may run into preemption problems, and could also prevent information-gathering essential to
political and social movements. n34 In Dallas, for example, a hobbyist drone photographer uncovered pollution by a
meat packing plant through aerial observation of activity on the plant's property. n35 A number of states are
currently considering bills sponsored by the cattle industry that criminalize video recording at farms. n36 These bills
target activists and journalists who have been recording conditions in industrial agriculture. Whatever one may
think of the politics behind food production, it is clear that the video-making is part of an expressive chain of

criticism that goes to the heart of the First Amendment. The First Amendment does not prevent people from being
arrested for trespass; but if they are legitimately on a property, it might prevent their arrest for recording video of

U.S. law has long recognized the complicated tension


between privacy and accountability. n38 Banning drone photography or videography prioritizes [*64]
matters of public interest. n37

the privacy rights of photographic subjects over the First Amendment rights of the photographer or videographer.
This may be the balance states and courts eventually choose, but as the developing circuit split over videotaping

The important question in privacy regulation of


civilian drone use is thus whether this regulation should be enacted by the
federal government, or by states. The tension between privacy and First Amendment freedom is
unlikely to be resolved in one fell swoop by a federal statute; moreover, federal preemption will
preclude state experimentation. Federal legislation is also costlier and more
difficult to enact, and risks getting overturned by courts concerned about First
Amendment implications. Rather than attempt to get federal legislation right on the first
try, and risk having it rejected by First-Amendment-protective courts, we should
allow states to run through less costly iterations.
shows, it is not an easy balance to strike.

Bennett: AT- Clarity/ Signal Solvency Deficit


Diversity of law is inevitable states are necessary to generate
consensus on rules
Bennett, Brookings National Security Law Fellow and Lawfare
Managing Editor, 14
[Wells C. has a B.A. from Georgetown University and a J.D. and L.L.M. from Duke
University School of Law, September 2014, Brookings Institute, Civilian Drones,
Privacy, and the Federal State Balance,
http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports2/2014/09/civilian-drones-and-privacy,
accessed 6/27/15, GE]
We might not get to complete clarity. Different kinds of drones will fly in
different jurisdictions, and to different degrees; many jurisdictions already view
domestic drone proliferation more or less favorably than others . Together, such facts
essentially guarantee a measure of policy diversity nationwid e. At present, the policy
landscape hasnt begun to approach even that point. We lack general agreement about what an
optimal set of liability rules might look like for drones and private privacy
something that a largely or even completely federal approach would seem to
require and that the drone federalists have stressed .25 For now, pragmatism counsels
against a heavy-handed federal response, and in favor of regulation at the
state level.

Bennett: AT- Perm


The perm co-opts state laws its too fast and links to the net
benefit
Bennett, Brookings National Security Law Fellow and Lawfare
Managing Editor, 14
[Wells C. has a B.A. from Georgetown University and a J.D. and L.L.M. from Duke
University School of Law, September 2014, Brookings Institute, Civilian Drones,
Privacy, and the Federal State Balance,
http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports2/2014/09/civilian-drones-and-privacy,
accessed 6/27/15, GE]
We thus can review the bidding: states have a loose, largely untested framework in
place for regulating nongovernmental, aerial surveillance. This in turn is
supplemented by tiny pockets of federal activity, which have expanded modestly
since 2012. The nascent trend is to tinker with this arrangement rather than to
reshape it radicallysay, by enacting an all-encompassing, state-lawpreempting privacy statute. Exhibit A is Congresss command to the FAA to study privacy issues further,
following the agencys issuance of FAA enforced privacy rules for test sites; Exhibit B, the White Houses order and
forthcoming NTIA principles. The latter reportedly will not address all privacy dilemmas associated with all forms of
unmanned surveillance. Instead, after consulting with various stakeholders, NTIA eventually will issue voluntary
privacy guidelines, which in turn will apply to commercial drone operations only, and which, as before, will reserve
the defense of private privacy largely to background law.43

Bennett: 2NC- Terrorism Net Benefit


CP doesnt link to terror FAA enforcement is limited to only
the worst surveillance violations the plans over regulation
causes price spikes
Bennett, Brookings National Security Law Fellow and Lawfare
Managing Editor, 14
[Wells C. has a B.A. from Georgetown University and a J.D. and L.L.M. from Duke
University School of Law, September 2014, Brookings Institute, Civilian Drones,
Privacy, and the Federal State Balance,
http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports2/2014/09/civilian-drones-and-privacy,
accessed 6/27/15, GE]
By way of example,
Congress could condition authorization to fly on a pledge to respect privacy. The FAA
might insist that before receiving permission to operate an unmanned aircraft, a
business or individual first would have to commit to observing applicable privacy
laws.44 Thereafter, the FAA would have discretion to rescind the operators flight
credentials, upon submission of proof that a court or similar body has faulted the
operator for serious privacy violations under state law . The seriousness criterion
here also couldand, so as not to jack up the cost of deploying a critical
technology too much, likely shouldbe made stiff enough so as to capture only the
worst varieties of unmanned aerial surveillance.45 Keep in mind the scope. The FAAs
regulatory powers dont extend everywhere and to every mode of unmanned flight.
The limitation has implications for any FAA measure affecting privacy . For example,
It is easy to imagine policy ideas that would keep the above architecture intact.

hobbyists model aircraft are mostly exempted from FAA regulation.46 Going forward, how you feel about the
evident regulatory gap probably has to do with how you feel about likely sources and locations of unmanned aerial
surveillance. Thus, if you worry most about rampant Quadcopter eavesdropping, then the above proposal might not
do that much to assuage you; such machines seemingly can be operated as model aircraft, and thus require no

an FAA-based oversight approach to privacy might help


considerably, if you predict that the most intrusive surveillance technologies will be
paired with larger-sized dronesthat is, drones likely to come within the FAAs
jurisdiction, and to require operator certification and training.47 A proposal like the
above (or one like it) would mean only incremental change. After all, the FAA already
exercises a comparable authority over operators of the six test ranges established under FMRA. It wouldnt
take too much to have the FAA carry forward, on a permanent basis and with
respect to unmanned aircraft within its jurisdiction, a variant of the humble privacy
responsibilities it already has taken on unilaterally. Doing so would not obligate the
FAA to regulate privacy in some broad or agency-inappropriate fashion, either.
Instead the states would do the regulating, and afterwards, private litigants and
state regulators would do the litigating and state courts the adjudicating. The FAA
would only get into the mix afterwards, and only in the most deserving of cases.
FAA license. Conversely,

The CP doesnt bite the DA it only deters the worst privacy


violations
Bennett, Brookings National Security Law Fellow and Lawfare
Managing Editor, 14

[Wells C. has a B.A. from Georgetown University and a J.D. and L.L.M. from Duke
University School of Law, September 2014, Brookings Institute, Civilian Drones,
Privacy, and the Federal State Balance,
http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports2/2014/09/civilian-drones-and-privacy,
accessed 6/27/15, GE]
Of course, that the above or any other policy change would fit nicely with existing institutional arrangements does

there are good reasons to extend federal oversight of


drones and private privacy, while the adequacy of the underlying state law
framework comes into sharper focus. Take the idea sketched out above. The largest companies
have the greatest ability to acquire the most sophisticated unmanned aircraft, and
thus also to engage in the most far-reaching surveillance. It happens that those
same companies could be best situated to withstand the kinds of ex post remedies
courts typically impose upon rampant privacy violatorsinjunctions, money
damages, and the like. In that respect, the scheme above might prove helpful, by
deterring the worst privacy violations not the marginal or the really bad, but
the worstin advance of wholesale domestic drone integration, and in advance of long and uncertain litigation
in state courts. But whatever the policy might ultimately look like, the federal governments
competence in civilian drones and privacy, such as it is, should be brought to bear .48
not justify that policys adoption. But

Politics

Links

Politics: 1NC- Link


Politics link drone boosterism, military community, private
contractors, and paid off congressman want drones.
Barry, senior policy analyst for the Center for International
Policy, April 2013
[Tom, April Issue of International Policy Report, Center for International Policy, Barry
is also a 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), Drones Over the Homeland How Politics, Money and Lack of Oversight Have
Sparked Drone Proliferation, and What We Can Do,
https://www.ciponline.org/images/uploads/publications/IPR_Drones_over_Homeland_
Final.pdf, Date Accessed: June 24, 2015, MM]
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 enforcement agencies drone boosterism in
Congress has been devoid of any incipient oversight or governance role. Drones made
an appearance in the Senate in the first foray to implement immigration reform, when on January 28, 2013 a
bipartisan group of senators argued their proposal legislation would increase the number of unmanned aerial

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
vehicles and surveillance equipment.19 Drone

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,

drones are
not solely about technological advances. Money flows and political influence also
factor in.
aviation and surveillance technology have all accelerated the coming of UAVs to the home front. Yet

Politics: 2NC- Link


Drone legislation causes kneejerk reaction from congress too
many issues of safety
Hersh and Hopmeier, risk analyst and fellow of the Truman
National Security Project, president of Unconventional
Concepts, Inc, 15
[Melissa S. and Michael, 6-23-2015, The Hill, "What are the real threats posed by
small drones?", http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/technology/245780-what-arethe-real-threats-posed-by-small-drones, accessed 6-28-2015, CC]
the number of drone incidents from small, commercial drones is
increasing. And with that the amount of sensationalized information increases as well, resulting in knee
jerk reactions from policy makers. The recent drone buzz has fostered relatively little
informed discussion on what are the actual risk and threats posed by small Unmanned
Aircraft Systems (UAS) to critical infrastructure, civil aviation, and public safety. In turn,
there has been relatively little informed discussion on where public safety and law
enforcement should focus their limited resources . For example, flying small UAS in an open field
Admittedly,

should not be seen as an equal threat to flying small UAS into a crowded stadium with an improvised explosive
device, or near an airport where drones can find their way deliberately or accidentally -- into the intake of a

And, there are risks both threats and vulnerabilities


associated with semi-autonomous or autonomous aerial vehicles whatever their size or
passenger or cargo plane.

number. Traffic, debris, and collateral damage are real considerations. While long-anticipated definitive legal
guidance on the commercial use of UAS is still being pursued by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA); the
creation of an FAA Center of Excellence (CoE) to investigate these issues could be seen as ensuring that the U.S.
continues to foster innovation, remains competitive, and achieves commercial success. To date, the private sector
and academic response in the U.S. has been overwhelmingly positive to the idea of some form of informed and
rational policy. Whatever the reason for industrys participation, it is in its interest and the publics for them to

The threat of a
UAS being used for a dangerous activity must always be weighed against the
benefit of a UAS being used for good. We must be clear that no countermeasure is
without costs, and any cost must be weighed against the benefit it produces, or
inhibits. All too often there have been knee-jerk responses to perceived threats that
have resulted in failed systems, cavalier spending, and loss of public confidence.
continue to keep their feet firmly on the ground when considering how to best mitigate risk.

Case Frontline

Solvency

Solvency: Status Quo Solves


Executive action on drones solves drone programs.
Whitlock, master's degree in journalism from Columbia
University and 3 time finalist for the Pulitzer prize, 14
[Craig, 9/27/14 /, Drone policy being readied, p.1 Lexis, date accessed 6/24/15,
Evann]
The White House is preparing a directive that would require federal agencies to
publicly disclose for the first time where they fly drones in the United States and
what they do with the torrents of data collected from aerial surveillance. The
presidential executive order would force the Pentagon, the Justice Department, the
Department of Homeland Security and other agencies to reveal more details about
the size and surveillance capabilities of their growing drone fleets - information that
until now has been largely kept under wraps. The mandate would apply only to federal drone
flights in U.S. airspace. Overseas military and intelligence operations would not be covered. President Obama has
yet to sign the executive order, but officials said that drafts have been distributed to federal agencies and that the
process is in its final stages. "An

interagency review of the issue is underway," said Ned Price, a


the measure was long
overdue. Little is known about the scope of the federal government's domestic
drone operations and surveillance policies. Much of what has emerged was obtained
under court order as a result of public-records lawsuits. "We're undergoing a quiet revolution in
White House spokesman. He declined to comment further. Privacy advocates said

aerial surveillance," said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "But we haven't
had all in one place a clear picture of how this technology is being used. Nor is it clear that the agencies themselves

Most affected by the executive order would be the Pentagon,


which conducts drone training missions in most states, and Homeland Security,
which flies surveillance drones along the nation's borders round-the-clock . It would
also cover other agencies with little-known drone programs , including NASA, the Interior
know how it is being used."

Department and the Commerce Department. Military and law enforcement agencies would not have to reveal
sensitive operations. But they would have to post basic information about their privacy safeguards for the vast
amount of full-motion video and other imagery collected by drones.

Solvency: 1NC- Circumvention


Restrictions on Drones are empirically circumvented by a
multitude of federal agencies-that destroys their solvency
Lendman, Award Winning Investigative Journalist and Radio
Host, 7-4
[Stephen, 7/4/15, globalresearch.org, writer and broadcaster, hosting The
Progressive Radio News Hour on The Pogressive Radio Network. Lendman was
awarded the Mexican Press Club's International Investigatory Journalism Award in
2011 in an awards ceremony televised throughout Latin America. He holds a BA
from Harvard and an MBA from Wharton, SpAies R Us: Mass FBI Aerial Surveillance
of Americans Using Drones, http://www.globalresearch.ca/spies-r-us-mass-fbiaerial-surveillance-of-americans-using-drones/5453450, Accessed June 28, A.H]
America is
a belligerent nation waging endless wars of aggression against invented enemies .
Free and open societies dont spy on their citizens. They dont invent phony threats as justification.

Fear-mongering is rife. Its a tactic used to scare people to believe theyre safer by sacrificing fundamental
freedoms. Mass surveillance is a defining rogue state characteristic. T uesday

Senate passage of the


USA Freedom Act (the renamed Patriot Act) changed little. Government intrusion
into the private lives of its citizens remains largely unchanged . The only good news is that
USAF slightly rolled back its intrusiveness instead of giving spy agencies more powers. History shows
restrictions imposed are easily circumvented or ignored. Bureau secrecy and
cover-up make it impossible to know the full extent of its lawlessness. It operates ad
libitum with minimum oversight and accountability. One example is its mass
surveillance of US citizens by drones and other aircraf t. On June 2, AP reported (s)cores of lowflying planes circling American cities Theyre part of a civilian air force operated by the FBI
and obscured behind fictitious companies Its not secret. Its been reported before. In
July 2013, the agency admitted using drones for domestic surveillance numerous
times without court authorized warrants or other forms of oversight. At the time, deputy
director Stephen D. Kelly said (t)he FBI uses UAVs in very limited circumstances to conduct surveillance when there

the FBI has conducted surveillance using UAVs


in eight criminal cases and two national security cases . Former FBI director Robert
Meuller admitted spying on US citizens with no operational guidelines . Warrantless
spying by any means threatens everyone . No probable cause is needed. No restraints are
imposed. Constitutional protections are circumvented. Once a program is established,
is a specific operational need. Since late 2006,

it takes on a life of its own. In the last decade, FBI aerial spying expanded to civilian air force level. In April alone,
AP identified at least 50 FBI aircraft conducting more than 100 flights over urban and rural areas in 11 states. It
cited a 2009 budget document indicating 115 planes, including 90 Cessna aircraft. FBI aerial spying is longstanding.
Today, drones and other aircraft are equipped with high-tech cameras for close-up visual surveillance as well as
technology able to monitor thousands of cell phones a blatant breach of privacy. According to Senate Judiciary
Committee chairman Charles Grassley (R. IA): Its important that federal law enforcement personnel have the tools
they need to find and catch criminals. But whenever an operation may also monitor the activities of Americans
who are not the intended target, we must make darn sure that safeguards are in place to protect the civil liberties
of innocent Americans. No safeguards whatever exist nor does Congress back up high-minded rhetoric with

Rogue agencies like the FBI,


NSA, CIA, DEA and Homeland Security operate by their own rules easily
circumventing weak and ineffective restraints on their authority. Congressional
effective policies protecting the public from abusive government practices.

inaction effectively rubber-stamps them. It permits unaccountable police state practices no free society would
tolerate. AP learned the FBI uses at least 13 fake companies to conceal its activities
including FVX Research, KQM Aviation, NBR Aviation and PXW Services. ACLU policy analyst Jay Stanley called its

flights significant if theyre maintaining a fleet of aircraft whose purpose is to circle over American cities, especially
with todays sophisticated surveillance technology. Details the FBI confirmed concur with published reports since at
least 2003 about suspicious-looking planes overflying US cities being government ones. The Drug Enforcement
Agency (DEA) and US Marshals Service have their own aerial surveillance programs using sophisticated technology,
much like the FBIs. Basic information about these programs are secret . Heavily redacted Justice
Department Inspector General documents alone inadequately explain what the public has a right to know. Theyre
spied on by the FBI, NSA, CIA, DEA, Homeland Security and other government agencies, especially post-9/11.
Spies R us defines US policy. America is a total surveillance society unfit to live in. Big Brother watches everyone
intrusively in blatant breach of fundamental constitutional protections. Fabricated national security threats justify
the unjustifiable. The so-called war on terror is phony. The war OF terror by Washington on its citizens is real.
Unconstitutional spying today in America is pervasive. Its institutionalized. Privacy rights no longer matter.
Fundamental freedoms are being trampled. Theyre disappearing in plain sight.

Solvency: 2NC- Circumvention


Agencies dont follow congressional mandates on drone
restrictions.
Whitlock, master's degree in journalism from Columbia
University and 3 time finalist for the Pulitzer prize, 14
[Craig, 9/27/14, Drone policy being readied, p.1 Lexis, date accessed 6/24/15,
Evann]
the armed forces and federal law enforcement agencies have been
reflexively secretive about drone flights and even less forthcoming about how often
they use the aircraft to conduct domestic surveillance. Security officials are generally reluctant
Until now,

to disclose operational methods and techniques. But drones are in a special category of sensitivity, given the topsecret role they've long played in CIA and military counterterrorism missions. There's also evidence that federal
agencies simply have been unable to develop internal guidelines and policies quickly enough to keep up with rapid
advances in drone technology. "Federal

use of drones has gone way up, but it's hard to


document how much," said Jennifer Lynch, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Franciscobased group that has sued the Federal Aviation Administration for records on government drone operations. "It's

Even Congress has struggled to uncover the extent to which the


federal government uses drones as a surveillance tool in U.S. airspace. In March 2013,
lawmakers directed the Defense Department to produce a report, within 90 days ,
describing its policies for sharing drone surveillance imagery with law enforcement agencies. Eighteen
months later, the Pentagon still has not completed the report . Air Force Lt. Col. Thomas
been incredibly difficult."

Crosson, a Defense Department spokesman, said officials hoped to provide an interim response next week and a full

Department of Justice officials have also been reluctant to


answer queries from lawmakers about their drone operations. The FBI first disclosed
its use of small, unarmed surveillance drones to Congress in June 2013 and
subsequently revealed that it had been flying them since 2006. The Justice Department
version "in the coming months."

inspector general reported last fall that the FBI had not developed new privacy guidelines for its drone surveillance
and was relying instead on old rules for collecting imagery from regular aircraft. Since then, Justice officials have
said they are reviewing their drone surveillance policies but have not disclosed any results. An FBI spokesman did

The FBI has resisted other attempts to divulge details


about the size of its drone fleet and its surveillance practices. Citizens for Responsibility and
not respond to a request for comment.

Ethics in Washington (CREW), a nonprofit group that pushes for transparency in government, sued the FBI last year
under the Freedom of Information Act for records on its drone program. Although the FBI has turned over thousands
of pages of documents, many have been redacted or provide only limited insights. "They've been dragging their
feet from the outset, and it's been enormously frustrating," said Anne Weismann, CREW's chief counsel. "I don't
know if it's because they don't want to expose the fact that they've been operating without any clear guidance or if

Another section of Obama's draft executive order would


instruct the Commerce Department to help develop voluntary privacy guidelines for
private-sector drone flights. The intent is to shape nonbinding industry standards for commercial
surveillance instead of imposing new regulations by law. The executive order is an attempt to cope
with a projected surge in drone flights in the United States. For years, the FAA has enforced a
they just don't like to talk about it."

de facto ban on commercial drone flights. The FAA permits government agencies to fly drones only under tightly
controlled circumstances. Under a 2012 law passed by Congress, however, the FAA is developing rules that will
gradually open the skies to drones of all kinds. The drone industry, which lobbied Congress to pass the law, predicts
$82 billion in economic benefits and 100,000 new jobs by 2025. On Thursday, the FAA approved requests from six
Hollywood filmmakers to fly small camera-equipped drones on movie sets, the first time businesses will be allowed
to operate such aircraft in populated areas. About 40 companies, including Amazon.com, have filed similar requests

Federal lawmakers
have introduced several bills in recent years to regulate the use of drones by law
with the FAA. Amazon's chief executive, Jeffrey P. Bezos, owns The Washington Post.

enforcement agencies and strengthen privacy protections, but none has passed.

No
department flies more drones than the Pentagon, which has about 10,000 of the aircraft in its inventory, from fourpound Wasps to the 15-ton Global Hawk. While many are deployed overseas, Defense Department documents show
that the military is making plans to base drones at 144 sites in the United States. Pentagon officials have said they
soon expect to fly more drones in civilian airspace in the United States than in military-only zones. The Department
of Homeland Security also conducts extensive surveillance with unarmed drones. Its Customs and Border Protection
service has nine large Predator B models, which account for about three-quarters of all drone flight hours reported
by federal civilian agencies. Customs and Border Protection drones patrol a 25-mile-wide corridor along the nation's
northern and southern borders, as well as over the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico. Records obtained by the
Electronic Frontier Foundation show that the Border Patrol has also outsourced its drones on hundreds of occasions
to other law enforcement agencies throughout the United States. Details of most of those operations remain secret.

Drone Industry

Drone Industry: 1NC- Regulation DA


Strict legal regulation harms the US drone industryensures
we stay behind other countriesturns aerospace and heg
Wolfgang, Washington Times, White House correspondent, 15
[Ben Wolfgang, February 16, 2015, Washington Times, Drone industry fears FAA
rules too restrictive, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/16/droneindustry-fears-faa-rules-too-restrictive/?page=all, accessed 6.28.15, AM]
The Obama administrations proposed new rule for commercial drone flights would
ground much of the unmanned aircraft industry and may leave the U.S. trailing
behind international competitors, analysts and some lawmakers fear. Drone industry
leaders hope Congress will nudge the Federal Aviation Administration forward after this weekends long-awaited

The regulations,
among other things, prohibit the use of commercial drones outside the line of sight
of the pilot, meaning some ambitious ideas such as Amazons desire to deliver packages via
drone would not be not viable. The FAAs draft proposal, released Sunday, also
would outlaw flying drones over any persons not directly involved in the
operation, a provision that amounts to a de facto ban on using drones for news
coverage and a host of other activities. If the administrations true goal is to keep
the U.S. at the forefront of aviation, the regulatory structure as currently written
isnt acceptable, analysts say. That cant work, Michael Drobac, executive director
of the Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Coalition, said of the FAAs approach,
particularly the measure prohibiting flights above anyone not involved with the
operation. It really is so far behind where other countries are. Its not
progressive enough, said Mr. Drobac, whose coalition includes leading technology
companies. The FAA rules would apply to drones weighing less than 55 pounds and
being used for non-recreational activity, such as commercial use by private
companies. Business interests as varied as real estate developers, film producers
and farmers have all expressed a keen interest in the commercial possibilities of
advanced drones. The regulations require all drone operators be at least 17 years old,
pass an aeronautical knowledge test and get an operators certificate from the
agency. Drones also could not exceed an altitude of 500 feet or a speed of 100 mph,
nor could they fly over populated areas or restricted airspace, such as airports . An
proposal, and some on Capitol Hill already appear open to changing the strict FAA rules.

incident late last month when an out-of-control private drone crashed on the White House grounds only highlighted

FAA Administrator
Michael Huerta said the agency tried to be flexible with its approach, but key
lawmakers say certain aspects of the proposal are too limiting. These FAA rules
are a solid first step but need a lot more refining, Sen. Chuck Schumer, New York
Democrat, told the USA Today. The inclusion of the rule that drones must be flown
within the operators line of sight appears to be a concerning limitation on
commercial usage. I urge the FAA to modify that as these rules are finalized . In the
House, Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster,
Pennsylvania Republican, said its critical that the FAA listen to the concerns of the
drone industry and others as it finalizes the rules, which will be open to public comment for
fears of allowing commercial drones to operate without well-defined regulations.

the next 60 days. We need to properly balance safety, privacy and access while ensuring the United States
remains at the forefront of aviation technology, he said in a statement. As we continue to review this proposal and
as the FAA finalizes the rule, I look forward to hearing reactions and input from all stakeholders. Meanwhile,

other

nations already are far ahead of the U.S. in allowing private companies to use
drones. Canada, for example, also has line-of-sight provisions but does not require
operators certificates, provided the craft in question weighs less than 55 pounds .
Analysts say some European countries, Australia and other nations also have more
flexible regulatory systems and, as a result, are better positioned than the U.S. to
reap the economic benefits of a thriving commercial drone industr y.

Drone Industry: 2NC- Regulation DA


Companies want fewer regulations not more - FAA regulations
on domestic drones are one of the biggest roadblocks to the
industryother countries laws dont have such obtrusive
requirements
Black, Insurance Journal, 15
[Thomas Black, May 5, 2015, Insurance Journal, Corporations Push for Fewer U.S.
Drone Restrictions,
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2015/05/05/366844.htm, accessed
6.28.15, AM]
Chevron is proceeding with development of unmanned aircraft to
check pipelines, according to Christian Sanz, chief executive officer of Skycatch, a
drone and software maker working with the oil company. The catch: Chevrons
operators would be miles from the drones, while the FAA requires them to be in
sight. If the rule isnt relaxed by the time the UAVs are ready to fly, the tests will be
done outside the U.S., Sanz said. You have all these multibillion-dollar companies
knocking on the door saying, We want to use this now and you need to make it
easier, said Sanz. He predicts the FAA eventually will drop the line-of-sight requirement. Amazon, which
is developing drones to deliver packages, has been especially critical of the FAA. A proposed
agency rule would require drones to be under an operators direct control, while
Amazons craft, flying at least 200 feet off the ground, would be guided by
computers and sensors. In testimony to a U.S. Senate subcommittee in March, Paul Misener, Amazons
Pipeline Inspections

vice president for global public policy, criticized regulators for paying little heed to rules for such autonomous flight.

This low level of government attention and slow pace are


inadequate, especially compared to the regulatory efforts in other countries,
Misener said in a transcript of his testimony. Amazon also complained it took six
months to receive an exemption, compared with two months or less in other
countries where its experimenting with delivery drones . In an April 24 filing with the FAA,
Amazon said its drones should be allowed to fly if theyre not at risk of a collision or a crash. Most countries,
including Canada, the U.K. and Japan, already have permanent laws in place to
fly commercial drones. In Japan, farmers use unmanned aircraft to apply pesticides
to their fields. The agency has been one of the biggest roadblocks to the
commercial drone industrys growth, said Colin Guinn, chief of sales and marketing
for dronemaker 3D Robotics, which is supplying BNSF and AIG with their aircraft. The FAA pays
too little notice to how drones flying for business could save lives by replacing
piloted helicopters and planes, he said.
Slow Pace

Agriculture: 1NC Frontline


No Agriculture Transition
Boyd, Researcher at B.C. Alberta, 13
[Roger, 11/20/2013, Resilience, Unsustainable Farming: From Bird Droppings to
Corporate Agriculture, http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-11-20/unsustainablefarming-from-bird-droppings-to-corporate-agriculture, Accessed 6/28/15, NP]
The Cuban example shows that a nation can move away from industrial agriculture
dependent upon non-renewable fossil fuels, but what if such a transition was
required on a global level because of fossil fuel depletion and/or the need to reduce
fossil fuel use to curtail Climate Change? Such changes, especially if they required moves to smaller
locally managed farms with less dependency upon industrially produced inputs, would greatly challenge large
vested interests which yield significant economic and social power. As Fitzgerald-Moore and Parai point out the
Green Revolution new high yielding crop varieties require a package of inputs which includes not only chemical
fertilizers and irrigation, but also biochemical programs to control for disease, insect and weeds, and increased
mechanization10. Without these inputs the new varieties would underperform the traditional seeds, which have

The high level of investments required


to provide the required package of inputs for modern agriculture encourages a
move from subsistence to commercial agriculture, and a consolidation of farms into
larger entities. Thus, traditionally more self-sufficient communities were integrated
into the global market environment, reliant upon the large conglomerates that
provided the seeds, other agricultural inputs, and the financing for the purchase of
these inputs together with modern agricultural machinery. The net result was a wide
dispersion in incomes, with the larger farms and the providers of the new inputs and
machinery taking the majority of the economic benefits. This economically-driven Darwinian
been bred for the previous much less modified ecosystems.

process removed both the knowledge of, and the political support for, the traditional agricultural processes. Within
a matter of generations the traditional ecological knowledge gained over centuries that supported the previous low
energy input farming methods was lost in one area after another. Even the memory that proved that industrialized

The separation of
people from the land through the urbanization that was facilitated by the laborsaving mechanization of food production in general , also separated the vast majority of the
high energy agriculture was not the only way of growing crops disappeared over time.

population from any first-hand knowledge of food production. In the rich countries of today the average person is
used to food magically appearing on the shelves of the supermarket, disembodied from the actual crops and
animals that were the living inputs to the production of that food .

With populations disconnected from


the actual processes used to produce their food, questions about the current, and
long term impacts and sustainability, of the food industries rarely enters into public
discourse. On some occasions aspects of this industry do burst into public consciousness, as in a significant case
of food poisoning, or an investigation of horrendous practices in slaughterhouses. These instances quickly fade
away from public consciousness though, and do not trigger wider ranging and more systemic questions. Limited
scientific solutions are provided, such as food irradiation, and working practices are changed to assuage public

All such actions are incremental changes to the hegemonic industrial food
production systems rather than any fundamental change to them . The production
concern.

processes for many of the inputs required for industrialized agriculture have large scale efficiencies which benefit

In addition, the large development of many new agricultural


products requires extremely large and lengthy research and development activities,
with a scale of investment only open to larger organizations. These factors
supported the consolidation of supplying companies into a few very large
organizations, with the process of consolidation accelerating in the past few
decades. The top 10 pesticide producing companies now control almost 90% of the agrochemical business
larger organizations.

worldwide, the top 10 biotechnology companies have 75% of industry revenue. There has also been significant

concentration in seed providers, with 6 of the leading seed companies also being within the top 10 companies for

With such significant concentration only a handful of profit


maximizing companies have control over the majority of plant production that has
been integrated into the world market economy 18. The fossil fuel inputs to the
production processes for such things as herbicides and fungicides, as well as the
agricultural and food transport machinery, are provided by the highly concentrated
fossil fuel industry which includes some of the largest private corporations in the
world, such as Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch/Shell, and Gazprom together with huge
state owned organizations such as those of Saudi Arabia and Iraq . Some of the producers of
pesticides and biotechnology.

farm and transportation equipment used by farmers are also very large corporations. In addition to the above levels
of economic concentration, there are numerous industry associations that concentrate the political weight of a
given industry. An example is the International Fertilizer Industry Association which has some 540 members in
about 85 countries. About half of the membership is based in developing countries. IFA member companies
represent all activities related to the production, trade, transport and distribution of every type of fertilizer, their
raw materials and intermediates. 19 These trade organizations, as well as individual companies, employ large
numbers of lobbyists and other staff to help direct government policies, and international agency decisions, in ways
beneficial to them.

Precision Farming doesnt Solve-Hurts Local Farmers


Bunge, Agricultural Reporter, 14
[Jacob, Agricultural Reporter @ WSJ, 2/24/14, Wall Street Journal, Big Data Comes
to the Farm, Sowing Mistrust,
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304450904579369283869192124,
Accessed 6/28/15, NP]
Big agricultural companies say the next revolution on the farm will come from
feeding data gathered by tractors and other machinery into computers that tell
farmers how to increase their output of crops like corn and soybeans. Monsanto Co.,
DuPont Co. and other companies are racing to roll out "prescriptive planting" technology to farmers across
the U.S. who know from years of experience that tiny adjustments in planting depth
or the distance between crop rows can make a big difference in revenue at harvest
time. Some farmers are leery about the new technology. They worry their data
might be sold to commodities traders, wind up in the hands of rival farmers or give
more leverage to giant seed companies that are among the most enthusiastic
sellers of data-driven planting advice. The companies vow not to misuse the information. CIO
JOURNAL. For Small Farmers, Big Data Adds Modern Problems to Ancient Ones "There's a lot of value to that
information," says Brooks Hurst, 46 years old, who works 6,000 acres with his father and brothers near Tarkio, Mo.
"I'm afraid, as farmers, we are not going to be the ones reaping the benefit." Many tractors and combines already
are guided by Global Positioning System satellites that plant ever-straighter rows while farmers, freed from steering,
monitor progress on iPads and other tablet computers now common in tractor cabs. The same machinery collects
data on crops and soil. But many farmers have haphazardly managed the information, scattered in piles of
paperwork in their offices or stored on thumb drives clattering in pickup-truck ashtrays. The data often were turned
over by hand for piecemeal analysis. Sellers of prescriptive-planting technology want to accelerate, streamline and
combine all those data with their highly detailed records on historic weather patterns, topography and crop
performance. Algorithms and human experts crunch all the data and can zap advice directly to farmers and their
machines. Supporters say the push could be as important as the development of mechanized tractors in the first
half of the 20th century and the rise of genetically modified seeds in the 1990s. The world's biggest seed company,
Monsanto, estimates that data-driven planting advice to farmers could increase world-wide crop production by
about $20 billion a year, or about one-third the value of last year's U.S. corn crop. The technology could help
improve the average corn harvest to more than 200 bushels an acre from the current 160 bushels, companies say.
Such a gain would generate an extra $182 an acre in revenue for farmers, based on recent prices. Iowa corn
farmers got about $759 an acre last year. So far, farmers who use prescriptive planting have seen yields climb by a
more modest five to 10 bushels an acre, the companies say. The gains are likely to accelerate as companies gather
information from more farmers. Monsanto has been testing a technology-powered planting service called
FieldScripts with farmers since 2010 and is starting to pitch it this year in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Indiana, four

of the biggest corn-producing states. Farmers pay the company $10 an acre. ENLARGE ENLARGE No one knows how
much is being spent to develop and market high-tech planting services, but 20% of Monsanto's projected growth in
per-share earnings by 2018 could come from FieldScripts and other technology-fueled improvements, estimates
Michael Cox, co-director of investment research at securities firm Piper Jaffray Cos. "I see it as another potential
transformation of the company," says Robert Fraley, chief technology officer for Monsanto, based in St. Louis. He
helped develop Monsanto's first genetically modified seeds in the early 1980s. In November, Monsanto paid $930
million to acquire Climate Corp., a weather-data-mining company in San Francisco launched by former Google Inc.
executives. Agricultural cooperative Land O'Lakes Inc. bought satellite-imaging specialist Geosys in December for
an undisclosed amount. DuPont announced earlier this month a collaboration with a weather-and-market analysis
firm, DTN/The Progressive Farmer, to provide real-time climate and market information to DuPont's data-services
users. Late last year, Deere & Co. agreed to beam data from the Moline, Ill., company's green tractors, combines
and other machinery to computer servers where DuPont and Dow Chemical Co. can formulate specialized seedplanting recommendations. "When a farmer buys a combine or buys a tractor, they've got all these ways to collect
information," says DuPont marketing manager Joe Foresman. The Wilmington, Del., company's Pioneer unit has
been sifting through farm-level data for about a decade, but now "this space is starting to mature." DuPont and
Monsanto are excited about their data-driven services, partly because they can be rolled out to farmers much faster
than new seeds, which often must endure a decade of development and regulatory review. Many farmers who have
tried prescriptive planting are enthusiastic about the results. David Nelson, a farmer near Fort Dodge, Iowa, who
began testing FieldScripts about three years ago, says it recognized nutrients in soil on a patch of land previously
used as a cattle feedlot. The conclusion was based on fertilizer maps and soil samples gathered by Mr. Nelson, 39.
Monsanto's system said the land could support denser rows of corn, and FieldScripts helped Mr. Nelson increase his
corn harvest last year by 8 to 12 bushels an acre above the 10-year average of 190 bushels. The increase brought
Mr. Nelson an additional $34 to $51 an acre. "We're pushing every acre to its maximum potential," Mr. Nelson adds.

Other farmers are reluctant. The American Farm Bureau Federation, a trade group
for farmers, has warned members that seed companies touting higher crop yields
from prescriptive planting have a vested interest in persuading farmers to plant
more. The trade group also says the services might steer farmers to buy certain
seeds, sprays and equipment for their land . Jerry Demmer, a 61-year-old corn and soybean farmer
near Albert Lea, Minn., is thinking about trying a data-analysis service but has "tossed and turned" over who will
control the information. "It's our data," Mr. Demmer says, but "I'm not sure how we're going to protect that." One
reason that suspicions run deep among some farmers: a surge in seed prices as the biggest companies piled up
more market share during the past 15 years, largely through takeovers. Monsanto and DuPont sell about 70% of all
corn seed in the U.S. Last year, farmers paid about $118 an acre for corn seed, up 166% from the inflation-adjusted
cost of $45 an acre in 2005, according to estimates from Purdue University. Companies say the higher prices reflect
the benefits of using their genetically modified seeds, including bigger crops and resistance to insects and weedkilling sprays that have helped reduce the usage of harsh pesticides. Mr. Fraley, the technology chief at Monsanto,
says it also decides annual seed prices based on seed supplies and commodities prices. Data gathered by
FieldScripts aren't likely to be "a particularly big" factor in pricing decisions, he says. "We'll price our seed the way
we've always priced our seed." Mr. Foresman of DuPont says the company doesn't use data it collects from farmers
to help set seed prices. Battles with seed makers over who controls the seeds produced by genetically modified
crops make some farmers even more wary about sharing information with the companies. In 2012, DuPont hired
Agro Protection USA Inc., an intellectual-property-protection firm staffed largely by retired law-enforcement officers,
to watch for signs of farmers who are saving second-generation seeds. Saving the seeds violates licensing
agreements farmers sign when they buy seeds. Monsanto has filed lawsuits against nearly 150 U.S. farmers since
1997 for replanting seeds that contain the company's proprietary characteristics. Last year, the company won a

The mostworried farmers fear that somehow rivals could use the data to their own
advantage. For example, if nearby farmers saw crop-yield information, it might spur
unwanted competition to rent farmland, pushing land costs higher. Other farmers
fret that Wall Street traders could use the data to make bets on futures contracts. If
such bets push futures-contract prices lower early in the growing season, it might
squeeze the profits farmers otherwise could lock in for their crops by selling futures.
U.S. Supreme Court victory in a case against an Indiana farmer who was 75 years old at the time.

Turn- drones increase the usage of pesticides because they


make them more cost effective
Cornett, Director of WPHA (Western Plant Health Association),
13

[Richard, 9-22-13, Farm Press, Drones and pesticide spraying a promising


partnership, http://westernfarmpress.com/grapes/drones-and-pesticide-sprayingpromising-partnership, accessed 6-8-15, -MBk]
UC Davis researchers test a remote-controlled helicopter to spray pesticides on vineyards, which are normally
sprayed using ground vehicles. Yamaha, who supplies Japanese rice farmers with flying sprayers, provided the
helicopter for these tests. Photos taken at the UC Davis Oakville Station in Oakville, Calif. on May 7, 2013. Like so

the use of unmanned


drones in agricultural production presents an intriguing possibility that has a good chance
many technological innovations improved upon and perfected by the military,

of catching on in the United States. I read with amazement several recent news articles about the research being
conducted by the Yamaha Motor Corp. USA and ag engineers at the University of California-Davis. Imagine some
day in the not too distant future utilizing 200-pound motorcycle-sized pilotless helicopters and fixed-winged aircraft
to apply products to fields. To Americans the scenario might seem mindboggling but the fact is that

drones

have been in use in Japan for the last 20 years . The government introduced them into the
Japanese agricultural industry to address an aging farming population. There are more than 2,500 Yamaha RMAX
helicopters in use over 2.5 million acres of rice fields in the country .

Pilotless choppers are also well on


their way to being approved for use in Australia, mainly for weed control.
Agricultural research on uses of unmanned aircraft is becoming more visible
throughout the United States. At Michigan State University, for example, scientists are exploring
how they can be used for various agricultural activities, including surveying fields; crop health and
watering; bringing out pesticides and fertilizers or other beneficial substances; and herding or searching
for animals. Which brings me back to the promising research conducted at a UC Davis vineyard in Oakville where
Ken Giles, professor of agricultural engineering at the university, showed off to the media last month one of those
RMAX vehicles in test flights that revealed surgical and lightning-fast movements over the vineyards. Similar testing
began at the vineyard as far back as November. In conducting such flights, Giles and his team are gathering data
and researching the feasibility of the unmanned helicopters for pesticide use . In the
tests performed last month the flights used water instead of pesticides. The Federal Aviation Administration forbids
pesticide applications from pilotless helicopters because they view them as experimental vehicles. UC Davis is
one of five universities in the U.S. researching the use of the helicopters for agricultural purposes. But Davis is the
only university considering them for pesticide spraying. The FAA has approved a permit for Davis to conduct its
experiments. Data

collected in the Oakville tests so far indicate the helicopter is


providing thorough coverage across the vineyard and that the air currents created by the rotors
cause the spray to reach even the undersides of the grapevine leaf canopy. The RMAX is equipped with one 8-liter
tank on either side of the fuselage, giving it the capacity to carry slightly more than 4 gallons of liquid before having

At full spray it can operate for about 10 to 15 minutes and cover about
four to 12 acres per hour, which makes it obviously faster than a tractor. The
helicopter is operated by a two-person team a controller and spotter who must
pass written tests and be FAA certified. UC Davis researchers test a remote-controlled helicopter to
to be refilled.

spray pesticides on vineyards, which are normally sprayed using ground vehicles. Yamaha, who supplies Japanese
rice farmers with flying sprayers, provided the helicopter for these tests. Photos taken at the UC Davis Oakville
Station in Oakville, Calif. on May 7, 2013. Out of curiosity, I contacted Jeff Vanderbilt, manager of Valley Crop
Dusters, Inc., in Westley, to get his take on the feasibility of eventually using such drones in his own business. From
a safety viewpoint, any time you

can use unmanned planes and helicopters it cuts down on


the possibility of pilots being killed while making aerial applications, he said. So this is
a big plus. However, he said hed prefer to reserve judgment until all the tests are in so he could compare the
results to those of traditional aerial application methods. If they can contain the volume of chemicals we now
use and apply them in a timely and cost-effective manner, then they might
represent a new tool for agricultural usage.

No Impact to Food wars


Allouche, research Fellow @ Institute for Development Studies,
11

[Jeremy, water supply and sanitation @ Institute for Development Studies, frmr
professor MIT, The sustainability and resilience of global water and food systems:
Political analysis of the interplay between security, resource scarcity, political
systems and global trade, Food Policy, Vol. 36 Supplement 1, p. S3-S8, January,
Accessed 6/28/15, NP]
The question of resource scarcity has led to many debates on whether scarcity
(whether of food or water) will lead to conflict and war. The underlining reasoning
behind most of these discourses over food and water wars comes from the
Malthusian belief that there is an imbalance between the economic availability of
natural resources and population growth since while food production grows linearly,
population increases exponentially. Following this reasoning, neo-Malthusians claim
that finite natural resources place a strict limit on the growth of human population
and aggregate consumption; if these limits are exceeded, social breakdown, conflict
and wars result. Nonetheless, it seems that most empirical studies do not support
any of these neo-Malthusian arguments . Technological change and greater inputs of capital have
dramatically increased labour productivity in agriculture. More generally, the neo-Malthusian view has suffered
because during the last two centuries humankind has breached many resource barriers that seemed

Lessons from history: alarmist scenarios, resource wars and


international relations In a so-called age of uncertainty, a number of alarmist
scenarios have linked the increasing use of water resources and food insecurity with
wars. The idea of water wars (perhaps more than food wars) is a dominant discourse
in the media (see for example Smith, 2009), NGOs (International Alert, 2007) and within
international organizations (UNEP, 2007). In 2007, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
declared that water scarcity threatens economic and social gains and is a potent
fuel for wars and conflict (Lewis, 2007). Of course, this type of discourse has an
instrumental purpose; security and conflict are here used for raising water/food as
key policy priorities at the international level. In the Middle East, presidents, prime
ministers and foreign ministers have also used this bellicose rhetoric . Boutrous BoutrosGali said; the next war in the Middle East will be over water, not politics (Boutros BoutrosGali in Butts, 1997, p. 65). The question is not whether the sharing of transboundary water
sparks political tension and alarmist declaration, but rather to what extent water
has been a principal factor in international conflicts . The evidence seems quite
weak. Whether by president Sadat in Egypt or King Hussein in Jordan, none of these
declarations have been followed up by military action . The governance of transboundary water
unchallengeable.

has gained increased attention these last decades. This has a direct impact on the global food system as water

The likelihood of
conflicts over water is an important parameter to consider in assessing the stability ,
sustainability and resilience of global food systems . None of the various and
extensive databases on the causes of war show water as a casus belli. Using the
International Crisis Behavior (ICB) data set and supplementary data from the
University of Alabama on water conflicts, Hewitt, Wolf and Hammer found only
seven disputes where water seems to have been at least a partial cause for conflict
(Wolf, 1998, p. 251). In fact, about 80% of the incidents relating to water were limited
purely to governmental rhetoric intended for the electorate (Otchet, 2001, p. 18). As
shown in The Basins At Risk (BAR) water event database, more than two-thirds of
over 1800 water-related events fall on the cooperative scale (Yoffe et al., 2003).
Indeed, if one takes into account a much longer period, the following figures clearly
allocation agreements determine the amount of water that can used for irrigated agriculture.

demonstrate this argument. According to studies by the United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO), organized political bodies signed between the year 805 and 1984 more
than 3600 water-related treaties, and approximately 300 treaties dealing with water management or allocations in

The fear around water


wars have been driven by a Malthusian outlook which equates scarcity with
violence, conflict and war. There is however no direct correlation between water
scarcity and transboundary conflict. Most specialists now tend to agree that the
major issue is not scarcity per se but rather the allocation of water resources
between the different riparian states (see for example Allouche, 2005, Allouche, 2007 and [Rouyer,
2000] ). Water rich countries have been involved in a number of disputes with other
relatively water rich countries (see for example India/Pakistan or Brazil/Argentina). The perception
of each states estimated water needs really constitutes the core issue in
transboundary water relations. Indeed, whether this scarcity exists or not in reality,
perceptions of the amount of available water shapes peoples attitude towards the
environment (Ohlsson, 1999). In fact, some water experts have argued that scarcity
drives the process of co-operation among riparians (Dinar and Dinar, 2005 and Brochmann and
international basins have been negotiated since 1945 (FAO, 1978 and FAO, 1984).

Gleditsch, 2006). In terms of international relations, the threat of water wars due to increasing scarcity does not
make much sense in the light of the recent historical record. Overall,

the water war rationale expects

conflict to occur over water, and appears to suggest that violence is a viable means of securing national
water supplies, an argument which is highly contestable. The debates over the likely impacts of climate change
have again popularised the idea of water wars. The argument runs that climate change will precipitate worsening
ecological conditions contributing to resource scarcities, social breakdown, institutional failure, mass migrations and
in turn cause greater political instability and conflict (Brauch, 2002 and Pervis and Busby, 2004). In a report for the
US Department of Defense, Schwartz and Randall (2003) speculate about the consequences of a worst-case climate
change scenario arguing that water shortages will lead to aggressive wars (Schwartz and Randall, 2003, p. 15).
Despite growing concern that climate change will lead to instability and violent conflict,

to substantiate the connections is thin

the evidence base


2008).

( [Barnett and Adger, 2007] and Kevane and Gray,

Agriculture: 2NC Bees Defense


No collapse of bees
Competitive Enterprise Institute, Economic Think-tank,
editorial, 13
[2013 Honeybee losses are manageable,
http://www.safechemicalpolicy.org/honeybee-losses-are-manageable/, page # 1,
JMB]
A 2013 Huffington Post headline exclaimed: "Honey Bees Are Dying Putting America at Risk of a Food Disaster." And
the Natural Resources Defense Council claims: "Honey bees are disappearing across the country, putting $15 billion
worth of fruits, nuts and vegetables at risk" Another article maintains that 70 percent of our food supply is
pollinated by honeybees.

These claims are all flat wrong. While they make great headlines,
they create a misleading impression that periodic honeybee losses seriously
threatens our food supply. It is true that hive health issues are of concern because farmers rely on
honeybees for the production of many fruits, nuts, and vegetables. About one third of food production in the United
States benefits from honey bee pollination, according to USDA California almond growers depend on honey bees
exclusively to pollinate crops, requiring 60 percent of the commercial honey bee hives in the country to produce 80
percent of the world's supply of almonds. Almonds constitute California's highest-valued agricultural export,
according to agricultural economist Hoy Carman of the University of California-Davis. While poor hive health is
unlikely to completely undermine production of these foods, it could make them more expensive. In fact, according

High annual losses represent an


expensive challenge for beekeepers and potentially consumers, but even then, we
should not expect a catastrophe. Professor Jamie Ellis of the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences
at the University of Florida notes: Yet. no one believes that honey bees will disappear
altogether, even with the concerns over CCD. Instead, the average American may experience increased food
Carman, fees for pollinating almonds have increased substantially. []

prices and decreased food availability if honey bees continue to die at the current rate. The almond industry
illustrates this point well. Not all food depends on honeybees, and essential grains, particularly corn, rice and
wheat, constitute the largest part of our diets and these are pollinated by the wind. Researchers from the University
of Minnesota and U.S Geological Survey, writing in Environmental Science and Technology , point out: " Thus

the
prospect of human starvation in the absence of bees IS remote, but crop declines in
the most nutritiousand arguably, most interestingparts of our diet like fruit,
vegetables, and alfalfa hay for meat and dairy production, are possible" Other
researchers have raised concerns that the amount of honey bee-dependent crops has increased globally and
exceeds the number of honeybees produced for pollination. They concluded that one of two things must be
happening: Either the current number of hives is sufficient tor pollination or wild pollinators are providing an

In the latter case, they suggest that policymakers consider the


impact of land use policies to ensure that wild pollinators continue to have sufficient
nutrition and nesting habitat. Intensification of "monoculture" may reduce the
habitat diversity these wild pollinators require. For example, government subsidies
and policies that promote planting of corn for ethanol trigger land use changes that
reduce diversity of crops around the nation.
important contribution.

Agriculture: 2NC Big Ag Inevitable


Pesticide Farming Inevitable
Cornett, Communications Director @ Western Planet Health
Association, 14
[Richard, communications director @ Western Planet Health Association, 4/15/14,
Western Farm Press, Organic is not the sustainable food of the future,
http://westernfarmpress.com/management/organic-not-sustainable-food-future?
page=3, Accessed 6/28/15, NP]
The unfortunate truth is that until organic farming can rival the production output of
conventional farming, its ecological cost due to the need for more cropland is
devastating. This shortfall of reduced organic crop yields is driven by limited
pesticide options, difficulties in meeting peak fertilizer demand, and in some cases
by not being able to use biotech traits. If organic production were used for a significant portion of
crop production, these lower yields would increase the pressure for new land-use conversion a serious
environmental issue because of the biodiversity and greenhouse ramifications .

Another consideration
regarding organic production is that the best approach to building soil quality is
minimizing soil disturbance (e.g. no plowing or tilling) combined with the use of
cover crops. Such farming systems have multiple environmental advantages,
particularly with respect to limited erosion and nutrient movement into water.
Organic growers frequently do plant cover crops, but without effective herbicides,
they tend to rely on tillage for weed control. There are efforts under way to find a way to do
organic no-till, but they are really not scalable. Now, turning to genetically modified organisms (GMOs). GMOs have
the potential to increase crop yields, enhance nutritious value, and generally improve farming practices while
reducing the need for synthetic chemicals which is exactly what organic farming seeks to do .

At this
moment, there are sweet potatoes being engineered to be resistant to a virus that
currently decimates the African harvest annually, which could feed millions of some
of the poorest nations on the globe. Scientists have created carrots high in calcium to battle
osteoperois, and tomatoes high in antioxidants. Also, potatoes are being modified so that they do not produce high
concentrations of toxic glycoalkaloids, and nuts are being engineered to lack the proteins which cause allergic

Perhaps even more amazingly, bananas are being designed to


produce vaccines against hepatitis B, allowing vaccination to occur where its
otherwise too expensive or difficult to be administered . While the benefits of these
plants could improve the daily lives of millions of human beings across our planet,
there are those detractors who ignorantly refer to them as Frankenfoods
unnatural and unsafe, that should be replaced with organic foods. So, heres the
bottom line. While only natural may be appealing as a marketing message, it is
certainly not the best guide on sustainability for how to farm with minimal
environmental impact. Between rigorous, science-based research and regulation, public and private
reactions in some people.

investments in new technology development and farmer innovation, modern agriculture has been achieving
remarkable environmental progress and will continue to be sustainable. To continue to be successful, we need to
encourage both systems relying on facts, and not denigrating one system to market another.

Americans Prefer Lab food- makes engineered food


inevitable
Cummins, Executive director at Organic Consumers
Association, 2014

[Ronnie, Executive director @ the Organic Consumers Association, 8/23/14, Reader


Supported News, What's Holding Back the Organic Food and Farming Revolution,
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/271-38/25480-whats-holding-back-theorganic-food-and-farming-revolution, Accessed 6/28/15, NP]
Bad news: Organic and climate-friendly food and farming are still a relatively small niche market While organic
advocates can perhaps pat ourselves on the back for finally crossing the 5-percent threshold in terms of grocery
store sales, most people are still buying highly processed, chemical-contaminated and factory farmed food. Farmers

Hapless, junk-food
addicted Americans spend almost half of their food dollars supersizing themselves
on GMO and factory-farmed fare in fast food outlets and chain restaurants. Although
continue planting GMO crops and spraying their fields and crops with toxic chemicals.

there are a growing number of non-chain, farm-to- table restaurants where cooked-from-scratch organic foods
and grass-fed meats and animal products are featured on the menu, most restaurant ( as well as school and

Organic and climate-friendly food


today represent no more than 3 percent of combined U.S. grocery and restaurant
sales. The life or death question is this: If the overwhelming majority of U.S.
consumers say they prefer organics and would like to buy and consume healthier
and more sustainable food, then why arent they doing so? There appear to be
several systemic, deeply embedded reasons why most Americans are still buying
and consuming junk foods rather than going organic. These include the addictive
nature and omnipresence of chemically engineered processed foods; lack of
money and time; rampant nutrition and cooking illiteracy; and labeling fraud . Lets
take a closer look at these problems. Chemically engineered foods and consumers. According to recent studies,
institutional) food is still unhealthy, non-sustainable and expensive.

including the best-selling book by New York Times columnist Michael Moss, Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants
Hooked Us, the bulk of the nations processed foods, beverages and restaurant fare have been deliberately
chemically engineered (i.e. laced with addictive, unhealthy combinations of sugar, salts and fats) by a network of
food technologists employed by large food corporations determined to turn us into food addicts. As Moss explained

in this country and it's


amazing how much math and science and regression analysis and energy they put
into finding the very perfect amount of salt, sugar and fat in their products that will
send us over the moon, and will send their products flying off the shelves and have
us buy more, eat more and make more money for them . These modern day alchemists,
to a CBC reporter: I spent time with the top scientists at the largest companies

aided and abetted by an army of advertising wizards and lobbyists, have perfected the art of turning children and
adults into junk food addicts. How? By changing our taste buds, altering physiological brain circuits, and
engineering our appetites so as to reduce ingredient costs, maximize profits and keep a growing, bulging army of
food addicts, especially children, adolescents and low-income Americans, coming back for more. The nutritional
bottom line is that even though most Americans are overweight and suffering from diet-related health problems,
millions feel powerless and helpless, (much like tobacco addicts) to change their eating habits and sedentary
lifestyles. The junk food addict (especially children), brainwashed by thousands of commercials and ad images, and
whose sense of taste has been chemically mutated by constant exposure to junk food, truly believes that Coca-Cola
tastes better than any beverage made from real, organic ingredients, and that a large order of fries or soda or
sweetened breakfast cereal is necessary to satisfy their appetite. Lack of money and time. The majority of
Americans are victimized not only by a powerful, shadowy network of food technologists, chemical companies and
mass media propagandists, but also by a corporatized and inequitable economy. Even if you want to feed yourself
or your children organic food, and serve up healthy home-cooked meals, in todays Fast Food Nation consumers
face a host of major obstacles, including the high cost of living, lack of free time, lack of cooking skills, cultural
distractions and sub-standard wages. If you ask the majority of people why they arent buying more organic food
and grass fed meat, their answer is certainly not that they prefer chemically engineered, GMO and unhealthy foods.
What they complain about is the high price of organics or that they dont have enough free time (and if you press
them, adequate cooking skills) to cook meals at home from scratch.

Agriculture: 2NC Food War Defense


No carrying capacity risk
Wish, Writer for Allianz, 10
[Vladish, Writer, 1/9/10, Whos Afraid of Thomas Malthus? by Valdis Wish,
http://knowledge.allianz.com/?224, Accessed 6/28/15, NP]
None of the troubling predictions about overpopulation and global starvation have
come to pass. So should we still be worried about too many people on Earth? The
specter of too many people and not enough food has haunted scientists and
philosophers since at least the time of Aristotle . The most famous is Thomas Malthus, who in 1798
grimly predicted that population growth would outpace food production, resulting in human death and misery. The
Industrial Revolution and new agricultural techniques during the 19th century,
however, helped prevent a major global starvation. Over 150 years later, Paul R.
Ehrlich published a bestselling book called "The Population Bomb," in which he
projected the starvation of hundreds of millions during the 1970s-80s. While the world
saw some devastating famines during those decadesin Bangladesh and Ethiopia, for examplethey were not on
the global scale that Ehrlich had predicted. But even after history proved Malthus and Ehrlich wrong, theories about

Jared Diamond, author of the


bestseller "Collapse", says humanity still faces a perilous "population explosion" in
the coming decades. His book describes the bloody events in Rwanda, one of the world's most densely
populated countries, during the 1990s to illustrate what can happen when population
growth converges with problems like environmental degradation and food
shortages. Diffusing the population bomb Malthus, Ehrlich, and Diamond all have their critics, mainly
economists and theorists who deny that population growth negatively affects quality of life. One of them is
U.S. political economist Nicholas Eberstadt, who argues that overpopulation alone is
not to blame for poor living conditions. Global living standards, he notes, have
improved dramatically during the 20th century despite a near-quadrupling of the
human population. "In most people's minds, the notions of 'overpopulation,' 'overcrowding,' or 'too many
the dangers of overpopulation still capture the public interest.

people' are associated with images of hungry children, unchecked disease, squalid living conditions, and awful

"But the proper name for those conditions is human poverty."


Countries like Taiwan, South Korea, or the Netherlands show that densely populated
countries can prosper as well. Nonetheless, concerns that population growth
obstructs development have inspired large-scale family planning measures since
the 1950s. In 1969, the UN created the UN Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), which supports family
slums," writes Eberstadt.

planning initiatives worldwide. In the late 1970s, the Chinese government introduced its famous one-child-per-

While many question whether such schemes are humane, the policy
clearly slowed down Chinese population growth to the extent that India will soon be
the world's most populous country.
family policy.

No risk of food wars


Bennett and Nordstrom 2K
[D Scott and Timothy, Department of political science at Penn State, The Journal of
Conflict Resolution, 44:1, Foreign policy substitutability and internal economic
problems in enduring rivalries, ProQuest, 2000, Accessed 6/28/15, NP]
Conflict settlement is also a distinct route to dealing with internal problems that
leaders in rivalries may pursue when faced with internal problems. Military

competition between states requires large amounts of resources, and rivals require
even more attention. Leaders may choose to negotiate a settlement that ends a rivalry to free up important
resources that may be reallocated to the domestic economy. In a "guns versus butter" world of
economic trade-offs, when a state can no longer afford to pay the expenses
associated with competition in a rivalry, it is quite rational for leaders to reduce
costs by ending a rivalry. This gain (a peace dividend) could be achieved at any time by ending a rivalry.
However, such a gain is likely to be most important and attractive to leaders when
internal conditions are bad and the leader is seeking ways to alleviate active
problems. Support for policy change away from continued rivalry is more likely to develop when the economic
situation sours and elites and masses are looking for ways to improve a worsening situation. It is at these
times that the pressure to cut military investment will be greatest and that state
leaders will be forced to recognize the difficulty of continuing to pay for a rivalry .
Among other things, this argument also encompasses the view that the cold war
ended because the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics could no longer compete
economically with the United States.

Food insecurity would be resolved with international


cooperation and not wars
Burger et al., Wageningen University- Development Economics,
10
[Kees, 9-2010, Wageningen University,Governance of the world food system and
crisis prevention, http://www.stuurgroepta.nl/rapporten/Foodshock-web.pdf ,
accessed 6-28-15, -MBk]
European water and agricultural policies are based on the belief that there will
always be cheap food aplenty on the world market . A recent British report23 reflects this
optimism. Although production is now more prone to world market price shocks, their
effects on farm incomes are softened by extensive income supports (van Eickhout et al.
2007). Earlier, in a 2003 report, a European group of agricultural economists wrote: Food security is no
longer a prime objective of European food and agricultural policy . There is no credible
threat to the availability of the basic ingredients of human nutrition from domestic and foreign sources. If there
is a food security threat it is the possible disruption of supplies by natural disasters or catastrophic terrorist
action. The main response necessary for such possibilities is the appropriate
contingency planning and co-ordination between the Commission and Member States (Anania
et al. 2003). Europe, it appears, feels rather sure of itself, and does not worry about a
potential food crisis. We are also not aware of any special measures on standby. Nevertheless a fledgling
Both

European internal security has been called into being that can be deployed should (food) crises strike. The
Maastricht Treaty (1992) created a quasi-decision-making platform to respond to transboundary threats. Since 9/11

In the
Solidarity Declaration of 2003 member states promised to stand by each other in
the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or human-made calamity (the European
the definition of what constitutes a threat has been broadened and the protection capacityreinforced.

Security Strategy of 2003). Experimental forms of cooperation are tried that leave member-state sovereignty intact,

The EU co-operates in the area of health and food safety but


its mechanisms remain decentrslised by dint of the principle of subsidiarity . The silo
such as pooling of resources.

mentality between the European directorates is also unhelpful, leading to Babylonian confusion. Thus, in the
context of forest fires and floods the Environment DG refers to civil protection. The European Security and Defence
Policy( ESDP) of 2006, which is hoped to build a bridge between internal and external security policy, on the other
hand refers to crisis management, while the security concept mainly pertains to pandemics (Rhinard et al. 2008:
512, Boin et al. 2008: 406).

War over food insecurity is empirically denied- farmers will


adjust based on how much food is necessary to support the
global population
Zubrin, Center For Security-Senior Fellow, 11
[Robert, 5-13-11, PJ, WHY ITS WRONG TO AGREE WITH THE MALTHUSIANS ABOUT
ETHANOL, http://pjmedia.com/blog/why-its-wrong-to-agree-with-the-malthusiansabout-ethanol/2/, accessed 6-28-15, -MBk]
the alleged famine-inducing potential of the ethanol program for
of
population growth. There is not a fixed amount of grain in the world . Farmers
produce in response to demand. The more customers, the more grain. Not only that, but
the larger the potential market, the greater the motivation for investment in
improved techniques. This is why, despite the fact that the world population has indeed
doubled since Lester Brown, Paul Ehrlich, and the other population control zealots first published their manifestos
during the 1960s, people worldwide are eating much better today than they were then . In
the case of Americas corn growing industry, the beneficial effect of a growing market has been
especially pronounced, with corn yields per acre in 2010 ( 165 bushels per acre) being 37
percent higher than they were in 2002 (120 bushels per acres) and more than four times
as great as they were in 1960 (40 bushels per acre.)
In fact, Lester Brown is wrong about

exactly the same reason he has been repeatedly wrong about the alleged famine-inducing potential

Pollination isnt necessary for many of the worlds most widely


grown crops- there will still be a sufficient amount of crops
growing to feed the global population.
Doxon, PHD Horticulturist, No Date
[Lynn, SF GATE, Will Your Vegetable Garden Grow Without Bees?,
http://homeguides.sfgate.com/vegetable-garden-grow-bees-70684.html, accessed
6-28-15, -MBk]
Recent massive die-offs of bees have caused concern about the production of crops that require pollination by bees.

Not all plants are pollinated by bees. Some plants are self-fruitful , meaning the
pollen simply drops from the stamen to the ovary on the same flower or on other flowers nearby. Other crops
are wind-pollinated. Bees are necessary only if the fruit is the portion of the plant that is consumed and the
plant is insect-pollinated. Root and Leafy Green Vegetables While pollination is necessary to produce
seeds for root and leafy vegetables, once you plant the seed in the garden, bees are
not necessary because you will be eating the vegetative parts. Radishes (Raphanus sativus), beets (Beta
vulgaris), carrots (Daucus carota), onions (Allium cepa), lettuce (Latuca sativa), members of the cabbage family

many herbs will grow and produce food in the garden without any
need for pollination by bees or other methods. Self-Fertile and Wind-Pollinated Vegetables Large,
juicy tomatoes (Lycopersicon esculentum) and full ears of corn (Zea mays) are possible
without bees in the garden. Corn is wind-pollinated and tomatoes are self-fertile ,
although more tomatoes will be produced if the wind blows or the plant is shaken slightly. Beans (Phaseolus spp.)
and peas (Pisum sativum) are also self-fertile. High temperature, low moisture or shade are more likely
(Brassica spp.) and

causes of poor fruit set in wind-pollinated or self-fruitful crops as those can reduce the viability of the pollen. InsectPollinated Vegetables Melons (Cucumis melo), squash (Cucurbita spp.) and some cucumbers (Cucumis sativus) are
insect-pollinated. Without bees or some other insect pollinator, the vines will grow, but they will not set fruit. Male
and female plant parts are on different flowers. The bees transfer pollen from the male to the female as they collect

nectar. The vines must be producing both male and female flowers. Temperature affects the number of male and
female flowers and the viability of the pollen, so fruit may not be produced in high temperatures even if bees are
present. Fruit Most common tree fruit including apple (Malus spp.), peach (Prunus persica), pear (Pyrus communis),

Fruit will not be


produced when bees are not present. Strawberries (Fragaria x ananassa), blackberries
(Rubus fruticosus), raspberries (Rubus idaeus) and blueberries (Vaccinium spp.) are all self-fertile.
Bees can sometimes be seen collecting nectar on self-fruitful and wind-pollinated flowers, but the plant will
produce fruit even when bees are not present.
cherry (Prunus spp.), apricot (Prunus armeniaca) and plum (Prunus spp.) are insect-pollinated.

Agriculture: 2NC Honey Bees Defense


Bees populations may decline but they will not go extinct and
bee death cannot definitively be attributed to one cause- even
if drones solve for pesticides they cant solve for the litany of
other reason bee colonies are declining
Ferris, CNBC reporter, 5-14
[Robert, 5-14-15, CNBC, Honeybees are dying, and scientists still don't know why,
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102674583, accessed 6-28-15, -MBk]
Beekeepers are seeing unusually high numbers of their bees die this year, prompting concerns about the health of

Widespread
deaths among bees, known as Colony Collapse Disorder, were first reported about a
decade ago, but the problem has not diminished and may have been especially bad recently. Beekeepers
across the United States lost roughly 40 percent of their colonies from April 2014 to April
crops that depend on the insects, and about the future of the beekeeping industry in America itself.

2015, according to an annual survey conducted by the Bee Informed Partnership and Apiary Inspectors of America,
with funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. (Tweet This) That's the second highest percentage loss since

The group found that large


numbers of bees are dying during the summer months, when conditions should be
more favorable. One in 4 colonies is now dying during summer, which was unheard of several years ago,
researchers began counting summer and winter season losses five years ago.

according to the results. The total number of bee colonies in the United States declined from 6 million during the
1940s to 2.5 million about 10 years ago, but it has remained relatively stable since then. The most recent numbers
place the total estimate at 2.74 million. Beekeepers expect to lose a small number of colonies every year, especially
in winter months when food supplies are scarce. Beekeepers can replace those losses by splitting a healthy colony
of bees in half and buying a new queen to start a new colony. -Dennis vanEngelsdorp, researcher, University of
Maryland But the costs of maintaining colonies have mushroomed. Farmers who lose 40 percent of their colonies
have to split nearly every remaining colony just to maintain their total number. Each new queen bee costs about
$20, sometimes more. Beekeepers suffer productivity losses while they're splitting colonies. And weaker, smaller
colonies do not command the same prices among the farmers who pay keepers for pollination services. " You

aren't going to be able to get as much money for pollination rental, the colony won't
make as much honey, so you are losing productivity," said Dennis vanEngelsdorp, a bee
scientist from the University of Maryland who was involved in the research. Read MoreLandowners square off in
California water wars That has driven up prices for pollination. The price to use a healthy colony for pollination used
to run about $70. Now it has more than doubled to $175, vanEngelsdorp said. No one is certain what is causing
these losses, but three factors or a combination of them seem likely: parasites, pesticides and lack of adequate
food. For backyard beekeepersgenerally noncommercial ventures of fewer than 50 bee coloniesthe parasitic
varroa mite has taken a toll. Many backyard beekeepers struck with varroa mite infestations are not adequately
treating them, vanEngelsdorp said. In some cases, this is well-intentioned. Some beekeepers hope they can breed a
colony that builds a natural resistance to the mite. That may not be possible, but in the meantime, infected bees
spread the mites to other colonies. Commercial beekeepers are treating their colonies, but some of the pesticides
they use to attack the mite may either be ineffective or may have other negative effects on bee colony health.
Pesticides that other farmers use on crops could also be having an effect, he said. Finally, bees may be struggling to

"We are certainly seeing a lot changes on the


landscape," vanEngelsdorp said. "Where once there was a lot of land with meadows of
flowering plants and trees, we have seen a lot of that land get plowed under for
corn and soybean." Backyard beekeepers comprise 95 percent of beekeepers in the United States, but they
find adequate food sources out on the land.

manage only about 5 percent of the bees. The relatively small number of commercial beekeepers make up the rest.

"We are not worried bees are going to go extinct," vanEngelsdorp said. "What we
are worried about is that the commercial beekeeper won't be able to stay in
business. Losing this number of colonies every year is very financially hard, and it is
difficult to replace these guys, because these are the last migratory farmers in America."

Other pollinators will take over absent honeybees-they are


already being integrated into global agricultural systems
Mims, Emory University-Degree in Neuroscience and
Behavioral biology & Science & Tech correspondent for WSJ, 9
[Christopher, 3-31-2009, Scientific America, Plan Bee: As Honeybees Die Out, Will
Other Species Take Their Place?, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/otherbee-species-subbing-for-honeybees/, accessed 6-28-15, -MBk]
Honeybees have been dying in record numbers in the U.S. for at least the past two years. Experts attribute the
mass deaths to a catchall condition known as colony collapse disorder (CCD), although both a cure and the culprit

Despite as much as a 35 percent loss of bees per year, we remain


almost entirely dependent on what until recently was a self-renewing annual
population of billions of honeybees to pollinate over 130 kinds of fruit and nut crops.
"We can't rely on the honeybee forever," says Blair Sampson, an entomologist with the U.S.
remain elusive.

Department of Agriculture (USDA). That's a problem, given that entomologists have yet to come up with a viable

researchers report that another bee known as the blue orchard, or


Osmia lignaria, holds out promise of filling in the void. The blue orchard bee, also known as the
alternative. But

orchard mason bee, is one of 3,000 bee species native to the U.S. and is currently the subject of intensive study by
the USDA's Pollinating Insect Biology, Management and Systematics Research Unit at Utah State University in
Logan. James Cane, an entomologist at the Logan bee lab, has been working for 10 years to increase the availability

The reason
these bees are considered the best potential honeybee stand-ins, Cane says, is that
unlike some specialist native species, blue orchard bees, like honeybees, can
pollinate a variety of cropsincluding almonds, peaches, plums, cherries, apples
and others. In just about every other respect, however, these bees are totally unlike their European brethren.
For one, they tend to live alone. In the wild, rather than hives, they inhabit boreholes drilled by beetles into
the trunks and branches of dead trees. When cultivated, they will happily occupy holes drilled
into lumber or even Styrofoam blocks. The blue orchard bees also do not produce honey, rarely sting
and, owing to their solitary nature, do not swarm. They are incredibly efficient pollinators of many
tree fruit cropson a typical acre, 2,000 blue orchard bees can do the work of more
than 100,000 honeybees. Their biggest drawback is that beekeepers can only increase their populations
of these bees and he says there are now a million blue orchards pollinating crops in California.

by a factor of three to eight each year. (Honey bees can grow from a small colony consisting of a queen and a few
dozen workers to a population of 20,000 foragers in a few months.) "We're still in the development stage of
applying all the research that has been done" by USDA's Agricultural Research Service, says David Moreland, CEO of

Of the nearly
700,000 acres (285,000 hectares) of almonds cultivated in California this growing
season, as many as 300 acres (120 hectares) were pollinated by blue orchards ,
AgPollen, the worlds leading producer of blue orchard bees for the California almond industry.

according to Moreland. Growers' inspiration for trying the new pollinator is simple economicslast season they
were paying up to $300 an acre to rent honeybees, 10 times what they paid a decade ago.* This trend has made
blue orchard bees cost-competitive with honeybees, but only barely. "It's not clear we can [raise blue orchard bees
on a commercial scale] in a cost-effective way," says Karen Strickler, an entomologist at the University of Idaho
from 1993-2000 who has worked with solitary bees and who currently distributes them to beekeepers and hobbyists
through the bee dealership PollinatorParadise.com, located in New Mexico. A nother

solitary bee, known


as the leaf-cutter, is the success story on which scientists and beekeepers hope to
model the trajectory of the blue orchard bee. "Ninety percent of all alfalfa seed in
the U.S. is grown using the alfalfa leaf-cutter bee for pollination ," Moreland says. "That's
hugethat's an industry that over the past 25 years went from zero to the preferred bee. So there's a model there
that says: 'This has happened before, it can happen again.'" Cane, described by his peers as one of the world
experts on orchard bees, cautions that these bees currently can only supplementand not supplanthoneybees.
"The sheer number of bees you would needat least 500 per acre (0.4 hectare)it will never replace honeybees,"
says Cane. "That's an outrageous number if you think about it." AgPollen's Moreland is more optimistic. " If

we

got to the point that we could not maintain populations [of honeybees]," he says,
"this is one way to ensure that the largest dollar specialty crop in California for
exportthe almonddoesn't lose its pollinator."

Honeybees wont die absent the aff- the White Houses new
policy concerning pollinators proves that the status quo solves
for honeybee decline
Naylor, NPR-Washington Correspondent,5-19
[Brian, 5-19-2015, NPR, Plan Bee: White House Unveils Strategy To Protect
Pollinators, http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/05/19/407955318/planbee-white-house-unveils-strategy-to-protect-pollinators, accessed 6-28-15, -MBk]
There is a buzz in the air in Washington , and it's about honeybees. Concerned about an alarming
decline in honeybee colonies, the Obama administration has released a National Strategy to
Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators . NPR's Dan Charles says the strategy,
despite its rather bureaucratic title, is pretty straightforward: " The government will provide money
for more bee habitat and more research into ways to protect bees from disease and
pesticides. The Environmental Protection Agency also will re-evaluate a class of insecticides called
neonicotinoids ... which are commonly used on some of the most widely planted crops in the country." As NPR's

"Scientists have shown that a range of factors from climate


change to viruses to loss of habitat are contributing to the global decline in bee
health. "And two new studies published in the journal Nature add to the evidence that overuse of neonicotinoid
Allison Aubrey has reported:

pesticides may also be contributing to the decline of bees. "Neonics, as they're known for short, have become
among the most widely used insecticides in the world. The pesticide is coated onto the seeds that farmers plant to
grow their crops. These pretreated seeds are used extensively in corn, soy and canola crops. In fact, it's estimated

The White House strategy


aims to reduce honeybee colony losses during the winter to no more than 15
percent within 10 years. It's also concerned with the monarch butterfly, another
species in decline. The government wants to increase the Eastern population of the
monarch to 225 million butterflies occupying an area of approximately 15 acres in
the insect's Mexico wintering grounds. And it sets a goal of restoring or enhancing 7
million acres of land for pollinators over the next five years. The strategy is the work
of the White House Pollinator Health Task Force, an Obama administration initiative
launched last year.
that treated seeds are used in more than 95 percent of the U.S. corn crop."

Environment: 1NC Frontline


No Impact More oil is leaked than spilled annually
Kvenvolden, 40 year veteran of authoring peer-reviewed
scientific studies, 03
[K. A. Kvenvolden, 23 June, was part of the US Geological Survey and Over 10 other
studies are cited in this article, Natural seepage of crude oil into the marine
environment , http://137.227.239.65/reports/reprints/Kvenvolden_GML_23.pdf,
accessed 6-28-15, DA]
47% of crude oil currently
entering the marine environment is from natural seeps, whereas 53% results from
leaks and spills during the extraction, transportation, refining, storage, and
utilization of petroleum. The amount of natural crude-oil seepage is currently
estimated to be 600,000 metric tons per year, with a range of uncertainty of 200,000 to 2,000,000
metric tons per year. Thus, natural oil seeps may be the single most
important source of oil that enters the ocean, exceeding each of the
various sources of crude oil that enters the ocean through its exploitation
by humankind. Crude oil enters the marine environment by two principal processes. One process involves
Abstract Recent global estimates of crude-oil seepage rates suggest that about

human activities related to the extraction, transportation, refining, storage, and utilization of petroleum (crude oil
and natural gas). An example is marine oil spills, caused by failures in human-designed transportation systems such
as tankers and pipelines, which are built to move crude oil from one place to another. The second process involves
natural oil seepage. The term oil seepis used here to mean naturally occurring seepage of crude oil and tar.

Crude-oil seeps are geographically common and have likely been active through
much of geologic time (Hunt 1996). The importance of crude oil entering the marine environment was
recognized by the US National Academy of Sciences in a series of three reports (NAS 1975, 1985, 2003). The NAS
(1975) report Petroleum in the Marine Environment was NASs first comprehensive attempt to estimate the
amount of crude oil that enters the oceans from all known sources. A significant conclusion was that about 10% of
crude oil entering the oceans during the early 1980s came from natural oil seeps, whereas about 27% came from oil
production, transportation, and refining. The remaining 63% came from atmospheric emissions, municipal and

Crude-oil seeps are natural phenomena over


which humankind has little direct control , although oil production probably has reduced oil-seepage
industrial sources, and urban and river runoff.

rates (Quigley et al. 1999). However, secondary recovery methods using increased formation pressures could
possibly cause increased rates of oil seepage. Nevertheless, crude oil that enters naturally into the marine
environment does establish a contaminant backgroundagainst which pollution resulting from human activities (i.e.,
oil spills) can be measured.

No Impact to Biodiversity
Ridder, Researcher @ University of Tansania, 08
[Ben, 2008, Phd School of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of
Tasmania, Questioning the ecosystem services argument for biodiversity
conservation Biodiversity and conservation yr:2008 vol:17 iss:4 pg:781,accessed
6/28/15, NP]
*ES = environmental services
The low resilience assumption Advocates of the conservation of biodiversity tend
not to acknowledge the distinction between resilient and sensitive ES. This low
resilience assumption gives rise to, and is reinforced by the almost ubiquitous claim
within the conservation literature that ES depend on biodiversity . An extreme example of
this claim is made by the Ehrlichs in Extinction. They state that all [ecosystem services] will be threatened if the

rate of extinctions continues to increase then observe that attempts to artificially replicate natural processes are

When society
sacrifices natural services for some other gain it must pay the costs of
substitution (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1982, pp. 9596). This assertionthat the only alternative to
protecting every species is a world in which all ES have been substituted by artificial
alternativesis an extreme example of the low resilience assumption . Paul Ehrlich
no more than partially successful in most cases. Nature nearly always does it better.

revisits this flawed logic in 1997 i nhis response (with four co-authors) to doubts expressed by Mark Sagoff

The claim that ES


depend on biodiversity is also notably present in the controversial Issues in Ecology
paper on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (Naeem et al. 1999) that sparked the
debate mentioned in the introduction. This appears to reflect a general tendency among authors in
this field (e.g., Hector et al. 2001; Lawler et al. 2002; Lyons et al. 2005). Although such authors may not
actually articulate the low resilience assumption, presenting such claims in the
absence of any clarification indicates its influence. That the low resilience
assumption is largely false is apparent in the number of examples of species
extinctions that have not brought about catastrophic ecosystem collapse and
decline in ES, and in the generally limited ecosystem influence of species on the
cusp of extinction. These issues have been raised by numerous authors, although given the absence of
regarding economic arguments for species conservation (Ehrlich et al. 1997, p. 101).

systematic attempts to verify propositions of this sort, the evidence assembled is usually anecdotal and we are

Fortunately a number of
highly respected people have discussed this topic, not least being the prominent
conservation biologist David Ehrenfeld. In 1978 he described the conservation
dilemma, which arises on the increasingly frequent occasions when we encounter
a threatened part of Nature but can find no rational reason for keeping it (Ehrenfeld
1981, p. 177). He continued with the following observation: Have there been permanent
and significant resource effects of the extinction, in the wild, of John Bartrams
great discovery, the beautiful tree Franklinia alatamaha, which had almost vanished
from the earth when Bartram first set eyes upon it? Or a thousand species of tiny
beetles that we never knew existed before or after their probable extermination?
Can we even be certain than the eastern forests of the United States suffer the loss
of their passenger pigeons and chestnuts in some tangible way that affects their
vitality or permanence, their value to us? (p. 192) Later, at the first conference on
biodiversity, Ehrenfeld (1988) reflected that most species do not seem to have any
conventional value at all and that the rarest species are the ones least likely to be
missed by no stretch of the imagination can we make them out to be vital cogs in
the ecological machine (p. 215). The appearance of comments within the environmental literature that
forced to trust that an unbiased account of the situation has been presented.

are consistent with Ehrenfeldsand from authors whose academic standing is also worthy of respectis
uncommon but not unheard of (e.g., Tudge 1989; Ghilarov 1996; Sagoff 1997; Slobodkin 2001; Western 2001). The
low resilience assumption is also undermined by the overwhelming tendency for the protection of specific
endangered species to be justified by moral or aesthetic arguments, or a basic appeal to the necessity of
conserving biodiversity, rather than by emphasising the actual ES these species provide or might be able to provide
humanity. Often the only services that can be promoted in this regard relate to the scientific or cultural value of
conserving a particular species, and the tourism revenue that might be associated with its continued existence. The
preservation of such services is of an entirely different order compared with the collapse of human civilization
predicted by the more pessimistic environmental authors. The popularity of the low resilience assumption is in part
explained by the increased rhetorical force of arguments that highlight connections between the conservation of

However, it needs to be acknowledged by those


who employ this approach that a number of negative implications are associated
with any use of economic arguments to justify the conservation of biodiversity.
biodiversity, human survival and economic profit.

Environment: 2NC Oil Spills Defense


3,000 gallons leak daily on Santa Barbaras coast if we prove
its a bio-d hotspot it means no impact
GPA, goal to establish awareness of effects of marine oil
pollution, No Date
[Global Marine Oil Pollution Information Gateway, Natural sources of marine oil
pollution, http://oils.gpa.unep.org/facts/natural-sources.htm, accessed 6-28-15, DA]
Crude oil and natural gas seeps naturally out of fissures in the ocean seabed and
eroding sedimentary rock. These seeps are natural springs where liquid and
gaseous hydrocarbons leak out of the ground (like springs that ooze oil and gas
instead of water). Whereas freshwater springs are fed by underground pools of water, oil and gas
seeps are fed by natural underground accumulations of oil and natural gas (see USGS
illustration). Natural oil seeps are used in identifying potential petroleum reserves. As pointed out by the National

"natural oil seeps contribute the


highest amount of oil to the marine environment, accounting for 46 per cent of the
annual load to the world's oceans. -- Although they are entirely natural, these seeps significantly alter
Research Council (NRC) of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences,

the nature of nearby marine environments. For this reason, they serve as natural laboratories where researchers
can learn how marine organisms adapt over generations of chemical exposure. Seeps
illustrate how dramatically animal and plant population levels can change with exposure to ocean petroleum".

"One of the best-known areas where this


happens is Coal Oil Point along the California Coast near Santa Barbara. An
estimated 2,000 to 3,000 gallons of crude oil is released naturally from the ocean
bottom every day just a few miles offshore from this beach".
NOAA describe a natural seepage area in California:

The Santa Barbara coast SPECIFICALLY is a biodiversity hotspot


proves resilience
Brown, Biologist/Botanist/Certified Arborist, and Magney,
studied biological impacts, 11
(David and David, 20 October, California Native Plant Society, Biodiversity
Hotspots, http://www.cnpsci.org/Education/02BiodiversityHotspot-VC.htm, accessed
6-28-15, DA]
What is a Biodiversity Hotspot? It is a place on Earth that has an unusually high number of different species, more
per square kilometer/mile than most other areas of the planet. Organizations like Conservation International have
identified 25 biologically diverse places on the planet, recognizing each for its uniqueness and especially for its

California is one of those 25


biodiversity hotspots. California Biodiversity Hotspot Did you know that you live in one of the most
significant regions of biological diversity on Earth? California is one of the 25 most biologically
diverse places on the planet, and is the only biodiversity hotspot in North America.
extraordiarially high number of species of plants and/or wildlife.

Biological diversity (or biodiversity) is a measure of ecosystem health and function. The California Public Resources
Code Section 12220[b] defines biodiversity as the number and genetic richness of different individuals found within
the population of a species, of populations found within a species range, of different species found within a natural
community or ecosystem, and of different communities and ecosystems found within a region. California has at
least 2,153 endemic taxa of vascular plants (species, subspecies, varieties). This means that 34% of the 6,272
native plant taxa in California are found nowhere else on the planet. Many plant species, subspecies, and varieties
have evolved in ecological niches created by the unique confluence of climate, topography, and soils found in
California and nowhere else on the planet. California has many different landforms in close proximity that interact
with climate and soil to produce multiple niches for evolution that do not exist in other areas of North America.

California can therefore be considered an evolutionary pump generating more endemic species than any other
region of the United States. California has not only the highest number of endemic plant species in North America,
but also the highest amount of plant ecological richness as defined by the number of plant associations. A plant
association is a group of plant species that is defined by the most dominant plant species in the grouping. California
has over 2,000 types of plant associations, which is about 50% of the known plant associations in the United States.
The California Biodiversity Hotspot continues to get hotter every year as an estimated ten new species of endemic
plants are discovered every year in California. There may be hundreds of other endemic species waiting to be

There are four areas within the California Biodiversity Hotspot that glow
more than the rest: the Sierra Nevada, the Transverse Ranges, the Klamath-Siskiyou
region, and the Coast Ranges. The California Biodiversity Hotspot contains the highest numbers of
endemic amphibian and mammal species in North America. There are 51 species of amphibians
(frogs, toads, and salamanders) in California, of which 17 are endemic. There are 17
discovered.

endemic mammal species in the California Biodiversity Hotspot including the Channel Island Fox found off the coast
of Ventura County and the Mount Pinos Chipmonk in northernmost Ventura County. As of 2003 (Roth and Sadeghain
2003 - Checklist of the Land Snails and Slugs of California. [Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History Contributions
in Science No. 3.] Santa Barbara, California.), there were known to be 360 terrestrial gastropod taxa native to
California. A good many of these species (including subspecies/varieties) of terrestrial gastropods are endemic to
California.

No Impact- BP oil spill only helped the biodiversity in the Gulf


of Mexico and Florida
Broad, senior writer at The New York Times and two Pulitzer
Prize Winner, 10
[William J., June 21, 2010, New York Times, Dark and Teeming With Life,
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/william_j_broad/index.
html?inline=nyt-per, accessed 6-28-15, DA]
Now, by horrific accident, these cold communities have become the subject of a quiet debate among scientists.

The gulf is, of course, the site of the giant oil spill that began April 20 with the
explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drill rig. The question is what the oil pouring
into the gulf means for these deep, dark habitats. Seep researchers have voiced strong concern
about the threat to the dark ecosystems. The spill is a concentrated surge, they note, in contrast to the slow,
diffuse, chronic seepage of petrochemicals across much of the gulfs northern slope. Many factors, like the density
of oil in undersea plumes, the size of resulting oxygen drops and the potential toxicity of oil dispersants all
unknowns could grow into threats that outweigh any possible benefits and damage or even destroy the dark
ecosystems. Last year, scientists discovered a community roughly five miles from where the BP well, a mile deep,
subsequently blew out. Its inhabitants include mussels and tube worms. So it seems that researchers will have
some answers sooner rather than later. Theres lots of uncertainty, said Charles R. Fisher, a professor of biology at
Pennsylvania State University, who is leading a federal study of the dark habitats and who observed the nearby
community. Our best hope is that the impact is neutral or a minor problem. A few scientists say the gushing oil
despite its clear harm to pelicans, turtles and other forms of coastal life might ultimately represent a subtle boon

The gulf is such a great fishery


because its fed organic matter from oil, said Roger Sassen, a specialist on the cold
seeps who recently retired from Texas A&M University. Its preadapted to crude oil.
The image of this spill being a complete disaster is not true. His stance seems to be a
to the creatures of the cold seeps and even to the wider food chain.

minority view. Over roughly two decades, the federal government has spent at least $30 million uncovering and
investigating the creatures of the cold seeps, a fair amount of money for basic ocean research. Washington has
provided this money in an effort to ensure that oil development does no harm to the unusual ecosystems. Now, the
nations worst oil spill at sea with tens of millions of gallons spewing to date has thrown that goal into doubt .
The agency behind the exploration and surveying of the cold seeps is none other than the much-criticized Minerals
Management Service of the Department of the Interior not its oil regulators but a separate environmental arm,
which long ago began hiring oceanographers, geologists, ecologists and marine biologists to investigate the gulf
seabed and eventually pushed through regulations meant to protect the newly discovered ecosystems. The
minerals service is joining with other federal agencies to study whether the BP spill is harming the dark habitats.
Scientists say ships may go to sea as soon as July, sending tethered robots down to the icy seabed to examine the
seep communities and take samples for analysis. It is a bittersweet moment for scientists like Dr. MacDonald of

Florida State University, who has devoted his career to documenting the ecosystems richness and complexity. In an
interview, he said the sheer difficulty of trying to fathom the ecological impacts of the spill had left some of his
colleagues dejected. Once, we had this career studying obscure animals down there, he said. And now, its
looking at this probably for the rest of my career. It becomes this huge unknown. Inky darkness, icy
temperatures and crushing pressures conspire to make studying the deep oceans arduous and remarkably costly.
Humans are estimated to have glimpsed perhaps a millionth of the ocean floor. By contrast, people looking at the
surface of the gulf have known about the seeping oil for centuries. Spanish records dating from the 16th century
note floating oil. In the early 1980s, scientists investigating the oil seeps wondered if nearby creatures on the
seabed might suffer chronic harm from pollution and serve as models for petrochemical risk. They lowered nets

We report the discovery


of dense biological communities associated with regions of oil and gas seepage, six
oceanographers at Texas A&M wrote in the journal Nature in September 1985. The
animals included snails, crabs, eels, clams and tube worms more than six feet long.
The founding microbes of the food chain turned out to feed on seabed emissions of
methane and hydrogen sulfide a highly toxic chemical for land animals that has
the odor of rotten eggs. Plants derive energy from sunlight and make living tissue in a process known as
about a half mile down and pulled up, to their surprise, riots of healthy animals.

photosynthesis. The corresponding method among the microbes of the dark abyss is known as chemosynthesis. The
minerals service proceeded to finance wide expeditions. It issued thick reports in 1988, 1992 and 2002. By then,
scientists had discovered dozens of seep communities and found some of their inhabitants to be extraordinarily old.
In the journal Nature, Dr. Fisher of Pennsylvania State University and two colleagues reported that gulf tube worms
could live more than 250 years making them among the oldest animals on the planet. The latest expeditions
have looked at seep communities as deep as 1.7 miles far down the continental slope toward the gulfs nether
regions. In an interview, Dr. Fisher said investigations of the deeper communities suggested that tube worm species
there grew slower and lived longer. How long? Its likely they can live a lot longer, he answered. Im

Over the
years, scientists have found that the deep microbes not only eat exotic chemicals
but also make carbonate (a building block of seashells) that forms a hard crust on
the normally gooey seabed. The carbonate crusts can grow thick enough, they say, to reduce the flow of
uncomfortable with an exact number, but were talking centuries four, five or six centuries.

gas and oil through the seep communities and form attachment points for a variety of other sea creatures,

By probing the gulfs deep waters with


sound and other imaging technologies, scientists have found evidence for the
existence on the northern continental slope of roughly 8,000 regions of hard crust
especially deep corals and other filter feeders like brittle stars.

all, they say, potentially home to old or new seep communities.

Environment: 2NC Impact Defense


Biodiversity is extremely resilient-Survived Atomic bombs, and
ice ages
Easterbrook 95
[Gregg, Distinguished Fellow @ The Fullbright Foundation and Reuters Columnist, A
Moment on Earth, p. 25, 1995, Accessed 6/28/15, NP]
In the aftermath of events such as Love Canal or the Exxon Valdez oil spill, every
reference to the environment is prefaced with the adjective "fragile." "Fragile
environment" has become a welded phrase of the modern lexicon, like "aging
hippie" or "fugitive financier." But the notion of a fragile environment is profoundly
wrong. Individual animals, plants, and people are distressingly fragile. The environment that contains them is
close to indestructible. The living environment of Earth has survived ice ages;
bombardments of cosmic radiation more deadly than atomic fallout; solar radiation
more powerful than the worst-case projection for ozone depletion; thousand-year
periods of intense volcanism releasing global air pollution far worse than that made
by any factory; reversals of the planet's magnetic poles; the rearrangement of
continents; transformation of plains into mountain ranges and of seas into plains;
fluctuations of ocean currents and the jet stream; 300-foot vacillations in sea levels;
shortening and lengthening of the seasons caused by shifts in the planetary axis;
collisions of asteroids and comets bearing far more force than man's nuclear
arsenals; and the years without summer that followed these impacts . Yet hearts beat on,
and petals unfold still. Were the environment fragile it would have expired many eons
before the advent of the industrial affronts of the dreaming ape. Human assaults on
the environment, though mischievous, are pinpricks compared to forces of the
magnitude nature is accustomed to resisting.

Environment Improving
Berg, research fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs and
editor of the IPA Review, 8
[Chris, Columnist The Age, Isn't All This Talk of an Apocalypse Getting a Bit
Boring?, The Age, http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/isnt-all-this-talk-of-anapocalypse-getting-a-bit-boring/2008/01/26/1201157736917.html, January 27,
2008, accessed 6/28/15, NP]
But there are substantial grounds for optimism on almost every measure, the
state of the world is improving. Pollution is no longer the threat it was seen to be in
the 1970s, at least in the developed world. Changes in technology, combined with our greater
demand for a clean environment, have virtually eliminated concerns about pungent waterways and dirty forests.
Legislation played some role in this, but as Indur Goklany points out in his recent study, The Improving State of the

Goklany reveals that


strong economies, not environment ministers, are the most effective enforcers of
cleanliness in our air and water . Indeed, the world's 10 most polluted places are in
countries where strong economic growth has historically been absent Russia,
China, India and Kyrgyzstan have not really been known for their thriving consumer
capitalism. Other indices, too, show that humanity's future is likely to be bright.
World, the environment started getting better long before such laws were passed.

Infant mortality has dramatically declined, as has malnutrition, illiteracy, and even
global poverty. And there are good grounds for hope that we can adapt to changing
climates as well. History has shown just how capable we are of inventing and
adapting our way out of any sticky situation and how we can do it without crippling our
economies or imposing brutal social controls. Environmental alarmists have become more and
more like those apocalyptic preachers common in the 19th century always
expecting the Rapture on this date and, when it doesn't come, quickly revising their
calculations. Optimism is in too short supply in discussions about the environment .
But four decades after The Population Bomb, if we remember just how wrong visions
of the apocalypse have been in the past, perhaps we will look to the future more
cheerfully.

Economic Hegemony: 1NC Frontline


The Drone industry is hype, it will be small and irrelevant
Snow, MBA-Drone Analyst, 14
[Colin, 6-25-14, Drone Analyst, Five Reasons the AUVSI Got Its Drone Market
Forecast Wrong , http://droneanalyst.com/2014/06/25/five-reasons-the-auvsi-gotits-drone-market-forecast-wrong/, accessed 6-28-15, -MBk]
Since its publication in early 2013, AUVSIs The Economic Impact of Unmanned
Aircraft Systems Integration in the United States has become the gold standard
forecast for the commercial drone market, garnering media attention typically reserved for celebrity
weddings and babies born to royalty. Its primary forecast is that the UAS market will reach a whopping $1.14 billion
[1] in the first year after the FAA issues favorable regulations and that the precision agriculture market will dwarf
all others. The accuracy of these predictions is enormously important . A lot of people tens
of thousands, if not more have been relying upon them for big decisions like, Should I leave my job to start a

Commercial drones are not just cocktail


are increasingly driving the flow of capital and labor, and
impacting many lives in the process . Inquiring Minds Want To Know Recently, however, a growing
drone company? or Which market should my company pursue?
party conversationthey

chorus of industry observers has started to ask questions about the reliability of AUVSIs findings. This post is a
good example. These individuals, many of whom are among the true pioneers in commercial UAS usage, can best
be characterized as enthusiastic but pragmatic UAS evangelists who dont want to see unwarranted hyperbole lead
to unmet expectations. Many realize that initially overhyped industries never recover because customers, investors,
and employees who were burned in the initial wave of unmet expectations are difficultif not impossibleto ever
win back. They are passionately committed to the industrys success and believe that rational expectations are a
key part of it. With no axe to grind or agenda to advance, I [Mitch Solomon] partnered with Colin Snow
@droneanalyst to explore whether the skeptics and pragmatists were on to some something. We felt our combined
backgrounds in market intelligence and tech market strategy would give us a reasonable set of expertise to draw
upon and would help others form a more balanced opinion of AUVSIs forecasts. So over the past several weeks,
weve been carefully reviewing AUVSIs report, as follows: Compared their research methodologies to what we
believe to be best practices in market research based upon our own experience. Conducted an in-depth interview
with the researchers themselves, so that we could directly ask them questions about their methods and results that
were not made clear in the report. Initiated a follow-up discussion with AUVSI leadership to understand their
perspective on the report and its origins. Performed intensive primary research with about 20 carefully selected
professionals in the field of precision agriculture to understand their UAS adoption plans, since the reports findings
are almost entirely based upon rapid adoption by American farmers. We then synthesized our findings into the
following

five conclusions about the report and its reliability.

Research Can Be Objective, But

it is not an
objective piece of research. The report was commissioned not to paint an accurate
picture of how the commercial UAS market is expected to evolve, but to give the 50
states and their elected officials the data they needed to: lobby for funding during the
Dont Assume It Is First and foremost, every reader of AUVSIs report needs to understand that

now completed FAA-sponsored competition for UAS test sites, and push the FAA to move more quickly on the
integration of UASs into the national airspace. These are certainly worthwhile goals, and AUVSI should be
commended for pursuing them. But as a direct result, the implicit (if not explicit) mission for the two researchers
who did the work was to come up with the biggest numbers the largest market, fastest growth rates, and biggest
costs of delaying integration that they could. An objective attempt to size, segment, and forecast the commercial
UAS market (all of which the report appears to be), is something it never actually was, and we believe its critical
that all participants in the UAS industry know this and avoid making decisions based upon it. Methodology Boring

An
equally important part is the quality and reliability of the research methods . Generally
But Oh So Important A biased agenda is only one part of the story regarding the reliability of AUVSIs findings.

speaking, strong research methods yield highly defensible results. While presented somewhat differently in the

the methodology used by the researchers can be summed up as: Studying UAS
Adjusting the Japanese experience for the US market Asking experts
how big they think the market is / will be Applying research on new technology adoption to the US
UAS market As experienced researchers, it sounded pretty good to us at first. But, unfortunately, it did not hold
up very well to careful scrutiny. Japan When the Best Available Proxy Just Isnt We like the idea
of searching for analogous markets and scenarios that can serve as the basis for
forecasting the US market. The question is: Is Japan an analogous market for the US? We believe
report,

adoption in Japan

that the US and Japan are so different, and the magnitude of the required
extrapolations so enormous, that the resulting data is not useful. Most in the industry
already know that Japans UAS market remains dominated by one product, the Yamaha RMAX (77% market share in
Japan), which is used to spray a large percentage of the countrys rice fields. These fields tend to be small (less than
five acres), are often in densely populated areas, and are located on steep hard-to-reach hillsides. In contrast, rice
represents a tiny percentage of US agricultural output. Our farms are comparatively huge (very often running well
into the thousands of acres). No single product, much less a relatively large, unmanned helicopter from Yamaha is
likely to dominate the American market. And remote sensing, not pesticide application, is almost certain to be the

we understand that Japan has


been the most aggressive adopter of commercial UAS technology as a result of its
rice industry, and we appreciate the resulting temptation to use Japan as a proxy for
the United States, we see such a large disparity between the agricultural economies
of the two countries that we find it impossible to draw any parallels that inform how
the UAS market in the US will evolve. And while no other country serves as a better proxy than Japan,
dominant use of UAS for the major US crops of corn, wheat, and soy. While

the absence of a better alternative cannot justify the use of a bad one. Expert Opinions or Really Just Guesses?

Another method used by the researchers is referred to as survey results . In short,


the researchers conducted 30 telephone interviews with industry experts and asked
many questions, including those regarding two critical matters: the size of the
commercial UAS market, and the relative size of key market segments. The responses were
then used to develop reasonable estimates. On the surface, the approach of asking experts for their opinions
seems sensible whenever youre conducting research. However, many of the experts that were consulted were
hand-picked by AUVSI, which immediately introduces the possibility (likelihood?) of bias given its agenda. Perhaps

more important, not every question is one that experts can necessarily answer well .
Certainly UAS industry experts would generally be well prepared to share their opinion on whether fixed wing or
rotor aircraft will be more useful for particular applications, or what regulations make the most sense for the small
UAS market. But the idea that you can ask experts for opinions about the size of a market and obtain meaningful
results is, we believe, inherently flawed. Unless these experts were professionals focused on sizing, segmenting,
and forecasting the commercial UAS market (and nothing close to 30 such professionals exist), the opinions voiced
by the experts are nothing more than guesses, akin to asking 30 people how many clouds there are in the sky and
expecting to get the right answer. Our experience in sizing markets, and in working with many experts across a
wide variety of markets over many years, gives us considerable confidence in stating that very few people have
good insights into how big a market is today, much less how big it will be years from now, even if they work directly
in it. The lack of insight is only compounded for complex, nascent markets like the one for commercial UAS.

Brief Literature Search Isnt Really a Research Method

The final method used by the


researchers was a brief search of literatureon rates of adoption of new technologies. The authors explicitly
state that they could have gone deeper in investigating how this research might apply to UASs, and that a follow-up
study on this subject is recommended. That they simultaneously cite the use of the literature as one of their four
methodologies, yet characterize their search of the literature as brief and recommend a follow-up study raises
serious questions. From our perspective, the brief use of literature on technology adoption trends is far from a true
research method. Its more akin to subject matter expertise and qualitative insight that professional researchers
might use to inform or validate a forecast they developed with rigorous quantitative techniques. How it was actually
used and what value it added to the research is unclear, other than allowing the authors to make the statement
that because UAS are already being used .we reject the notion that these products will not be adopted, a
statement that even a layperson with little or no knowledge of UAS could likely have made. In sum, we see a
methodology that erroneously uses Japan as an analog; uses experts for answers that are really just guesses; and
relies upon a loose, limited, and ambiguous application of prior research on new technology adoption to validate the
statement that UAS will, in fact, be used in America. As much as we want to support AUVSI, the authors, their
methodology, and the research results, we simply cannot. Sometimes You Get Lucky As a final point, we do need to
acknowledge (and quickly refute) the possibility that despite the flawed methodology, the research findings are
reasonable, by pure chance. Perhaps, as the authors assert, the US commercial UAS market actually will be at least
$1.15 billion in the first year after rules are approved. And perhaps 80% of this, or roughly $900 million will be
driven by the precision agriculture market. But at the risk of disappointing the reader, and with a view toward
keeping this post a reasonable length, suffice it to say that while we have high expectations for the US commercial
drone market, we do not see a billion dollar market in year one. We base our position on the deep understanding we
have developed of the precision agriculture market, which is at the heart of AUVSIs forecast. Indeed, the many indepth interviews weve conducted with farmers, precision agriculture vendors, crop scientists, crop scouts,
agriculture equipment dealers, input vendors, academic researchers, manned aircraft operators, satellite imaging
providers, UAS-service providers, and many others indicate a building interest in the use of remote sensing in
general, and in UASs in particular, but do not support the notion that a mad-dash by farmers and their consultants
to use UASs is underway or right around the bend. And after looking at many other vertical and application markets
for UAS, we do not see any not public safety, inspection, photography, mapping or a variety of other possibilities
that can close the resulting multi-hundred million dollar gap in the AUVSI forecast created by the much slower
adoption we see in precision agriculture. Acknowledging the Effort Of course, its easy to critique the work of others,

and hard to do the work yourself. In defense of the reports authors, we need to acknowledge that they did a lot
with a little. They had a budget to work within that was much smaller than is typical for an assignment of this
complexity, and they invested much more time and effort than the budget allowed. Like virtually almost everyone
else in the brand-new (some would say still non-existent) commercial UAS industry, they had limited prior exposure
to the commercial UAS market, making their learning curve steep. And they had complex agendas to meet in order
to satisfy their client, AUVSI, and its many stakeholders. In light of the foregoing, there is much for which they

creating a forecast for the commercial UAS industry that


participants can rely upon for critical decisions is not one their accomplishments .
should be commended. But

Indeed, its not what they set out to do in the first place, so they cant really be faulted for not accomplishing it.

As we look to the future of the commercial UAS market in America, we


believe the need for reliable data and insights is more acute than ever . Critical decisions
about products, markets, channels, and operational best practices are being made daily, even as we write. UAS
technology vendors, service providers, and end-users are relying on intuition, gut
feel, or data that is very likely misleading. Some decisions will still turn out to be right, but many
Looking Forward

others will unnecessarily result in big missed opportunities, significant wasted time and resources, disappointed
customers, angry investors, disgruntled employees, and many other negative outcomes that certainly could have
been avoided.

The aerospace industry is empirically more resilient than most


Derby telegraph, editorial, 11
[Derby telegraph, 10/12/11 The aerospace sector is more resilient than most
others, http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/aerospace-sector-resilient/story13538530-detail/story.html date accessed 6/28/15 Evann]
IT may be economic doom and gloom elsewhere but as far as the aerospace industry is
concerned the future looks brighter than ever. Pattonair's growing customer base has a large order
book. Sales of new passenger aircraft, such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus A350 XWB are

sourcing and
delivering components, will hopefully ramp up a number of notches. The launch customer
guaranteeing work for years to come. This means that demand for Pattonair's services,

for the long-awaited Dreamliner, All Nippon Airways, has just received the first aircraft. And a number of other
airlines will start receiving theirs. Meanwhile, development work on the Airbus A350 XWB is carrying on apace.
Advanced orders for the aircraft are mounting up. It is all good news for Pattonair and as orders grow, the firm will
be aiming to grow with it. At present, Pattonair provides approximately 100 million parts per year to over 1,000

with the aerospace sector on an upward trajectory, these


numbers could increase. John Farrow, Pattonair's general manager, said: "Many industries go
through peaks and troughs. "One of the most obvious examples being the automotive sector, which
customers across the world. But

seems to lurch from major downturn to exciting new models and a scramble for extra capacity in the space of very

many economic experts, the


aerospace industry is far more resilient than most. "Yes, major effects such as 9/11
had far-reaching consequences for the industry, but in the main, the highs and lows
are far more smoothed-out. "Currently, we can see an exciting future for aerospace, Derby and Pattonair.
few years take Jaguar as a great example. "However, in the view of

"The key manufacturers, Airbus and Boeing, are both heavily into expansion programmes with new aircraft
launched or about to be. "The first production Boeing Dreamliner, sold to ANA, touched down without incident last
month a couple of years late in the making but nevertheless, now on track to be built at almost three a week in
the coming years. "With two fantastic Rolls-Royce engines on many of these 787s, plus numerous components from
British aerospace companies, this signals the start of a long-term, job-protecting programme. "Similarly, the Airbus
A350 is taking shape many companies around the globe will benefit from this and Pattonair is no exception." A
good way to gauge the state of the industry is the level of activity at the major air shows. The company always has
a stand at the Farnborough Air Show and the Paris Air Show. The show alternates each year between the two
locations. This year, it was Paris. The feedback from exhibitors was positive with a more positive feel to the event
compared to when the show was in the French capital two years ago. At this year's event, Pattonair signed longterm agreements with three leading manufacturers, Lisi Aerospace, Bristol Industries and Paolo Astori. But Pattonair
is by no means resting on its laurels or restricting itself to supply aircraft parts. Last month, the Pattonair stand
was present at Helitech, the largest dedicated helicopter exhibition in Europe, which took place at Duxford. The
company is also planning to exhibit at the Singapore Air Show in February next year, and, of course, at Farnborough,
which will take place in July, 2012.

John said: "If we take the Paris Air Show this year, more than 90 billion of

orders were taken. "Companies like Pattonair are inextricably linked to this level of growth and investment. For all
our employees and all the others in aerospace around Derby and beyond, this is very, very good news. "Of course,

there may be minor setbacks along the way, but without


doubt the state of this industry is in far better health than most others." John said that
orders will get cancelled and yes,

the increased demand for more environmentally friendly and cost-efficient aircraft was a reason behind airlines
wanting to replace their fleets. He said: "The continued drive towards 'green' is another major advantage in our
favour. "The

major airlines and therefore the major aircraft manufacturers are all
pushing for new, environmentally friendly and efficient aircraft with lower fuel costs.
"The push for efficient, lean-burn engines has never been so great. This means new
aircraft are on the way to replace the current fleets. "There is much speculation about many of the final decisions
that will be made, but undoubtedly, there will be new aircraft, which will bring jobs and prosperity." Although the
future looks rosy, John is conscious of keeping his feet on the ground and those of his staff. He said: "For 40 years,
Pattonair has served the aerospace industry. "While we never get too carried away, there is a genuine belief
throughout the company that we are in the right place at the right time. "Giving staff briefings as I do every month,
I often start with some realism. "I'll remind the team that we're in a growing industry working with great customers.
"Others, maybe their own friends and family, are not that fortunate and we need to remember that and continue to
give 100% back to the industry and the customers that provide us with business and continue to keep Derby
flying."

Hegemony is maintained inevitably through a resilient


economy, energy production, higher education, and military
power projection.
Donilon, senior partner at international law firm OMelveny and
Myers, 14
[Tom, 7/3/14, distinguished fellow at the council on foreign relations, We're No. 1
(and We're Going to Stay That Way),
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/07/03/we_re_no_1_and_we_re_going_to_s
tay_that_way_american_decline date accessed 6/28/15 Evann]
Every 10 years or so, a new bout of profound pessimism has swept the nation. In his fine book, The Myth of
America's Decline, the German journalist and author Josef Joffe documents these periodic waves of declinism.
Declinists in the late 1960s asserted that the cost of the Vietnam War and social and racial tensions would bring

In the 1970s, declinists signaled


the end by pointing to inflation, oil shocks, and unemployment. An ally fell in Iran and the
about what one prominent historian called "the unraveling of America."

Soviets invaded Afghanistan. In the 1980s, Americans looked with awe and fear at Japan's growing economic

historians said we would soon become one of history's forgotten empires.


But in each instance, the sky didn't fall, the United States didn't sink into the ocean,
and it remains the most preeminent nation on Earth. We need to be humble about our ability to
strength, and

predict the future with certainty, but the evidence is that there has long been a tendency to underestimate

Today, the declinists are back, arguing that China will soon
overtake us and that our gridlocked politics, long-term deficits, and decaying
infrastructure will prevent us from playing the same global role that we have since
World War II. We must take these concerns seriously and not assume that America will retain its primacy simply
because declinists in the past have turned out to be wrong. Leadership is not
something the United States has by happenstance -- it is something we
have had to earn over and over again. So how do we actually quantify power? Former National
Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, in his latest book, Strategic Vision, assigned the United States
a strategic balance sheet of assets and liabilities . His framework sets up a useful way of analyzing
America's staying power.

where we stand today. We certainly have strategic liabilities that we cannot ignore. But what is sometimes lost in

America's assets are -- first and


challenges may come our way. Measuring power in

the periodic wringing of hands is just how extraordinary and enduring

foremost our ability to deal with whatever


today's globalized world is a complex task. A country's strength and influence go beyond the old, one-dimensional

quantifiers that we used to use, like steel outputs and troop numbers. While our military might is tremendous and

power today is more often exercised through economic vitality , the


capacity for innovation, a vibrant and stable political system, and a resilient society .
essential,

It is not measuring strength in one or two dimensions that captures a country's position, but rather the
accumulation and the interaction between these assets. Here, then, are five of those core strengths: Economic

the American economy is the wellspring of our global


leadership. There are not a lot of iron laws of history, but one of them is that a
nation's power is directly related to its economic strength . As President Barack Obama has
resiliency More than anything else,

said, "Our prosperity provides a foundation for our power." The 2008 financial crisis tested our resilience and dealt a
real blow to our international prestige and authority. Long-term challenges remain. But the fact is
that no country comes close to matching our fundamental economic strength. The U.S. economy is built on a sound

combining an entrepreneurial orientation, deep and efficient capital


markets, highly experienced managers, and strong technological leadership . By every
structural foundation,

measure, the United States has the largest national economy in the world today, generating nearly $17 trillion in
GDP. Our economy is nearly double the size of the second-largest, China's. Our stock market capitalization is five
times bigger than China's. We lead the world in attracting foreign direct investment and are also the world's largest
single investing economy. An economy's most important asset, however, is not its sheer size. China's enormous
population base will put it on a path to become the largest economy in the world at some point in the future. But

size alone has not been the most important factor in determining the
most powerful nation. At the peak of Britain's global power, it was China that had the world's largest
history shows that

economy, even though the country was then a middling power in the throes of what the Chinese refer to as their

A far better measure of an economy's health is its quality and


sustainability. We have the wealthiest large economy in the world, as well as one of the most diversified and
"century of humiliation."

technologically advanced. China has a very large economy, but it's still a poor country. According to the World Bank,
U.S. GDP per capita is $53,143; China's is $6,807. That provides an important perspective. And when we look to our
prospects for the future, it's clear that the United States is well poised to maintain our leading position. Think about
three aspects of our economy: innovation, energy, and higher education. First,

the United States has an

innovation edge over the rest of the world.

Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter -- all are synonymous


with American economic vitality today, but only one of these companies existed 15 years ago. The eight largest
technology companies in the world by market capitalization are based in the United States. And when it comes to
the next frontiers in extraordinary breakout technology, like 3-D manufacturing, artificial intelligence,
nanotechnology, cloud computing, robotics, big data, and advanced material science, American entrepreneurs and
companies are leading the way. The United States also leads the world in research and development, with a
projected $465 billion in spending this year -- that's over 30 percent of all global R&D. Like so many of our
strengths, our innovation advantage didn't happen by accident. It stems from the combination of a risk-taking
culture, significant investment by the American government in research, the best universities in the world churning
out good ideas, and the kind of regulations and access to liquid and deep capital markets that make it possible to
turn those ideas into businesses. And all these strengths come together in Silicon Valley, which represents to the

second -- and frankly unexpected -- U.S. economic asset is our


national energy outlook. For most of the past 40 years, the United States thought of itself as a nation
dependent on oil and energy-related events beyond our shores. Now, as U.S. innovation and technology
allow us to tap unconventional resources, nearly every prediction about our energy
future has been turned on its head. Today, the United States is the No. 1 producer of
natural gas in the world, and the price of natural gas here is a fraction of what it is
elsewhere. The International Energy Agency projects that the United States will be the world's largest producer
world our spirit of creativity and innovation. . A

of oil by the end of the decade. Unconventional energy will propel our economy and support American jobs -- nearly

our new energy security is allowing


us to engage the world from a position of strength . It gives us the latitude to support allies and, if
900,000 by next year will come just from shale gas. Meanwhile,

need be, punish adversaries. The success of the international sanctions on Iran, for example, was made possible in
large part because Washington was confident that increased American supply afforded it the possibility of removing
a million barrels of Iranian oil off the market each day without dramatic increases in gasoline costs to U.S.
consumers. And it was the bite of those sanctions that ultimately brought the Iranians to the negotiating table last
year. Like our success in innovation, this energy renaissance did not happen by accident or because of luck -- it is

Many other countries have promising shale deposits. The


reason that the United States has seen such dramatic and fast-paced energy
truly an only-in-America story.

changes is because decades ago, we made wise, significant investments in key


technologies, and we have the right balance of an open investment climate, an innovative and
entrepreneurial spirit, environmental safeguards, infrastructure, and property ownership rights. Today, the wide
availability of cheap natural gas in the United States has become a major competitive advantage for our energyintensive manufacturers, particularly compared with Europe and China. Meanwhile, the reduction of energy imports
has brought our trade deficit to a four-year low, which allows a greater share of the money Americans spend on

We also now have the opportunity for the export of both


natural gas and crude oil to the world, which will support our allies, stabilize the
world's energy supply, and expand our own prosperity. Another source of long-term
economic strength is America's higher education system. Our universities are the
envy of the world. We are home to 17 of the top 20 research universities. Our scientists publish far
more papers in prominent journals than those in any other country. In 2013, a record
energy to remain within the country.

820,000 foreign students were enrolled at U.S. universities. Warren Buffett summed it up nicely in his latest letter to
his shareholders: "I have always considered a 'bet' on ever-rising U.S. prosperity to be very close to a sure thing.
Indeed, who has ever benefited during the past 237 years by betting against America? If you compare our country's
present condition to that existing in 1776, you have to rub your eyes in wonder. And the dynamism embedded in

America's best days lie ahead." Military


might and alliances By any measure, our military power is unmatched, and
that's not likely to change anytime soon. In terms of sheer size, the United States spends more each
our market economy will continue to work its magic.

year on defense than the next 10 nations put together. Our defense budget is more than five times bigger than that
of our nearest competitor, China -- despite that country's rapid military buildup. Even after 13 years of war -- the
longest period of continuous conflict our armed forces have ever seen -- we remain capable of defeating any

The U.S. Navy owns


11 of the world's 20 aircraft carriers, making America the only country on Earth
with a truly global power projection. With more than a decade of experience fighting terrorism,
adversary. But even these measurements underestimate our military's true advantages.

our special operations forces have become a unique American asset. The May 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden's
compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan -- over 7,000 miles away from the United States -- was only the most visible
example of how our battle-tested special operators successfully execute complex missions in dangerous places
across the globe. And by historical measures, the current U.S. defense burden is not excessive as a share of GDP. As
we wind down the war in Afghanistan, our military now stands on a more sustainable footing, without the kind of

We also possess a network of formal alliances


with over 50 nations -- the largest in history. Centered on our treaty alliances in Asia and
overstretch that some have worried about.

Europe, this network has been built for over half a century on a bipartisan basis. No other country can look to
anything like it. These enduring partnerships are a unique American strength, and we continue to deepen them
across the globe today. The luck of geography Geography and natural resources are our most natural advantage.
These enduring strengths are rarely discussed, but they have provided for the safety and prosperity of the American
people from the days since the first settlers arrived. We are an Atlantic and a Pacific power, an American and an
Arctic nation. We are protected by oceans and peaceful borders. We live in a hemisphere of mostly stable
democracies, and we enjoy friendly, productive relations with our fellow American states. The bottom-line strategic
point is that the United States does not face any real threats in its own hemisphere.

Almost uniquely, the

United States is not a dependent power. In addition to our energy resources, we have other
diverse and valuable sets of natural resources. The United States has the largest deposits of rare-earth minerals at
a time when competition for those resources is on the rise. Our country is situated on the largest fertile land mass,
helping make us the breadbasket of the world. We are the largest food exporter, and our rich farmlands help
insulate Americans against price shocks and food shortages. None of this means that the United States can afford
to ignore what takes place beyond our shores -- our interests are too great and the fate of nations is too
interconnected -- but it provides us greater latitude to pursue our interests across the globe. Demography and
immigration We are likewise blessed to have a bright demographic future. Our workforce is relatively young and still
growing. Between now and 2050, the U.S. population is expected to grow by nearly 100 million people, expanding
our workforce by 40 percent. Contrast that with the populations of other developed nations in Western Europe,
Japan, and South Korea, which are aging and shrinking. By 2050, the median age in China will be nearly 50; in the
United States it will be 40. A big part of the reason our demographic profile looks better than the rest of the world's
is that we are a nation of immigrants. Immigrants are both younger than the population at large and participate in
the workforce in larger numbers than those born in the United States. Immigrant communities are also a
tremendous source of creativity, and the United States has a distinct advantage over other developed nations when
it comes to attracting highly skilled immigrants. Foreign entrepreneurs and scientists choose to make the United
States their home because it is easier to enter our labor markets and move within them than in any other
developed country. Our open society allows for more seamless integration than anywhere else. That's why it's so

important for Congress to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill. Reform is not just a domestic issue -- it's a
strategic issue -- and it's crucial to locking in our global advantage in human capital. The virtues of leadership The
final asset is America's unique global leadership role. For generations, Americans have taken up the mantle of
leadership in a world torn by war and scarred by oppression. We have repeatedly put American blood and treasure
on the line to defend our values and advance universal rights. The world still expects us to lead today. People
everywhere look to America to protect global commerce, ensure the free flow of energy, and control the spread of
dangerous weapons. Plenty of countries have leverage. But there is a very big difference between leverage and
leadership. The United States brings to bear more than just resources. It has an unmatched ability to convene
countries and coordinate international efforts. That's because of the attractiveness of our ideas, our tradition of
leadership, and the fact that we've nurtured such a successful international system.

Economic Hegemony: 2NC Drones Irrelevant


Commercial drones arent linked to the aerospace industry and
dont create enough jobs California empirically proves.
Hennigan and Petersen, Los Angeles Times, 2015
[W.J. HENNIGAN AND MELODY PETERSEN, 6/13/15, Los Angeles Times, California's
commercial drone industry is taking off, http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fidrones-20150614-story.html#page=1 date accessed 6/28/15, Evann]
As the largest American maker of consumer drones, 3D Robotics Inc. sees big opportunities in selling minihelicopters with cameras, sensors and whirling propellers that buzz like angry hornets. The Berkeley company
expects to sell thousands of the pizza-sized drones for about $1,000 each at home and abroad this year. Techsavvy customers want them for capturing wave-shredding surfing runs in the Pacific, monitoring oil and gas
pipelines in remote regions, and other uses. 3D Robotics is out in front of dozens of California companies jumping
into the nascent business of selling drones to consumers and commercial enterprises, just as companies in the
state did earlier when the drone market consisted largely of one customer: the Pentagon. Although military drones
were born in Southern California and are still built here, 3D's drones will be built outside the country. California

AeroVironment spokesman Steven Gitlin holds the Qube drone,


designed for first responders. The company is the largest supplier of small drones to the military
but is looking to commercial drones for growth . (Al Seib, Los Angeles Times) So far, many
commercial and civilian drones are being designed here but made abroad, creating high-tech
engineering jobs in the U.S. while the manufacturing is in low-cost countries like China
and Mexico underscoring the challenge of creating U.S. manufacturing jobs. The
companies swoop into drone industry

epicenter of the fast-growing commercial drone business is in Silicon Valley, not Southern California, and the new
players are quite different from the giant contractors that dominate the military drone market, such as Northrop
Grumman Corp. or General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. They're more like the classic Silicon Valley
stereotype: geeks working in garages. "The

aerospace industry isn't relevant here," said


Chris Anderson, 3D Robotics' chief executive. "What we do is more like a smartphone with
wings rather than a pilot and a plane." Many of the commercial drone companies
are so new that it's hard to predict where they will locate manufacturing operations,
but they are unlikely to create thousands of well-paying factory jobs, like the
aerospace industry of a bygone era. Competition from Chinese manufacturers has already
pushed 3D Robotics and some other American drone companies to make their
hardware in other countries. Anderson's company has an engineering center in San Diego, but
manufactures its drones in Tijuana and Shenzhen, China, where there is cheap labor. The strategy mirrors that of
Apple, which designs its iPhones in California but manufactures them in China and other countries. 3D Robotics'
main competition is Chinese company SZ DJI Technology Co., the largest commercial drone manufacturer in the
world. The firm makes the red-and-white quadcopter called the Phantom, which recently gained fame when one
landed on the White House lawn. "We're California. We're a high-cost state," said Colin Snow, a drone industry
analyst in Redwood City. "Capital goes where it gets the highest return."

Economic Hegemony: 2NC Aerospace Defense


The aerospace industry is high now and is resilient
Tilton, business facilities, 15
[Robert, March/April 2015, Industry Focus: Aerospace Moving Onward And Upward
http://businessfacilities.com/2015/05/aerospace-moving-onward-and-upward/ date
accessed 6/28/15 Evann]
Each industry has its ups and downsespecially since so many factors are involved in their success or failure.

One industry that seems to weather storms quite well is aerospace and
defense. According to the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (Deloitte Global) Manufacturing Industry
groups 2015 Global Aerospace and Defense Outlook, after weighing the pros and cons, the industry is likely
to grow at a 3 percent rate this year . It is anticipated that the global commercial aerospace sector
will sustain revenue and earnings growth in the range of 8 percent . Tom
Captain, Deloitte Global Aerospace and Defense Sector Leader, says that the primary driver will be increased
production rates due to the accelerated replacement cycle of obsolete aircraft with
next generation fuel-efficient aircraft, as well as the continued increases in passenger travel demand,
especially in the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region. Deloitte predicts that by 2025 annual commercial
aircraft production levels will increase by an estimated 20 percent and found that from
1981 to 2014 passenger travel demand increased 428 percent, load factors (utilization of aircraft) have risen 25.4
percent, and the number of people flying per year increased 340 percent due to more affordable ticket prices and
route options.

Latin America

Latin America: 1NC Frontline


Cooperation now between US and Latin American countries
cooperation checks war
Heine, Professor of Political Science @ Wilfrid Laurier
University, 12
[Jorge, 10/26/12, Regional Integration and Political Cooperation in Latin America,
http://lasa.international.pitt.edu/LARR/prot/fulltext/vol47no3/47-3_209217_heine.pdf Accessed 6/28/15 JMB]
Despite this fragmented picture of overlapping acronyms, schemes, and
interests, there is little doubt that the forces of convergence have
prevailed over those of divergence. The launch of the Latin American and
Caribbean Community of Nations in 2010 is proof of this . Mexico, Chile, and
Colombia are as much members of this body as are Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador .
Collective diplomacy, political cooperation, and a regional vision are very much the
order of the day, transcending ideological differences. As may be seen in its reaction to the
coup in Honduras in June 2009, a lack of understanding of this strong multilateral component in the foreign policies
of Latin American nations lies at the root of the difficulties that the administration of US president Barack Obama
has faced in the region, despite the enormous expectations raised there by his election.12 By imposing a unilateral
solution that in effect condoned the coup, against the express wishes of the OAS and the overwhelming majority of
Latin American governments, the United States squandered its influence in Latin America. Inter-American relations
have gone downhill ever since, with the US ambassadors to Ecuador and to Mexico being forced to leave their posts
in quick succession in 2011.

Latin America instability is inevitable - no impact US


intervention checks
El Rincn del Vago, editorial, 6
[2006, CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT CASE: VENEZUELA AND THE UNITED
STATES page 1 Accessed 6/29/15 JMB]
Other reasons why the U.S. government is deciding to strike against Venezuela is related to its oil. Venezuelan
reserves are 78 billion barrels plus the new reserves founded on the Orinoco: 300 billion are making this the biggest
Oil reserve on the planet, and they are geographically located under the United States front door, with no direct
threats to be exported until Hugo Chavez's rise to power. Based on those facts, the U.S. International policy against
terrorism and such threats apply to Venezuela; Hugo Chavez is not a trustworthy leader, he has not been afraid to
set back approach from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This is where the American government is taking
action, looking for sanctions based on Hugo Chavez antidemocratic deeds, and using the Inter-American Democratic

the U.S. government might start


using the policy of direct intervention (First military option, with a low intensity).
This phase is identified by a low profile of paramilitary actions, sabotages, and
others small war strategies. If their attitude remains aggressive and fearless, that is
when the complete U.S. military power starts taking action. In contrast, Hugo Chavez had
Charter to aisle the Venezuelan government. If this is not enough,

already strike the U.S., not as a terrorist but as a people's person, his strategy is completely unusual, he is given
free oil using CITGO Company, a subsidiary of Petrleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), that is located is the U.S., to the
people who are living in shelters, and subsidizing up to 40 per cent of the oil market price for the people with low
income. This strategy is making him to be recognized as a hero on the east coast of the U.S. But this is not
everything, the resulting savings from this initiative, known as Low Income Heating Oil Program, are being used to
pay the rent of the people with the lowest income in those communities. Also is dividing politicians, in one side John
Negroponte said `Chavez is using Venezuelan petrodollars to finance an extravagant international policy, with no
direct reference to the generosity with the poor of U.S.', on the other side Charles Rangel, a Democrat, says `This
gesture is an example, more Americans are complaining and asking for help to tackle the high price of heat their
places (status quo disruption) (6). This strategy have been a complete success, his populism has strike the heart of

the United States. Hugo Chavez is following also the scholarship of Griecco: ` Dealing

with the danger of


domination, at the same time, the very wide power disparities with the hegemon
create a constant fear of domination and entrapment. The overwhelming power of
the hegemon threatens mainly the foreign policy autonomy of the regional states,
and also raises the danger of being pulled into unnecessary adventures on its
behalf. This also creates for regional states a strong incentive to organize on a
regional level. A regional arrangement can be formed in order to be able to maintain
a reasonable degree of independence and `voice' within its sphere on influence
(Griecco, 1995). While the ability of each individual state to influence the hegemon is limited, by working
collectively they can have greater influence, and can make more credible and meaningful threats to raise the cost
of certain policies the hegemon may wish to pursue.' (5, Pg. 289). And that is the accord that Hugo Chavez is

This agreement is their first steps between Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba,


and Argentina as a regional enclave to step out from the American economic
domain, and with the indirect-direct help from the Colombian Revolution Army
Forces (FARC, with more than 35,000 men) in case of an eventual attack from the U.S. Army
against Venezuela. As well, the Venezuelan Army reserves are three times the size of the American
building in Latin America.

counterpart.

Latin American: 2NC Impact Defense


No Latin American escalation.
Crdenas, director of the Latin America Initiative, 11
[Mauricio, senior fellow and at the Brookings Institution, 3/17/11, foreign policy,
Think Again Latin America, Foreign Policy,
http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/03/17/think-again-latin-america/ date accessed
6/29/15, Evann]

"Latin

America is violent

but not unstable. Latin American countries have


among the world's highest rates of crime, murder, and kidnapping. Pockets of abnormal levels of
violence have emerged in countries such as Colombia -- and more recently, in Mexico, Central America,
and dangerous." Yes,

and some large cities such as Caracas. With 140,000 homicides in 2010, it is understandable how Latin America got
this reputation. Each of the countries in Central America's "Northern Triangle" (Guatemala, Honduras, and El
Salvador) had more murders in 2010 than the entire European Union combined. Violence in Latin America is

related to poverty and inequality. When combined with the insatiable international appetite for
As strongly argued by a number of
prominent regional leaders -- including Brazil's former president, Fernando H. Cardoso, and Colombia's
strongly

the illegal drugs produced in the region, it's a noxious brew.

former president, Cesar Gaviria -- a strategy based on demand reduction, rather than supply, is the only way to
reduce crime in Latin America. Although some fear the Mexican drug violence could spill over into the southern

Latin America poses little to no threat to international peace or


stability. The major global security concerns today are the proliferation of nuclear
weapons and terrorism. No country in the region is in possession of nuclear
weapons -- nor has expressed an interest in having them. Latin American countries, on the
whole, do not have much history of engaging in cross-border wars. Despite the recent
tensions on the Venezuela-Colombia border, it should be pointed out that Venezuela has never taken
part in an international armed conflict. Ethnic and religious conflicts are very uncommon in Latin
United States,

America. Although the region has not been immune to radical jihadist attacks -- the 1994 attack on a Jewish
Community Center in Buenos Aires, for instance -- they have been rare. Terrorist attacks on the civilian population
have been limited to a large extent to the FARC organization in Colombia, a tactic which contributed in large part to
the organization's loss of popular support.

Alt causes to Latin American stability


Robelo, Research Coordinator for the Drug Policy Alliance, 13
[Daniel, Research Coordinator for the Drug Policy Alliance, 2013,Oregon Law
Review, Demand Reduction or Redirection? Channeling Illicit Drug Demand
towards a Regulated Supply to Diminish Violence in Latin America, Hein Online,
accessed 6/28/15 JMB]
Regulating marijuana and other drugs will by no means be a panacea for the
security crisis facing many Latin American countries today. Of course, there
are a host of critical issues outside the scope of this Article that must be
addressed, including vital institutional reforms (particularly of judicial and law
enforcement institutions), as well as the consideration of new policies regarding
firearms, migration, money laundering, and militarization.!13 But drug prohibition
remains a central cause of organized crime and violence in the Americas, and prohibition-related violence and
corruption continue to confound efforts at institutional reform in many countries.114 Exploring regulatory
alternatives to prohibition is thus essential to finding durable solutions.

Kritik

1NC- Reform Link


The first link is the Reform DA- the AFFs attempt to regulate
drones as a uniquely inhumane technology makes militarism
worse-Legitimizes other weapons and reinforces state power.
Cooper, University of Bradford International Relations and
Security Studies Senior Lecturer, 11
[Neil, 2011, PhD from University of Kent at Canterbury, University of Bradford
Associate Dean for Research for the School of Social and International Studies,
"Humanitarian Arms Control and Processes of Securitization: Moving Weapons along
the Security Continuum," Contemporary Security Policy, Vol 32, Issue 1, tandfonline,
Accessed June 27, A.H]
powerful actors who aim to uphold the status quo
principally have a role as agents of resistance to control agendas , not as actors in the
In this account of contemporary HAC,

production of control regimes. This certainly reflects important aspects of contemporary campaigns to regulate
pariah weapons but, as I suggest below, it offers a rather incomplete account. Moreover, if such accounts did
indeed provide a complete understanding of the dynamics underpinning these control agendas it would certainly
represent a novel development, not least because the long history of pariah weapons regulation illustrates the way

one factor in the virtual


eradication of the gun in 17th and 18th century Japan was that it represented a
threat to the warrior class when in the hands of the lower classes .48 The same was true of
that weapons taboos frequently reflect the interests of the powerful. For example,

the rather less successful attempt of the Second Lateran Council to ban the crossbow a ban partly motivated by
the fact that crossbows could pierce the armour of the knight and a ban that was notably not extended to use
against non-Christians.49Similarly, whilst the restrictions on the slave, arms, and liquor trade to Africa embodied in
the 1890 Brussels Act were certainly grounded in an ethical discourse, the restrictions imposed on the trade in
firearms were primarily rooted in concerns about the impact of the trade on colonial order. As one British colonial
official noted at the time, the restrictions on the small arms trade to Africa reflected imperial concern to avoid the
development and pacification of this great continent ... [being] carried out in the face of an enormous population,

The history of pariah


weapons regulation would therefore appear to demonstrate a persistent link
between the material and political interests of states and / or powerful elites and
the emergence of pariah weapons regulation . To be sure, the material and political interests of the
the majority of whom will probably be armed with first-class breechloading rifles.50

same, or other, powerful actors also provide countervailing pressures the immediate interests of nobles in
winnings wars with crossbows mostly won out over their broader class interests,51 whilst colonial competition to
secure arms profits and local allies mitigated the impact of the various restrictions on the firearms trade in the late
19th century.52 But the point is that whilst the genesis of earlier attempts at pariah regulation may, in part, be

the impact of such


interventions can only be understood by locating them in particular political
economies of power. What is surprising therefore about accounts of post-Cold War humanitarian arms
control is that this long history has largely failed to prompt consideration of the way in
which contemporary regulation might also reflect the interests of powerful
states and other actors, albeit in ways that are subject to similar countervailing pressures an issue
explained by reference to particular securitizing moments of intervention,

that will be taken up below. Pariah Weapons, Heroic Weapons, and Legitimized Military Technology A further

restrictions on pariah weapons


are often related in some way to the construction of a broad arena of legitimized
military technology. A particularly extreme example of this is the way in which pariah weapons are
recurring theme in the history of pariah regulation is the way in which

sometimes constructed as the antithesis of the heroic weapon a weapon deemed to embody positive values such
as honour and / or which is deemed central to national defence. Thus, the series of relatively successful Acts
implemented in England between 1508 and 1542 banning crossbows were largely rooted in a concern to preserve
the use of the heroic longbow, deemed central to a long line of English military successes.53

The Japanese

ban on the gun was similarly connected to the romanticization of the heroic samurai
sword as the visible form of ones honour, as associated with grace of movement in battle and even
its status as a work of art.54 In effect both the crossbow in 16th century England and the gun in 17th and
18th century Japan became the other which defined legitimized military
technologies and militarism. Redford makes much the same point about English attitudes to the
submarine, which was constructed as an other partly because of the British romanticization of the battleship (the
upper class or aristocracy of warships)55 as central to British security and linked to British notions of valour and

This highlights the ways in which the security meaning


associated with particular sets of weapons technology are not just a function of the
framings specific to that technology but are also relational, with the representation
of one weapon playing an important role in constituting the meaning of another
(albeit in sometimes unexpected ways), and vice versa. Not surprisingly perhaps, similar themes also
help explain the contemporary taboos constructed around particular sets of military
technology such as cluster munitions. Cluster Munitions What is particularly striking
about the campaign against cluster munitions is not its success in banning an
inhumane weapon but the fact that this success was achieved at a moment in
history when, in absolute terms at least, cluster munitions use had fallen from the
peak years of use during the Vietnam era (see Table 2). In the latter period cluster bombs such as
the CBU-24 represented a major increase in battlefield lethality yet its
development and deployment was accomplished with no public debate and
relatively little subsequent protest.56 Indeed, for the American military, CBUs were categorised as a
honour in the conduct of war.

standard weapon, to be taken off the shelf conventional ironmongery.57 This is not to suggest that American
use of cluster munitions in this period went unremarked. There were certainly some critics at the time who argued
that such weapons were inhumane.58 There were also attempts, sponsored by the International Committee of the
Red Cross (ICRC) and Sweden in particular, to promote restrictions on cluster munitions in negotiations in the 1970s
on the Additional Protocols to the 1949 Geneva Conventions.59 The point is however, that these efforts never
achieved traction either with diplomats or with a wider public in the way that the issue would 30 years later .

The
labels attached to cluster munitions and also landmines only changed dramatically
as the move into the post-Cold War era occurred when they moved from being
treated as unproblematic elements in global military arsenals to a form of
technology non grata weaponry deemed immoral, inhumane, and indiscriminate .
Crucially, such a successful process of stigmatization was only made feasible in the
context of a post-Cold War widening of the security labe l to incorporate the notion of human
security as a referent object; by the turn to casting security interventions in humanitarian
terms; and the representation of modern weaponry as humane because of
its perceived capacity to better discriminate between civilians and
combatants. The widening and deepening of the security label created the permissive
environment necessary for activists to reframe cluster munitions (and APMs) as threats
to the human. At the same time, the discussion of intervention in humanitarian terms60
and of precision weapons as instruments of humane warfare61 created a legitimized
discursive space into which campaigners could insert a re-representation of
landmines and cluster munitions technology as inhumane . Indeed, such a rerepresentation only exerted a powerful appeal because it was consonant with both the
predominant framing of security threats in a postCold War world and a new divide between good and
odious military technology. This is not to suggest that such developments reflected some teleology in
which security and arms control practice progressively evolved to be more humane. As Krause and Latham have
noted, for example, whilst the post-Cold War era concern with the impact of inhumane weapons represents a
notable shift compared with the Cold War arms control agenda, it does have similarities with the late 19th century
when a Western discourse of civilized warfare was also prominent. One corollary of this then as now was a
concern to specify what constituted an inhumane weapon62 manifest, for example, in the negotiations in the
Hague conferences over problem technologies such as the dum dum bullet. As Michael Howard has suggested

whilst initiatives such as the Hague conferences achieved notable


successes, they also reflected the fact that liberal internationalists had
abandoned their original objects of preventing war and building peace in
favour of making war more humane for those actually fighting it .63 The
though,

prohibitions on cluster munitions and also APMs can be understood as similarly ambiguous developments. On the

the legitimizing discourse of Western militaries and arms firms was turned
against them in order to generate powerful taboos against particular categories of
weapons even in the face of opposition from these militaries. The language of state security was
coopted to promote human security, to preserve life, and prevent threats to its
existence. On the other hand, the same prohibitions can ultimately be understood less as
progressive initiatives imposed on foot-dragging states by the bottom-up
power of global civil society and more as performative acts that
simultaneously function to codify aspects of a new set of criteria for
judging international respectability in a post-Cold War era, to reinforce the
security framings of the era and to legitimize those categories of weapons
successfully constructed as precise, discriminate, and thus humane . Indeed, to
one hand,

the extent that states such as the United States have been able to circumscribe their commitments on landmines
etc. they have been able to benefit from the broader legitimizing effects of specific weapons taboos without being
unduly constrained by the specific regulatory requirements they have given rise to. Moreover, as already noted,

the presence of pariah weapons regulation is not necessarily a sign of a more


general shift to the tighter regulation of the arms trade quite the reverse in
some cases. Thus, any evaluation of the overall impact of such regulation on global and
local security also has to take into account the broader system of arms regulation in
which it is located, and the relationship that exists between pariah regulation and
this broader system. The next two sections will offer some observations on these issues. Models of Economy
and Models of Arms Trade Regulation The approach adopted to the regulation of the arms trade in general does not
only reflect the security labels attached to particular kinds of technology or the direct interests powerful actors may

Regulatory approaches to the arms trade are also a


function of the particular paradigms of political economy that dominate in specific
era. In part this is because they link into particular understandings of what constitutes economic security. But the
have in constraining such technology.

link between regulation and the paradigms of political economy go beyond this, reflecting a much more
fundamental common sense about economy and trade. For example, the rise of mercantilism from about the 1600s
meant the previous dominance of private arms traders was replaced by that of government arsenals64 and the
emphasis on autarky encouraged a more restrictive approach to the regulation of arms transfers.65 In England for
example, Queen Elizabeth I issued an order in 1574 restricting the number of guns to be cast in England to those
for the only use of the Realm66 and further Ordnances restricting the export of arms were passed in 1610 and
1614.67 In contrast, the shift in economic ideology from mercantilism to capitalism led to the more laissez-faire
approach to the regulation of arms transfers in the late 19th century already described above. Britain moved to a
more laissez-faire basis from 1862 onwards, France passed legislation in 1885 reinstituting the private manufacture
of arms and also repealed the law prohibiting exports.68 Indeed, this was an era in which the Prussian government
did not even feel able to compel Krupp to abjure exports to Austria on the eve of war with that country in 1866.69
Economic philosophy also shaped both discourse and practice on the regulation of the arms trade in the aftermath
of World War I. Against the background of what Buzan and Waever have described as a broader attempt to
construct war as a threat to civilisation after World War I70 private arms manufacturers were particularly
castigated for the role they had supposedly played in fomenting war fever to promote sales, a role facilitated by
their alleged control over the press in many countries.71 This partly explained the attempts in 1919 and 1925 to
develop international agreements on the regulation of the arms trade, although in reality a broader set of
international order and security concerns were also at work (see below). However, the 1919 and 1925 agreements
never received the necessary ratifications to come into force (although they did have important legacy effects) and
the laissez faire approach to the arms trade still predominated throughout the 1920s. It was only in the 1930s that
concern about the activities of the arms manufacturers gained particular salience in both the media and policy
circles. In part this may have been a function of the deteriorating international situation, but as Harkavy has
argued, it was also a function of the fact that the Great Depression had prompted widespread doubts about the
general viability of the capitalist system.72Consequently,

nationalization and greater


government oversight of the arms industry was presented by campaigners

and, indeed, some governments, as a vehicle to ensure arms profits were


not pursued at the expense of either state interests or world peace . Although
nationalization was, with the exception of France73 mostly avoided, by the mid-1930s most of the major arms
producing states had begun to develop formal defence export licensing systems.74 In other words, this was the
moment when the institutions and processes were established that would produce the many thousands of ordinary
extraordinary export licensing decisions that now occur on a weekly basis, the point of genesis for a particular
habitus of a particular set of security professionals. This shift was not solely a function of debates about the role of
arms merchants in World War I, nor was it purely a consequence of the doubts about unmanaged capitalism sowed
by the Great Depression. Issues of power and security as well as the moments of intervention represented by
successive attempts to agree international arms regulation all played their role in this shift (see below).
Nevertheless, attitudes to economy were an important part of the mix. In the Cold War, the regulation of arms
transfers was structured so that it was simultaneously permissive vis-a`-vis transfers to allies and highly restrictive
vis-a`-vis allies of the Soviet Union. In the West at least, these security rationales overlapped with the dominance of
Keynesian approaches to the economy in which the preservation of defence production emerged not only as a
strategic imperative but as a form of welfare militarism aimed at maintaining jobs, stimulating economies in times
of recession, and preserving key technology sectors. This implied the further extension of government oversight of
arms sales (albeit principally on a national basis rather than through international negotiation) and governments
role in the promotion of arms sales. It also meant that arms sales were pursued primarily (if not exclusively) for
political rather than economic reasons. This contrasted sharply with the late 19th century and even inter-war years
when private industry and the search for arms profits were the principle factors driving supply. However, the end of
the Cold War coincided with (and reinforced) underlying shifts in conceptions of economy and security that
influenced the debate on arms transfer control. In terms of economy, the neoliberal agenda had already been
thoroughly mainstreamed in the policy discourse of governments. Greed was good, profit was better and market
principles were the order of the day. In terms of domestic defence procurement policies this was reflected in a shift
to the much wider application of competition policy, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom.75 In
terms of the approach to major arms transfers it underpinned the shift to a more commercial attitude that had been
gradually evolving from the 1960s onwards. Already by 1988 one analyst could note that the political factors that
dominated the arms trade in the recent past are yielding to market forces... the arms trade is returning to its
patterns prior to World War II, when the trade in military equipment was not dramatically different from the trade in
many other industrial products.76The comparison with the pre-World War II era is perhaps exaggerated not least
because the frameworks of national oversight and national export promotion are far more extensive, as are the

Nevertheless, whilst one feature of the post-Cold War


era has been the proliferation of international or regional initiatives to ostensibly
restrain arms proliferation, an equally notable feature has been the relaxation of
restrictions on arms supplies, particularly to allies . Both the Clinton and George W. Bush
frameworks of international regulation.

administrations in the United States have attempted to ease restrictions on exports to key allies, most notably in
the form of defence trade cooperation treaties with Australia and the United Kingdom announced in 2007, although
these have yet to be ratified by the Senate.77 The effect of these agreements will be to permit the licence-free

The Obama
administration has, in addition, committed itself to a radical overhaul of the
American export control system to make it easier to export weapons to American
allies and to emerging markets such as China . For example, the administration has claimed that in
transfer of defence goods between the United States and each of the signatories.78

the case of items related to tanks and military vehicles, the new rules would remove 74 per cent of the items
currently on the US Munitions List.79 In other words, the export of brake pads for tanks may no longer be subject to
a regime of extraordinary measures. Similar processes have been at work in other countries. For example, in 2002
the United Kingdom announced changes to its methodology for assessing licence applications for components to be
incorporated into military equipment for onward export, a reform generally interpreted as opening a significant
export licensing loophole,80 whilst in 2007 the French government announced it would ease restrictions on
products moving within the European Union.81 At the same time as this occurred NGOs became more focussed on
the security outcomes stemming from the trade in small arms and landmines. To the extent that NGOs and
academics have engaged with the issue of major conventional arms transfers, they have tended to follow the lead
set by government and industry by engaging with the economic rationale for defence exports albeit in an attempt
to debunk them.82The combined effect of this has been to give a more central place to a technocratic discourse on
major weapons transfers focussed on their economic costs and benefits to suppliers. This is not to suggest that
strategic rationales for arms transfers have disappeared completely they still remain important factors in specific
cases, particularly post-9/11. Nevertheless, as Hartung has noted, with the end of the Cold War, the economic
rationales for arms sales moved to the forefront.83One corollary of this greater emphasis on the economics of
arms sales has been the post-Cold War deproblematization of major arms transfers84 at least in terms of debates
about their security outcomes. Today, such sales are primarily discussed (by exporters at least, if not by recipients
and their neighbours) in the language of the technocrat and the banker - the language of jobs, financing terms,
market share, and performance evaluation. Indeed, both government and NGO security concerns about the

negative effects of the arms trade have bifurcated with concern focussed either on the problem of weapons of
mass destruction (WMD) (problematized primarily in terms of their potential acquisition by rogues) or, at the other
end of the scale, on issues such as small arms (primarily problematized in terms of the illicit rather than the legal

If neoliberalism has
facilitated a more permissive approach to arms transfer regulation then this raises
the question of why any limits have been introduced at all ? As already noted above, one
part of the answer is rooted in the relationship between legitimized and heroic
weapons and those military technologies that lie outside the boundaries of the
heroic and the legitimized. Being the other of legitimized military
technology facilitates successful problematization and indeed extrasecuritisation. Additionally however, the architecture of global arms trade regulation has been transformed
trade in such weapons). Arms Trade Regulation and the Security Problematique

in the post-Cold War era along with the transformation in the objects of security that accompanied the end of the
Cold War. During the Cold War, the global architecture of conventional arms trade regulation, like arms control more
generally, was principally focussed on managing East West tensions. One consequence was a substantial extension
of the range of dual-use goods invested with security labels in relation to trade with Eastern Europe, most manifest
in debates in the early 1950s between the United States and European states over the operation of CoCoM
(Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls).85 In contrast, the developing world was merely an object
of security competition between the superpowers and therefore a site for the supply of arms to allies. With the
dissolution of the Soviet threat the focus has turned more to the management of NorthSouth relations as the
developing world has been reconstructed as the source of diverse security threats86 and as humanitarian
intervention has resurrected similar concerns with the maintenance of order in the developing world that animated
the arms restrictions in the Brussels Act. One manifestation of this has been in the reframing of small arms as
instruments of disorder rather than the means to shore up Cold War allies. A further example is the replacement of
the CoCom regime with the Wasennaar Arrangement, focussed particularly on restricting transfers to pariah
regimes in the global South. This shift in focus is also manifest in the significant rise in the use of arms embargoes

between 1945 and 1990 only two mandatory


embargoes were imposed globally, on Rhodesia and Africa, respectively. Since the
1990s there have been two voluntary and 27 mandatory cases of sanctions, the
vast majority of which have been aimed at actors in Africa .87 Sanctions, just like the
efforts to control arms to Africa in the late 19th century have not been hugely
successful in reducing the supply of weapons to combatants. Nevertheless, they can
be understood as animated by much the same desire to maintain order in the
peripheries of the world, particularly in a context where Western powers have once
again taken on a greater responsibility for policing and managing instability in the
developing world. Thus, the post-Cold War regulation of the conventional arms trade is simultaneously
in the post-Cold War era. For example,

characterized by a relatively more permissive approach to arms transfers in general but also a redirection of
controls away from the governance of East West relations and towards the governance of North South relations
and particularly the disciplining of those actors framed as rogue or pariah in the security narratives of dominant

The campaign to promote an arms trade treaty may yet produce a more
meaningful architecture of arms transfer control the jury is out. However the framing of the
actors.

Arms Trade Treaty to the defence industry is perhaps instructive. For example, the UKs Ambassador for Multilateral
Arms Control has noted, the ATT ... is about ... export controls that will stop weapons ending up in the hands of
terrorists, insurgents, violent criminal gangs, or in the hands of dictators.88 It should also be noted that current
efforts to develop a global agreement on the arms trade echo late 19thth and early 20thth century initiatives to
govern the international arms trade, most notably: the Brussels Act, the 1919 St Germain Convention for the Control
of the Trade in Arms and Ammunition, and the 1925 Arms Traffic Convention. Although the latter two never received
the necessary ratifications to come into force both were animated by the same imperial concern to prevent disorder
in the colonies that had underpinned the Brussels Act. As Stone has noted with regards to the St Germain
convention for example, there was little doubt among representatives in Paris [where the Convention was signed]
that keeping arms out of African and Asian hands was St Germains chief task.89Accordingly, the convention
imposed far stricter restrictions on sales to these areas as well as a ban on arms shipments to any country which
refuses to accept the tutelage under which it has been placed.90 Indeed, although the convention never came into
being, European powers nevertheless agreed informally to carry out its provisions in Africa and the Middle East.91
The 1925 convention similarly imposed more severe restrictions on exports to special zones that covered most of
Africa and parts of what had been the Ottoman Empire.92 Thus, viewed against this broader history of arms
regulation, negotiations on a putative Arms Trade Treaty (rather like action on APMs or cluster munitions) do not
represent a novel post-Cold War development that symbolizes progress on an emancipatory human security agenda

consonant with the promotion of local and global peace. Instead, it reflects the emergence of particular sets of
relationships between power, interest, economy, security, and legitimized military technologies that in turn create
the conditions of emergence for historically contingent architectures of global regulation. Conclusion The preceding
analysis has a number of implications for campaigners, but also speaks to the debates about the utility of the
securitization framework outlined at the start of this article. First, it provides support for Abrahamsons notion of the
security spectrum. Viewed in a more historical perspective, what is notable about the post-Cold War emergence of a
humanitarian arms control agenda is the way in which action on landmines, cluster munitions, and even small arms
have been made possible by a quite dramatic transformation in the way such technology is represented. They have,
in Abrahamsons formulation, been moved along the spectrum of security from normal, run-of-the mill,

one of the features of


the post-Cold War era is the way in which the security labels attached to major
weapons transfers have, in general, actually moved in the other direction. Whilst
such transfers still remain clearly within the domain of security it is, nevertheless,
possible to conceive the post-Cold War trade in major weapons as having been
relatively desecuritized. Second, the analysis highlights the relational elements that can be involved in
processes of securitization and desecuritization . In the case of the landmines ban this manifested
itself in the way campaigners engaged in simultaneous processes of securitization
of APMs (with respect to the human as referent object) and (relative)
desecuritization (with respect to the state as referent object) that worked to mutually reinforce the
case for a ban. In the case of pariah weapons generally, whilst there are a number of factors that explain their
unproblematic technologies of killing, to ones of extra special concern. Conversely,

stigmatization, one factor can be the way their particular qualities are depicted as the antithesis of those possessed
by legitimized and particularly heroic weapons. Conversely, the stigmatization of pariah weapons works to delineate
other weapons as normal and legitimate. There is therefore a process of mutual constitution that is at work in the
way different sets of weapons technology are framed and understood. Third, the preceding analysis illustrates the
relevance of Floyds argument that processes of securitization or desecuritization can be positive and negative,
particularly when considered in terms of their emancipatory effects. As noted above ,

in the case of
landmines a process of relative desecuritization vis-a`-vis the state combined with a
process of extra-securitization vis-a`-vis the human to bring about the production of
a ban widely considered to have produced positive security outcomes for
individuals, communities, and the human as a collective. In contrast, the relative
desecuritization of major weapons transfers represents a much more ambiguous
development. It could, of course, be argued that such a change in the security labels attached to the weapons
holdings of neighbouring states would not only reflect but reinforce a move to more peaceable relations. In addition,
the relative deproblematization of defence transfers might be conceived as a positive development, particularly for
states that possess minimal domestic defence industrial capacity, and are threatened by hostile neighbours. At the
same time however, such a shift along the spectrum of security arguably represents a quite regressive

irrespective
of the powerful ways in which the security labels attached to major weapons are
shaped by discourse and other forms of representation, they still possess a residual
materiality, however thin, that is characterized by their capacity to facilitate the
organized prosecution of violence. More generally, the transfer of such technologies can also be
development when applied to the issue of arms transfers. This is particularly the case given that,

viewed as symptomatic of a world characterized by deeply problematic higher order paradigms of security and
economy. At the very least then, the relative (if not complete) desecuritization of major arms transfers would
appear to raise further questions about the Copenhagen Schools normative commitment to desecuritization.
Although more accurately, it highlights the effects that come from ratcheting down the security labels attached to
normal arms transfers and subjecting them to the kind of standard bureaucratic routines highlighted by Bigo,

many thousands
of export licences granted for the transfer of weapons other than landmines, cluster
munitions, and small arms are far less likely to become the object of public scrutiny
or become subject to intense public and political contestation about the security
effects of such exports. In this sense at least, the switch from a Cold War arms transfer system where
albeit the routines of the export licencing process in this case. One consequence, is that the

security motivations for exports often predominated to one where economic motivations are more to the fore, has
also been accompanied by a corresponding depoliticization of contemporary transfers, a phenomenon that
highlights the problematic nature of the neat division between politicized and securitized issues outlined in the CS

conception of securitization and one that highlights the downside of even partial moves towards the
desecuritization end of the security spectrum. Fourth, the success of campaigns on landmines and cluster munitions
demonstrates how moments of intervention undertaken on behalf of the voiceless by supposedly weak securitizing
actors such as NGOs can, nevertheless, produce quite effective securitizations in this case, the hypersecuritization of particular weapons technologies. Both campaigns also highlighted the ways in which actors can
utilize media images and, through survivor activism that extended to the conference room, provide a context for
the body to speak security. Moreover, the success of these campaigns highlights the ways in which the language of
threat, survival, and security can be deployed to achieve positive security outcomes. At the same time however,

the success of the humanitarian arms control agenda around landmines and cluster
munitions in particular was only achieved because NGOs adopted exactly the same
discourse around humanitarianism, human security and weapons precision that has
been deployed to legitimize post-Cold War liberal peace interventionism and in the
marketing of new weapons developments . On one reading, this might point to the potential for
actors to deploy dominant forms of security speech in order to achieve progressive ends. On a more pessimistic

To the extent that the


extra-securitization of pariah technologies such as landmines has facilitated the
relative desecuritization of major conventional weapons transfers it has also made
the current framework of control look like an example of ethical advance at the
same time as creating space for the deproblematization of arms transfers in
general. Ultimately then, the moments of intervention represented by the campaigns on landmines and cluster
reading however, it also highlights the profound limits involved in such approaches.

munitions were successful because they did not threaten, and in many ways were quite consistent with, the
dominant security paradigm and security narratives of the post-Cold War era. Equally, whilst the regularized
routines and working practices of the security professionals of the export licensing process are certainly important
in understanding the treatment of defence transfers, this body of professionals were themselves, brought into being
as a result of historical changes in the fundamental assumptions about security and economy. Moreover, their very
working practices and modes of behaviour are currently being altered as a result of similar fundamental shifts in the
paradigms of security and economy which, in turn, are a function of particular combinations of power and interest.
Although these shifts certainly predated the post-Cold War era, they have become particularly concretized in this

a loud ethical discourse around the restriction of


landmines, cluster munitions, and small arms has gone hand in hand with
recent rises in both global military expenditure and arms transfers . For
era. One consequence of all this is that

example, overall, world defence expenditure in 2008 was estimated to be $1,464 billion (of which NATO countries
accounted for 60 per cent and OECD countries 72 per cent) representing a 45 per cent increase in real terms since
1999,93whilst global arms sales were 22 per cent higher in real terms for the period 2005 2009 than for the
preceding period 2000 2004.94 Moreover, largely because of the dominance of American and European defence
spending, the defence trade is increasingly concentrated in the hands of the United States and to a lesser extent,
European companies. For example, in 2006 American and European companies accounted for an estimated 92.7
per cent of the arms sales of the worlds 100 largest defence companies.95 Most arms trade NGOs have largely
neglected issues such as the rises in defence expenditure in major weapons states such as the United States, intranorthern trade in arms, and the dominant role played by Western companies in the arms trade, in favour of an
agenda that conceives the South and in particular pariah actors in sub-Saharan Africa as the primary object of
conventional arms trade regulation.96With regard to transfers of small arms and major conventional weapons it
might be argued that this, at least, also requires impressive self-abnegation from arms trade profits on the part of
powerful states in the international system. In practice however, international initiatives such as the EU Code or the
Wassennaar Arrangement, national export regulations of the major weapons states and the local initiatives of client
states mostly combine to produce a cartography of prohibition that corresponds more closely with the disciplinary
geographies advocated by the powerful rather than any global map of militarism and injustice. One illustration of
this is the way in which a recent review of British defence export legislation downgraded long-range missiles and
the heroic Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV the Maxim gun of modern imperial wars) from a category A
classification (goods such as cluster munitions whose supply is prohibited) to the less restrictive category B,97
whilst in 2010, the Afghan government proscribed the import, use, and sale of Ammonium Nitrate Fertilizer because
it is one of the elements used in the making of IEDs.98 More generally, as one recent econometric analysis of major
weapons transfers from the Britain, France, Germany, and the United States concluded, despite much rhetoric about

Neither human
rights abuses nor autocratic polity would appear to reduce the likelihood of
countries receiving Western arms, or reduce the relative share of a particular
exporters weapons they receive. In fact, human rights abusing countries are actually
the need for a more ethical approach to arms sales from governments in all these countries:

more likely to receive weapons from the US, while autocratic regimes emerge as more likely
recipients of weaponry from France and the UK.99 Of course, arms trade NGOs have often been the first to highlight
such hypocrisies and the work of most organizations include, to a greater or lesser extent, elements of critique or
advocacy that might be considered transformational. However, one of the principle features of arms trade activism
in the post-Cold War era is the extent to which many NGOs have downgraded radical critique in exchange for
insider influence and government funding.100 Instead ,

activism has largely been aimed at


promoting tactical reform within an overarching economic and security paradigm
that justifies intervention, regulation, and transformation of the South whils t (with the
exception of token action on landmines, etc.) leaving the vast accumulation of Western
armaments largely unproblematized. The logic of this analysis then, is that there needs to be a
far greater problematization of military expenditure by the major powers, of the socalled legitimate trade in defence goods, including intraNorthern trade, and a
problematization of the predominance of Western defence companies in global arms
markets. In short, campaigners needs to return to a strategic contestation of global
militarism rather than searching for tactical campaign victories dependent on
accommodation with the language and economic and security paradigms of
contemporary military humanism.

1NC- Domestic Link


The second link is the domestic focus da- Domestic drone
concerns obscure the reality of foreign interventions-they are
only a minor tool for a greater culture of militarization
Farley, Editor-in-Chief of Emory International Law Review, 12
[Ben, May 23 2012, slouchingcolumbia.wordpress.com, Drones are a symptom, not
a cause, https://slouchingcolumbia.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/drones-are-asymptom-not-a-cause/, Accessed Jun 25, A.H]
the biggest advantage to policymakers of drones, in terms of initiating and continuing
use of force, is that they allow policymakers to obscure and misinform the
public and the international community and each other as to the extent of
the military and covert campaign. But thats not drones eluding accountability and
enabling bellicosity, its secrecy and the management of public perceptions . The CIA
If anything,

had methods of doing this thing before todays remotely-operated weapons were invented. Back in the day, when
you wanted to avoid the bad publicity of USAF or USN platforms getting formally involved in shadow wars (and
they often were anyway, as they very obviously are now), you started a secret air force. Former USAF or USN
airframes, crewed and often even supported by foreign nationals or deniable covert operators. This was what

Drones make very little difference in the ability of


policymakers to militarize U.S. foreign policy approaches . They are insufficient for
action in military impermissive airspace, and they are almost always used alongside
manned assets, and they are always used alongside covert ground or proxy forces. This is why I
greatly admire the work of national security journalists (the first coming to mind being Jeremy Scahill
and Marc Ambinder and D.B. Grady) who sketch out not simply the new hotness that is killer
robots, but the full spectrum of direct and indirect methods that are by necessity and by
preference used along side drone attacks, such as SOF, manned platforms, naval assets, spies,
mercenaries, unsavory foreign security services, militias, warlords, and even terrorists previously
targeted by the U.S. to attack Americas real and imagined enemies in places like
Yemen and Somalia. Criticism that exalts the mythical capabilities of drones to
conduct cost-free, casualty-free campaigns in fact enables to prosecution of
unaccountable wars. Why? Because its not having the option of drones which make the
policymakers responsible for determining the mission and demanding warheads put to
happened in Cuba and the Congo.

foreheads decide to do so. If it was, then wed see being drones use din the expendable, cost-free ways that our

Instead, the exaltation of


these game-changing features of drones, which will be eagerly swallowed by
the broader public, if not by critics of the war on terror, is often parroted by the fears of
drone critics, which give policymakers the ability to obscure the extent of the drone
wars and what is really going on. Its not drones that decrease accountability or increase bellicosity.
Its secrecy and bureaucratic politics. Drones dont truly offer any advantages in terms of
secrecy or bureaucratic politics that did not already exist or are not being cultivated alongside
drones by other branches of the military and intelligence community. Even the much-vaunted ability
that drones give the CIA to conduct military-grade secret wars was pioneered
aerially by the instant air forces of the Cold War that it set up , as well as other proxy
comprehensive strike campaigns and covert wars suggest is not occurring.

assets with which the CIA can emply and is now employing in its modern shadow conflicts. The very same
compartmentalization and secrecy that protect the drone campaign also protects the activities of manned strike

Drones only marginally alter the kind of


impunity that U.S. air superiority gave American policymakers to launch its airpower
missions, SOCOM, CIA assets, and U.S.-backed proxy forces.

interventions of the 1990s and 2000s (themselves, as Carl Schmitt foresaw in the 1950s, an outgrowth of naval
technology). Whats at least slightly novel about these campaigns is the way in which bureaucracies and
secrecy have been utilized to obscure policymakers use of all manner of overt and
covert strike, ground, intelligence and proxy assets from proxy criticism, even
though even this was essentially cultivated during the Cold War . Perhaps some day in the
future drone capabilities will improve enough that they will actually encourage the lack of accountability and
bellicosity that critics blame for them. But

the record of drone usage so far suggests that the


evasions of accountability and enablings of bellicosity in question are equally
available to manned assets, standoff naval assets, and deniable covert assets .
Drones have yet to be responsible for a single militarization of a U.S. CT
campaign that would not have been militarized by the concomitant use of
other assets. Theyre a symptom of the post-Iraq decision to conduct comprehensive shadow conflicts
against AQAM ( arguably pioneered in the Horn of Africa long before strike drones showed up), not from what we

They are a useful instrument in


the toolbox. But its the toolbox, not any one tool in it, thats shaping policy . Giving
the drones the kind of hype they receive from critics and proponents alike shifts
debate obscures whats really allowing policymakers to conduct todays wars.
can observe in the conduct of drones so far, a cause of its direction.

1NC- Alternative/ Framework


Vote negative to reject the affirmatives domestic fixation on
drones- The affirmatives focus on drones is not enough,
instead vote negative to reject their singular mindset to open
up the space for a battle against the War on Terror writ largethis epistemological interrogation is a prior question
Douglas-Bowers, writer for The Hampton Institute, 13
[Devon, 8-7-13, The Hampton Institute, "Beyond Drones: Combating the System of
Militarism and Imperialism," www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2013/08/07/beyonddrones-combating-the-system-of-militarism-and-imperialism/, accessed 6/26/15,
CWS]
On September 11th, I will be attending an anti-drone demonstration in Union Square, NYC. This will be my first
protest and I am quite excited. Obviously, the main goal of this demonstration is to protest against the use of
drones around the world which kill innocents under the guise of attacking terrorists. While I welcome this protest,

we must realize that this demonstration is not enough; that focusing on drones is
not enough. We must battle the War On Terror overall, as drones are only a small
part of that. The global drone attacks started under Bush and have continued and massively expanded under
Obama, with Obama going so far as to assassinate four US citizens (officially speaking). Yet,
while this is extremely problematic, it is a symptom of Americas global militarism . Contrary to
popular thinking, this global militarism didnt start in the Bush era, but rather in the time
of FDR, with World War II, and has continued and intensified since then . The US has,
overtly, either already been involved in or started new wars/conflicts every single decade since the 1940s. This has
created destruction all over the world, not just physically in terms of destroyed infrastructure, but mentally[1],

the problems go beyond just the military


sphere. It has leaked into American society, and specifically into the social realm
and how the American people relate to our government . Socially, this militarism has
gone and allowed Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism to flourish in American society .
historically[2], economically[3], and socially[4]. However,

It can be seen in everything, from attacks on mosques[5] to anti-Muslim ads[6]. This hatred and racism has heavily
infected every part of our society to the point where it is seen as OK for TV pundits to spew anti-Muslim hatred.
Americans relationship with their government has greatly changed ever since the War on Terror was launched.
While the government had previously spied on American citizens[7] (and even assassinated some[8]), it was mainly

Now, the situation has become


much more drastic, with the government spying on all US citizens [9], and has given
itself the legal authority to not only indefinitely detain them without trial [10], but also
to assassinate them (Assassination on US soil is still possible, given the fact that there are problems with
Attorney General Holders letter to Rand Paul.[11]). At every level, the very people who are supposed
to represent Americans have been complicit in allowing Americans to be spied upon
and their civil liberties to be destroyed.[12] There has been such a breakdown in the rule of law that
there are even secret interpretations of law[13] that the American people can be
subjected to, but not know of. This growing authoritarianism must be confronted as
well. Economically, corporations have profited quite handsomely[14] from the continuous
wars of aggression around the world, as well as from the business of spying on Americans[15]. They
are only able to do this because there is an economic incentive to create weapons of war and
espionage, and to use those to great effect. In order to fight against militarism more broadly,
such companies should be targeted for boycotts, and information campaigns should
reveal to the public exactly who these companies are and how they are profiting off
on those whom the government deemed a threat to the status quo.

exploiting their customers information. There is a psychological battle to be held as


well. The American people have become accustomed to their country being in a perpetual state of war. In many
ways, some have become complacent at best, and, at worst, will actually support the humanitarian interventions

Just like with the drone debate, we should also work to


have people realize that, while the names and terminology may have changed, the
death and destruction have remained the same. This is especially important for
those on the left, as there are many liberals whose hypocrisy has been revealed by
condemning Bushs wars of aggression, but support interfering in the affairs of
sovereign nations now that Obama is at the helm. We must combat these
hypocritical and uninvolved minds, lest we allow these problems to perpetuate. We
must combat what Martin Luther King Jr. called the giant triplets of racism,
militarism, and economic exploitation if we are to mount a truly successful attack
on the drone war. The drone wars are a byproduct of the War on Terror and its
associated effects at home and abroad. If we do not look at this interconnected system, we will ,
in a way, be wasting our time as we will only be cutting off a branch of a tree rather
than getting to the roots. We must go beyond drones.
launched by the Obama administration.

Framework

Must Read: Legalism Turn


Epistemology DA to their Legalism arguments- Law and Rights
discourse shifts discussion from greater social dynamics - that
avoids responsibility and papers over the real justifications for
drone warfare.
Sclanger, University of Michigan Professor of Law, 15
[Margo, 2015, Harvard National Security Journal, Intelligence Legalism and the
National Security Agencys Civil Liberties Gap, http://harvardnsj.org/wpcontent/uploads/2015/02/Schlanger.pdf, Accessed June 26, A.H]
Intelligence Legalism Crowds Out Interest Balancing

This Article demonstrates the high salience


of rights in this realm. Several related mechanisms convert that high salience into a devaluation of interests: First,

rights occupy the liberty field because of the practical issue of attention
bandwidth, which potentially applies both to agencies and advocates. After all, even large organizations have
limited capacity.319 NSA compliance is such an enormous task that little room remains for
more conceptual weighing of interests and options . Recall that of the dozen-plus offices I
described in Part II, just twothe Civil Liberties and Privacy Office at the NSA, and the Privacy and Civil Liberties
Oversight Boardare currently playing a policy rather than strictly a compliance role. They are also, not
coincidentally, the two newest and two smallest of the offices listed. I think, though, that this bandwidth issue is

rights talk hides the necessity of policy


judgments and, by its purity, diverts attention from that messier field. Morton
Horwitz explains the point: A . . . troubling aspect of rights discourse is that its
focus on fundamental, inherent, inalienable or natural rights is a way of
obscuring or distorting the reality of the social construction of rights and
duties. It shifts discussion away from the always disputable issue of what
is or is not socially desirable. Rights discourse . . . wishes us to believe
instead that the recognition of rights is not a question of social choice at
all, as if in the normative and constitutional realm rights have the same force as the law of gravity.320 Mary
Dudziak makes a similar claim in her recent discussion of law and drone
warfare, In this context, law . . . does not aid judgment, but diverts our
attention from morality, diplomacy, humanity, and responsibility in the use
of force, and especially from the bloody mess left on the ground.321
driven by a more conceptual, less practical, factor: that

Focus on policymaking is the preoccupation through which


legitimate criticism against the state is stifled- refuse their
legalistic focus
Tran-Creque, Center for Study of the Drone, Bard College, 13
[Steven Tran-Creque, July 5, 2013, Center for Study of the Drone, Bard College, The
Forever War is Always Hungry, http://dronecenter.bard.edu/the-forever-war-isalways-hungry/, accessed 6.26.15, AM]
One simple imperative: Know your enemy The legalistic definition of
sovereignty, the preoccupation with policy making, even the basic assumption
that the debates we have really matterall of this starts to look ideological in the
worst sense. Following the Prism revelations last week, Christian Caryl wrote a retrospective in
Foreign Policy comparing the NSA and the East German Stasi: So which is worse, the

Stasi or the NSA? Definitely the Stasi. East German citizens had no defense
whatsoever against its intrusions. American citizens can still exercise control
over our own intelligence organizations, which are still bound (or so we are told) by
the rule of law. But do we really have the will to restrain them ? There is admittedly some
faint courage in being willing to even make the comparison, but there is something utterly more
remarkable in the ideological refrain of asking if American citizens can still exercise
control over our own intelligence organizationas if the states intelligence
apparatus had ever been democraticor so we are told. But this is hardly uncommon.
Dan Gettingers recent piece for the Center here frames the question in terms of legislative
oversight in the application of the AUMF: Understanding this legal debate and the evolving
strategic situation determines how this country deploys its forces abroad, the kinds
of military technologies that we invest in, and the degree of oversight that Congress
has over the use of force by the Executive Branch. While the outcome of this debate
will likely result in some form forever war against terrorism, the question
remains as to whether it will be conducted in the shadows of ambiguity or limited
by some degree of Congressional observation. And here we are back at the lesser evil. It is
significant, I think, that it is fundamentally impossible it is to reconcile any of this with
anything like actual democracy. These are questions for policy elitesand perhaps
for those who imagine themselves among their ranks. But the question is always
between more killing and less killing, between more secrecy and less secrecy,
more oversight and less oversightalways witheringly loyal to the same order of
violence that produced these choices in the first placeand which never bore any of
us any loyalty. As the American liberal left has foundered for years, attempting to articulate a challenge to the
logic of permanent war and the terror state, it has failed to recognize that the War on Terror does not
represent an aberration or a failure of policy. It is not an imperial venture run
rampant. Neither is it the military-carceral response of an empire incapable of
delivering prosperity for anyone beyond its increasingly rapacious aristocracy. Nor is
it even the immanent danger of building weapons that will always one day be
turned inwards. Of course, it is all these thingsbut at its heart, the forever war is only
an unusually visible moment in the only war theres ever been.

The criticism of the affirmative is a prerequisite to any


meaningful debate over policy otherwise debate dissolves
into endless fact-finding
Kurki, Aberystwyth University International Politics Lecturer,
2008
[Milja, Introduction: causation and the divided discipline, Causation in
International Relations: Reclaiming Causal Analysis, Published by Cambridge
University Press, ISBN 9780521882972, p. 8-9 accessed 6/27/2015 CWS]

the approach adopted here is unashamedly theoretical and


philosophical in nature. While philosophical , or meta- theoretical, discussions have often
been subjected to criticism from the more empirically minded IR scholars, in my view philosophical
reflection on the key concepts we use frequently, such as causation, is fundamental
in the social sciences, IR among them. This is because, as Colin Wight puts it, conceptual inquiry is
It should be noted that

a necessary prerequisite to empirical research .21 Without an adequate


understanding of the ways in which we apply concepts , appreciation of the reasons for our
conceptual choices, and recognition of the strengths and the weaknesses [end page 8] that
our use of key concepts entail, we run the risk of conducting empirical studies that
we cannot justify or that amount to nothing more than aimless fact-finding . Also, we
risk not being able to understand how and why our accounts might differ from those
of others and, hence, are not able to engage in constructive debate with other
perspectives. This book is motivated by the belief that IR has not become too theoretical or philosophical at the
expense of empirical inquiry:22 rather it still remains inadequately reflective towards many fundamental concepts

debate is clearly in and of itself


not the sole or the central aim of Inter- national Relations scholarship, it should not
be forgotten that the ways in which we see and analyse the facts of the world
political environment around us are closely linked to the kinds of underlying
assumptions we make about meta-theoretical issues, such as the nature of science
and causation. Indeed, the analysis here is motivated by the belief that whenever we
make factual, explanatory or normative judgements about world political
environments, important meta-theoretical filters are at work in directing the ways in
which we talk about the world around us, and these filters are theoretically,
linguistically, methodologically, and also potentially politically consequential .23 It
follows that philosophical investigation of key concepts such as causation should not be
sidelined as hair-splitting or meta-babble ,24 but embracedor at least engaged withas
one important aspect of the study of international relations .
used in empirical analyses. While meta-theoretical, or philosophical,

2NC Must Read: Epistemology DA


Epistemology DA dont believe their evidence- The
government uses the pervasive nature of terrorism to justify
ever-spreading drone warfarethough officials would like to
believe its more targeted and clean, drones still kill civilians
and innocents
Shaw, University of Glasgow, Earth Sciences, Professor, 13
(Ian G. R. Shaw, School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, The University of Glasgow,
Scotland, (June 26, 2013): Predator Empire: The Geopolitics of US Drone Warfare,
Geopolitics, DOI:10.1080/14650045.2012.749241, http://www.unice.fr/crookallcours/iup_geopoli/docs/predator-drones.pdf, accessed 6.23.15, AM)
The

2011 National Strategy for Counterterrorism (NSC) was released just thirteen months later
states that the paramount terrorist threat has
continued to evolve and due to the successes of the United States in
Afghanistan and Pakistan, al-Qaidas leadership and organisation has been
significantly weakened. The terrorist threat is now located beyond its core
safehaven in South Asia, to groups affiliated with but separate from the core of
the group in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The focus of the NSC is not just al-Qaida the organisation,
and advances the narratives in the 2010 NSS. It

but the collection of groups and individuals who comprise its affiliates and adherents who accept al-Qaidas

Adherents are individuals who


have formed collaborative relationships with, act on behalf of, or are otherwise
inspired to take action in furtherance of the goals of al-Qaida.40 Affiliates are
groups that have aligned with al-Qaida, and are similar to the Associated Forces
used in the 2001 AUMF to refer to cobelligerents of al-Qaida and the Taliban. However,
agenda through formal alliance, loose affiliation, or mere inspiration.

affiliates is not an authorised legal term, and is instead a broader category of entities against whom the United
States must bring various elements of national power, as appropriate and consistent with the law, to counter the
threat they pose.41 Downloaded by [Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries] at 16:12 26 June 2013 Predator

Such a discursive expansion primes an escalation of


military force in areas of focus that are far removed from those traditionally
related to the Global War on Terror. These peripheral and ungoverned spaces
marked by persistent insecurity and chaos include the Yemen-based al-Qaida in
the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP); al-Qaida in East Africa particularly al-Shabab in
Somalia; al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI); and finally al-Qaida in the Lands of the Islamic
Maghreb (AQIM) which is based in Algeria. There is not a single mention of the term drone or
Empire: Geopolitics of US Drone Warfare 7

unmanned aerial vehicle in either document, despite these technologies clearly forming a central pillar in Obamas
counterterrorist strategy (and oftentimes the only strategy used in countries such as Pakistan). But what matters is
that the NSS and NSC set in motion powerful national strategies that legitimise the geopolitical conditions for the

The everywhere nature of al-Qaida affiliates sets in motion an


everywhere war42 carried out by technologies that can respond anytime. Consider
current drone wars.

the Pentagons release of a shorter but no less controversial Defense Strategic Guidance (DSG) at the start of 2012
entitled Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense.43 The document, which aims to
further the objectives of the 2010 NSS, attracted criticism because it called for the end of Americas ability to fight
two wars at once (which was still a strategy enshrined in the 2010 NSS). Effectively the DSG spells the death knell
of large ground wars and counterinsurgency, which were trumpeted only years earlier by Gen. David Petraeus and
the widely celebrated Field Manual FM 3-24. As the DSG states, U.S. forces will no longer be sized to conduct
largescale, prolonged stability operations.44 Taking its place is a Joint Force that Obama calls agile, flexible, ready
and technologically advanced,45 capable of hunting affiliates and non-state threats in anti-access
environments and ungoverned territories. Speaking about the DSG, former Secretary of State

Leon Panetta

stated: As we reduce the overall defence budget, we will protect and in some cases
increase our investments in special operations forces, new technologies like
unmanned systems, space and in particular cyberspace capabilities and in the
capacity to quickly mobilize.46 Panettas words are telling: future American national
strategy will be performed by special operations forces and drones, and while the
enormous US ground presence around the world will be reduced (but by no means
eliminated), US aerial presence is set to expand. And if the trends in Pakistan,
Somalia, and Yemen continue, such an aerial presence will be spearheaded by the
CIA and underwritten by the White Houses bureaucratic playbook .47 The CIA
attracts controversy because its targeted killings have led to civilian causalities. The
year 2010 was the deadliest year in the programmes history . Yet John Brennan,
President Obamas former chief counterterrorism adviser, and now CIA director,
claimed at the time that one of the things President Obama has insisted on is that
were exceptionally precise and surgical in terms of addressing the terrorist threat ...
we do not take such action Downloaded by [Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries] at 16:12 26 June
2013 8 Ian G. R. Shaw that might put those innocent men, women and children in
danger, adding that nearly for the past year [August 2010 to July 2011] there hasnt been
a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the
capabilities that weve been able to develop .48 And yet, The Bureau of Investigative
Journalism found that there were 116 secret CIA strikes in Pakistan over the period
Brennan mentions, with at least 45 civilians killed, 10 of which were children. 49 Of course,
the divide between militant and civilian is itself problematic given the absence
of due process for the people killed, and the legal ambiguity of what a militant
actually is. In 2012 it came to light that Obama himself defines who counts as a militant. Amongst a media
maelstrom, the New York Times reported that Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for
counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all militaryage males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration
officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them
innocent.50 Quite how (and if) analysts collect posthumous evidence is unknown. In sum, while the
White House goes to great lengths to connect drone warfare to a clean, crisp
battlespace, where the conduct of war comes to be ever more calculative than
corporeal,51 the reality for those subject to Hellfire missiles is similar to the drone
programme itself: messy52 and all-too-human.

2NC Impact: Biopower


USs foreign drone surveillance helps build the biopolitical
statethis Predator Empire routinely carries out
extrajudicial killings without careful targeting
Shaw, University of Glasgow, Earth Sciences, Professor, 13
(Ian G. R. Shaw, School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, The University of Glasgow,
Scotland, (June 26, 2013): Predator Empire: The Geopolitics of US Drone Warfare,
Geopolitics, DOI:10.1080/14650045.2012.749241, http://www.unice.fr/crookallcours/iup_geopoli/docs/predator-drones.pdf, accessed 6.23.15, AM)

The modern Predator drone dates back to the GNAT-750 (and Amber before it) flown in Bosnia
in 1994 by the CIA under codename LOFTY VIEW. Six years later in 2000, the CIA first started
flying Predators in Eastern and Southern Afghanistan in the hunt for Osama bin
Laden. The agencys first targeted killing took place on February 2002; the
Counterterrorism Center unleashed a Hellfire missile at a tall man believed to be
none other than Downloaded by [Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries] at 16:12 26 June 2013 4 Ian G. R.

the al-Qaida leader and his lieutenants. But the analysts had wrongly identified
civilians gathering up scrap metal.12 All were killed. And in a mark of irony that
often haunts the drone wars the site of the strike was Zhawar Kili, a mujahideen
complex built by Jalaluddin Haqqani in the 1980s with CIA and Saudi support.13 This
model of extrajudicial killings, one developed almost exclusively in-house,14 would
soon be rolled out across the Durrand Line to become the model of drone strikes in
Pakistan. Since 2004, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) has been the
primary target for the agencys clandestine attacks. Hundreds of civilians and
thousands of militants have died15 in an undeclared war that generates
international controversy for its seeming violation of national sovereignty and
international law.16 While the number of drones carried by the CIA is classified, in 2012 the agencys former
Shaw

director David Petreaus requested that the number of Predators and Reapers increase by 10, from an inventory of

The CIAs drone programme in Pakistan emerges from a history of


targeted killings and counterinsurgencies, especially in Latin America and
Vietnam.18 Ever since The National Security Act established the CIA in 1947,
clandestine operations have defined a black world19 of intelligence, surveillance,
and extrajudicial activity that continues to swell and spread, blurring the division
between military and civilian violence.20 Targeted killings are a central US
counterterrorism tactic that came to prominence after Israel used them against
suspected Palestinian terrorists in 2000.21 Although there is no agreed definition
under international law, targeted killings are defined by the UN as the intentional,
premeditated and deliberate use of lethal force .22 The details of the CIAs drone programme
30 to 35.17

remain shrouded in secrecy, despite Obamas admission on a web chat that he was keeping the strikes on a tight

the CIA is not legally


required to inform the public about the use of drones in the killing of suspected
terrorists.24 Even if the exact details are classified, the White House and anonymous officials
implicitly justify the drone campaign with broader legal arguments such as the
inherent right to self defense under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter .25 But perhaps any
appeal to a legal argument is limited: law has never been a guaranteed check on
sovereign power, whether declared or not often enabling and exacerbating it. 26 And
2011 will be remembered as the year when extrajudicial state violence reached an
leash.23 On September 9, 2011, US District Judge Rosemary Collyer ruled that

unprecedented milestone. On the 30th of September, a senior member of al-Qaida was


killed in Yemen by a covert US drone strike. His name was Anwar al-Awlaki, born
inside the US in 1971. As the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) responded, This
is a program under which American citizens far from any battlefield can be executed
by their own government without judicial process, and on the basis of standards and
evidence that are kept secret not just from the public but from the courts .27 As I will
soon argue, drones were already cementing their position as a favoured option for US security in 2010. The 2010
National Security Downloaded by [Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries] at 16:12 26 June 2013 Predator
Empire: Geopolitics of US Drone Warfare 5 Strategy28 and the 2011 National Strategy for Counterterrorism29 state
that the American way of life is threatened by geographically and legally amorphous al-Qaida affiliates in regions
that stretch from North and East Africa to the Arabian Peninsula, and beyond. These documents are important
because they set in motion a set of specific responses such that different referents of security give rise to different

The drone emerges as one


governmental technology able to hunt down affiliates everywhere. The next section of
kinds of governmental technologies and political rationalities.30

the paper will examine these strategic discourses in more depth, especially in light of the 2012 Defense Strategic

My analysis then extends to a set of


delegitimising discourses that challenge the abstract White House security and
bureaucratic narratives, by reviewing interview materials from a 2010 report by Civilians in Armed Conflict
Guidance31 that spelled the end of large-scale ground wars.

(CIVIC)32 and a 2012 report by Stanford Law School and the New York School of Law.33 From these empirical
materials I then make a number of theoretical points concerning the changing face of US national security or the

I employ the provocative concept Predator Empire as a way of


bringing together the strategies, practices and technologies arranged around the
deployment of drones for targeted killings. The Predator Empire is underwritten by a
regime of biopolitical power that according to Foucault35 has life as its target.
What, or rather who counts as life is understood in two distinct ways. First, there are the various known
personalities that make up the kill lists on the White Houses disposition matrix .
Second, there are the patterns of life that are coded and targeted by analysts and
operators. Since 2008, the CIA has rolled out signature strikes in Pakistan that
target individuals or groups that display dangerous or suspicious patterns of life.
What makes these forms of targeted killing so controversial is that the person
eliminated is not identified by staff in the CIAs headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Instead,
they exist as digital profiles across a network of technologies, algorithmic
calculations, and spreadsheets. The ability to strike distant targets in the far
reaches of the planet is enabled by the evolution of a topographic and groundbased spatial power to an aerial and topological spatial power. While by no means
denying the vast material infrastructure or Droneworld36 that houses unmanned
aerial vehicles across the globe; the extensive digitising, coding, and eliminating of
life in real time is what marks the Predator Empire as distinctive.
Washington Rules.34

Links

2NC- Focus Link


The affirmatives focus of stopping drone surveillance will
never affectively respond to the issue of structural race in
America taking the weapons away from the Police in
Ferguson still leaves a standing army there.
Gupta, Co-Founder of the Occupied Wall Street Journal, 14
[Arun, 8/24/14 Telesur, The Danger Of Americas Police Is The Mindset, Not Military
Weapons http://www.defendingdissent.org/now/news/the-danger-of-americaspolice-is-the-mindset-not-military-weapons/ accessed 6/28/15 CWS]
The Aug. 9 killing of a defenseless 18-year-old Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson was

Nearly a hundred unarmed black people are killed by cops every


year in the United States. Few stir the national conscience despite the often shady circumstances of their
deaths. Police impunity is the norm, with one study finding 99.8 percent of 1,500
officers involved in killing civilians were never convicted of criminal charges. Dorian
depressingly familiar.

Johnson, the primary witness to the shooting, claims Officer Wilson gunned down a wounded Brown who had his
hands raised in surrender. Browns corpse was left on the street for four hours. Blacks in Ferguson, Missouri, have
long decried systematic violence at the hands of a virtually all-white police force. Ferguson, a suburb of St. Louis,
has shifted from 74 percent white to 63 percent African-American since 1990, and has been pummeled by the

Police in full battle gear in Ferguson likened


to the streets of Baghdad. Browns killing catalyzed these long-simmering
grievances into protests. But few were prepared for what came next. Ferguson
police outfitted with armored vehicles, sonic weapons, sniper rifles, body armor, and
grenade launchers swarmed the streets, firing tear gas, flash-bang grenades,
pepper spray balls, and rubber and wooden bullets at civilians. The police response has
shocked America, wrote the New York Times. Police in full battle rattle leveling automatic rifles
at protesters with their hands held up were likened to the streets of Baghdad . After
reporters were attacked and arrested, the Washington Post equipped its staff with blue
bulletproof vests emblazoned with PRESS, the same gear used on Middle East
battlefields. One British paper dispatched its Afghanistan war correspondent to
Ferguson to cover the violence. One welcome surprise was that outrage among Ferguson residents
continued for two weeks. Its rare to see sustained defiant protest in the United States. They were fed up
with a level of police brutality that is so casual its shocking. One cop, in full view of
video cameras, pointed a rifle at unarmed protesters and yelled, I will fucking kill
you. Images like that led to an outcry to demilitarize the police . Washington has created a
housing and economic downturn for nearly a decade.

grab bag of military aid through the 1033 program, the Law Enforcement Support Office, and Department of
Homeland Security grants, enabling local enforcement agencies to snatch up drones, mine-resistant vehicles, battle

Much of this came into effect after the September 11 attacks,


but some of it pre-dates the attacks, and ending it is not so simple . Junking surplus
military equipment wont alter the social attitudes that give police so much latitude
they are effectively the law. The war on drugs and war on crime attitudes have
created a disdain for civil liberties in America , especially the rights of the accused and by
gear, and chemical weapons.

extension entire communities. Civil liberties deteriorated even further after September 11. In an atmosphere where
the public has been stampeded into trading freedom for security, police violence and lack of accountability

it was apparent police were


violating constitutional rights: freedom of the press, the use of unreasonable force,
the right to assemble, and equal protection. Cops from Ferguson and surrounding
communities told protesters when, where, and how they could demonstrate,
arresting many engaged in peaceful activity. At least 11 journalists were arrested. Police threatened
and attacked journalists and protesters who were filming interactions. And there is a documented
pattern of Ferguson police using profiling, stopping, and arresting Africanflourishes with or without military equipment. After Browns death

Americans.

Given the systematic crimes by Ferguson police, Missouri State Gov. Jay Nixon was complicit in their
lawlessness by not replacing them immediately. Nixon dragged his heels and employed half measures, such as
bringing in a state police commander with limited powers and deploying National Guard troops to protect the police
10 days after the police violence began. But at no point were local police ordered off the streets. President Obama
whose oath of office is to uphold the Constitution laid low before finally dispatching Attorney General Eric Holder to
Ferguson. Police enjoy social power, which is demonstrated by the crowd-funding webpage for Darren Wilson that
raked in nearly a quarter-million dollars in donations. Elected officials vacillate because they are afraid to challenge
the social power of police.

It is a truism that for the police to function the public has to


allow itself to be policed. But this truth is startling to many, and what is happening in Ferguson
is a rebellion against this order. Most Americans support the police in their explicit function to protect
property and implicit function to protect a social order based on racial and class hierarchies. This is not an
abstraction. A crowd-funding webpage for Darren Wilson raked in nearly a quarter-million dollars in donations in
under a week and was rife with incendiary comments. (A new fundraising site for Wilson was set up with the
support of the Ferguson Police Department and netted another ninety thousand dollars in two days.) One individual
who donated a hundred dollars wrote, I thank all Police, you are the Thin Blue Line protecting normal Americans
from aggressive and entitled primitive savages. That sentence succinctly if inadvertently sums up the reactionary

Only state violence keeps civilization safe. Entitled primitive


savages crams together three racial stereotypes: the welfare queen, backwards
Africans, and uncivilized natives . Normal Americans are undoubtedly white as other comments made
view of American history.

clear. Brown was a thing, a thug, and a waste of good ammo. Blacks [use] every excuse in the book to loot
and riot. One person exhorted, Wake up White America. Another said, All self-respecting whites have a moral
responsibility to support our growing number of martyrs to the failed experiment called diversity. The racially
charged aggression reveals the hollowness of the age of Obama. In 2008 Obama presented himself as an avatar of
a post-racial America. The more he succeeded, the more it proved America had triumphed over its racist legacy.
Liberals embraced this fantasy because through Obama they could see themselves as good, just, and free of bias.

the post-racial ideology made Obama impotent to confront the structural racism
that still exists in America. White liberals are no less complicit than white conservatives in supporting and
But

benefiting from the economic and social power they gain from segregated housing, educational and employment. If

The two times


Obama did speak out about state-sanctioned violence against Blacks , the arrest of
anything, conservatives more readily acknowledge the role of police is to enforce this order.

Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., for breaking into his own home and the stalking and killing of an unarmed
Trayvon Martin by a vigilante,

Obama was met with derision by the right and silence by most

liberals.

Obama learned his lesson. He had nothing to gain from confronting racism because his power was
based on denying, and not confronting, how America is fractured by race and class. If he had successfully
challenged it in his first presidential run, which is no mean feat, that would have brought together an organized
social base to counter the white reactionary response to Ferguson. Instead, Obama vacationed in silence on
Marthas Vineyard, the summer redoubt for Americas elite, and took five days to issue a statement that was tone

For Obama to state the obviousthat the police are the architects
of the violence in Ferguson, that they act like an occupying army towards the Blacks
there, and that unreconstructed racism is alive and wellwould provoke a huge
backlash among many whites, and a fair number of Asians and Latinos as well. To
reduce the issue of police violence in America to the equipment they use can easily backfire. While it will be a
real struggle to shelve the armored vehicles, body armor, machine guns, and
chemical weapons thats a small part of the battle. Removing all the military gear is
not going to magically transform the police into officer friendly in a fifties patrol car. The racist
policing and profiling wont end, nor will the wide license society, the courts, and
the media give them. Ive watched the NYPD in action for 25 years. They rarely rely on military weapons,
deaf and disappointing.

though they probably have every one imaginable. The New York police brass is savvy. Using tanks, which they once
did in 1995 as a show of force against squatters, looks bad for tourism. Using tear gas, rubber bullets, or other
less-lethal weapons is a no-no given how many bankers and executives might get hit. As observers of Occupy
Wall Street witnessed the police used good old-fashioned fists and clubs to bash demonstrators. I talked to one
reporter who caught sight of cops bloodying handcuffed activists in the back of a police van during an Occupy
protest. But the most devastating weapon the NYPD has is a policy: stop and frisk . Since
2002 the NYPD has been under court order to collect, compile, and make public data regarding stop-and-frisks. By

the NYPD has violated the constitutional rights of hundreds of thousands


of Black and Latino males. They are stopped disproportionately compared to whites
by every measure: if there is a warrant against them, they have a weapon or
contraband, have committed a crime, or are in a high-crime area. The only way to
its own data,

explain the vast disparity is the policy is racist. Stop and frisk assumed Black and
Latino males were criminal suspects based solely on their race . In 2010, former NYPD
Commissioner Ray Kelly allegedly told New York State elected officials outright that the police deliberately
targeted young Black and Latino men because he wanted to instill fear in them ,
every time they leave their home they could be stopped by the police. During the last decade a movement came
together in New York to stop the racist policing that has destroyed tens of thousands of lives by sending innocent
men to prison or for nothing more than possessing a little marijuana. More court orders were handed down. Many
media outlets called for an end to stop and frisk, and Bill de Blasio won the mayoralty in 2013 by making the policy
a campaign issue. Once victorious, however, de Blasio angered many supporters by rehiring Bill Bratton as NYPD

Stop and frisk appears


to have dropped by 90 percent from its peak of 685,000 stops in 2011. But Black
and Latino males are still being disproportionately targeted. Moreover, Brattons focus on
Commissioner, who instituted the dubious broken windows policing in the 1990s.

infractions like pan handling, pot smoking, graffiti, and subway fare jumpers deliberately targets minorities as well.
In three overwhelmingly Black and Latino neighborhoods in Brooklyn, more than 50,000 summons were issued for
biking on sidewalks between 2001 and 2013. I never have to worry about that in Manhattan, where I live. Bikers on
sidewalksof which there are manyin the tony white neighborhoods of Tribeca and the Finance District received
only 325 tickets during the same period. Making this crime central to policing will mean many more young men of

Black and Latino men have


fewer resources to prove their innocence and are less likely to receive leniency.
Tickets often snowball into arrest warrants, jail time and permanent criminal records
that diminish employment, education, and housing opportunities . Even if stop and frisk has
ended, one racist policing practice has been replaced with another . Brattons policy of
color will go directly to jail. Once snared in the criminal justice system,

sending police to look for minor nuisance and imposing quotas on them for arrests, as the NYPD reportedly does,
guarantees needless and hostile encounters. On Staten Island, police targeted Eric Garner on July 17 because he
was involved in breaking up a fight. At every point the cops escalated the confrontation and eventually piled on

Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil


says, We need an end to the kind of philosophy of policing that says its
OK to engage in preventive, detention-like tactics. Thats what really at stake in
demilitarizing the police. Undoubtedly military weapons enables greater violence
against the public, just as a huge standing army enables U.S. wars abroad. But it
was the post-9/11 mindset of preventive war that set all the tanks, planes, and
missiles in motion. Take away all their weaponry and gear, and unless you change
their mindset, policemen will still engage in excessive force and violence against
minorities. The mindset needs to change, one that says police should have latitude and no oversight
him, choking the 43-year-old father of six to death.
Liberties Union,

because whenever excesses happen like the killing of Michael Brown occur (or Eric Garner, Oscar Grant, Trayvon

the preventive policing still serves the


greater cause of keeping the peace of the existing social order. Take away the
military weapons from Ferguson police and they will still be an occupying army to
the Black community there. Many Americans want to keep it that way. They have the mindset
Blacks and Latinos are a threat and need to be contained . Thats what enables the police to
take to the streets with military weapons and gear. Ending this mentality is what will stop out-ofcontrol police forces, not taking away their toys.
Martin, Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo, and thousands of others),

2NC- Humane Warfare Link


Attempting to regulate drones tries to dismantle assymetrical
warfare-that bolsters the idea of humane warfare which
ensures conflict is always justified
Mgret, McGill University Faculty of Law Associate Professor,
13
[Frderick, 2013, McGill University, THE HUMANITARIAN PROBLEM WITH DRONES,
http://epubs.utah.edu/index.php/ulr/article/viewFile/1191/867, Accessed June 28,
A.H]
The irony is that mastering a way of waging war that is eminently legal ends up being the death knell of the laws of
warat least as we know them. This is so not because it may relatively safeguard civilians, 114 but because that
ability is gained through such military superiority that any sense of a contest dissipates from war. There is a deeper
lesson in this for the laws of war, which run the risk of creating incentives for technological developments that in
turn undermine its core model. As Charles Kels has argued, A corollary to the incongruity of riskless warfare is to
query whether the ensuing breakdown of ethical and legal norms unwittingly encourages the very instability that
the law of war attempts to control, thereby endangering the civilian populations of all parties to the conflict.115
One way of looking at these developments in the broader perspective is through an examination of similar historical
precedents to the development of drones. One might look at the problem as one of exogenous technological shocks
affecting the normative system that is international humanitarian law .

Because the very goal of war is


to attain superiority over ones enemies, it is only natural that from a military
standpoint armies will seek to develop superior weapons. Every now and then,
however, a game-changing technology will come into play that creates such an
asymmetry that it will lastingly put the laws of war off keel. A classic example is the
invention of the crossbow, which conferred a very considerable military advantage
to those troops that mastered its art; another example is the onset of modern
aviation and the possibility, only just barely contemplated toward the end of World
War I, of aerial bombardment. In both cases, an attempt was made to reinstate the
laws of wars broad symmetry by trying to outlaw the weapon. In the case of the
crossbow, Pope Innocent II famously pronounced it to be hateful to God and unfit
for Christians;116 in the case of aerial bombardment, a Commission of Jurists was
set up as part of the 1921 Washington Conference on the Limitations of Armaments,
which adopted a fairly restrictive code for aerial warfare.117 It is no surprise that
calls to severely regulate or perhaps even outlaw certain means and
methods of combat were at their strongest in conditions of technological
asymmetry, that is, when one sidethe side that mastered the technology
stood to suffer disproportionally from such regulation. The attempts at
regulating both the crossbow and aerial bombardment were almost
unmitigated catastrophes.118 In the case of the crossbow, the weapon was first
only prohibited between Christians, allowing crusaders to use it at will against the
Saracens. But it was quickly used between Christian nations as well,
ultimately showing that a technological advance such as this was too
precious to be relinquished against real foes . 119 The Washington Conference
never led to a convention and was essentially a fiasco .120 In both cases, it seems,
the normative effort was suspected of unduly reining in technological
progress under a humanitarian guise. These efforts did not add much to
what could be distilled from general principles of the laws of war and
unduly restricted States abilities to develop a military advantage . If the

precedents of the crossbow, aerial bombardment and colonial warfare are any
indication, then one would think that efforts to regulate drone warfare
would be headed the same way because it simply beggars belief to think
that parties who have such an edge would voluntarily limit, let alone
relinquish, their advantage. Beyond mere differentials in technology, it seems that what is at stake
is something deeper relating to the very structuration of war as a social activity and the ability to define it. It should
come as no surprise in this respect that the normative register of the crossbow mapped a not so subtle civilizational
divide. Ultimately the question was not whether the crossbow was inherently unlawful, but against whom it was
inherently unlawful and against whom it might be used. Similarly when it came to the 19th century laws of war the
question was as much what the laws should regulate as whom they should apply to, and especially, against. 121
Aerial bombardment of civilians, as well as the use of gas against them, was pioneered in the deserts of Abyssinia.
Whether it be the Saracens or savages, it was the presumed unwillingness or inability to respect the laws of war
that justified the use of extraordinary techniques that the West claimed to shun normatively in its midst (although
obviously not necessarily in actual fact). As Professor Sam Moyn puts it, there is arguably a continuum, not a
break, between the aesthetics, subjectivity, and morality of colonial warfare and its successors today, including in
drone campaigns.122

In that respect, drones are less a radical novelty than


specifically a continuation of the tradition by which the laws of war both
include and exclude, socialize and desocialize into international society.
Arguably, however, drone warfare marks less an attempt to push certain
types of warfare beyond the law, than it is an effort to draw on the law for
strategic gain. The argument for drone use is very much formulated as an
argument for legal drone use because the law is largely perceived as enabling the
sort of use of force that the US in particular has in mind rather than constraining it,
precisely because drones seem both highly effective and highly humanitarian.
Drone use, in other words, is not really about invoking the exception of
warfare against terrorism but about insisting that one can wage war even
against a foe that is intent on not doing so. As Professor Moyn argues, it is not the loss of
classic interstate war as a real or imagined paradigm but the application of old and new humanitarian norms born

Insisting on the need to


continue to respect the laws of war is, paradoxically, one of the ways in
which one can show that the other side is unworthy of them even as one
continues to benefit from their considerable legitimization of the use of
force. In this context, three scenarios for the future of warfare-as-definedbyasymmetrical-drone-use seem plausible. The first is that, failing to level off with their more
powerful technological adversaries, groups that have limited access to drone technology will
be pushed even further into a rejection of the conventional warfare model . War would
in it to continuing irregular war that may mark the fundamental novelty. 123

thus cease to be pertinent as a basic scenario for the bilateral use of violence, or would at least become

The second
scenario is of course the one that proved most pertinent in the context of the
crossbow and aerial bombardment, namely that most armies rushed to develop a
similar capability in a way that might not ensure victory but at least rescued war
from becoming an entirely one-sided killing enterprise and therefore a normative investment
unrecognizable through persistent subtraction of at least one purported player in the game.

that the other side had no interest in making. In this scenario, it is technological diffusion and relative

even though drone


warfare is currently the weapon of choice of asymmetrical warfare, it may
well be that this is merely a transitory phase and that drones, rather than
heralding or at least symbolizing a new type of warfare, will merely be
digested by various existing modes of institutional violence. The third
scenario, perhaps the most relevant, is that we are in what may be a long period of
transition in which drones continue to shape warfare in a very asymmetrical
direction, but in which various normative options offer themselves at least to the
homogenization that saves the laws of wars regulatory potential. As I have hinted,

party that has drones and must make sense of its superiority . At one end of the spectrum,
the use of drones may inaugurate the dismantling of restraints on war through a
realization that there is no legitimate adversary, no one on the other side still
capable or willing of engaging the drone manipulators on their terms . This might then give
rise, rather somberly, to a view of statecraft, as the administration of death, a high-tech form of a regime of
disappearance whose inspiration is Machiavelli124 and in which the killing power will take advantage of the fact
that it is neither in a situation of war nor in a situation where human rights obligations are owed. In many ways, this

the more
technologically endowed party could continue to seek to wage war even against
parties that were committed not to wage war against it, effectively applying a sort
of unilateral laws of war and reinforcing the notion that asymmetrical norms must
correspond to asymmetrical conflicts. Perhaps, then, the application of sui generis rules,
somewhere at the intersection of the laws of war and international human rights
law, might make most sense with regards to the evolving challenges of drone
warfareone in which the heightened capacity of the attacker and his ability to wage war without really waging
one is matched by an added scruple in terms of safeguarding civilian lives.125 Drone warfare might
be seen as a bizarre synthesis of war-making and policing,126 requiring a new
historical compromise between law and morality. It would conceptualize drone fighting as part of
has been the preferred route of the war on terror in the last decade. At the other end of the spectrum,

a body of norms rooted less in expectations of reciprocity or in some fundamental obligation owed to those targeted
as human beings, than in a sense that with immense power must come heightened responsibilities. Although this
path might still be associated with a sort of exit from war in that it seems to burden the technologically superior
side with obligations that it cannot expect the asymmetrically disadvantaged side to reciprocate, it could also be
understood as maintaining the very ethos of war by keeping alive a sense of drone operators military self-worth
and human dignity as a particular way of ethically living up to ones potential for death and destruction.127

2NC- Drone Industry Link


Their interest in a large drone industry proves the linkDomestic concerns shield the reality of drone warfarethe
state assures the clean disposal of targets and overseas
killing which is subordinated to issues at home.
Selinger, Prof. at RIT, Philosophy of Technology, 3/9
[Evan, 3/9/15, CSmonitor, Why domestic drones stir more debate than ones used in
warfighting abroad, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Passcode/PasscodeVoices/2015/0309/Why-domestic-drones-stir-more-debate-than-ones-used-inwarfighting-abroad, Accessed June 23, A.H]
The

use of drones domestically has sparked heated debate around the potential
threats to both privacy and safety. The digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation warns that
drones "raise significant issues for privacy and civil liberties" since they are capable of "highly advanced
surveillance." In terms of commercial use, the Federal Aviation Administration has proposed rules to limit where

military drone usage abroad has been opposed by various groups, it hasn't drawn
the same kind of attention stateside as the emergence of commercial drones . The
US appears more interested in whether drones will be approved for
package delivery than whether it's acceptable to use drones for targeted
killings in Yemen. I recently spoke with John Kaag about that contradiction. Mr. Kagg is an
associate professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. He recently
drones can fly. While

coauthored a book called "Drone Warfare" with Sarah Kreps, an associate professor in the Department of

Why is the American public more


concerned about the government using drones for domestic surveillance than
putting the technology to military use abroad? Kaag: The first reason has to do with the legal
and political origins of the United States. US citizens know quite rightly that the
country was set up in such a way, at least in theory, to protect its citizens from the abuse of
governmental power. Most of us have internalized some version of the Fourth
Amendment that prohibits the government from conducting searches of citizens without probable cause and
requires a court to issue a warrant prior to a search commencing. The abuse of domestic drone
surveillance would violate this amendment, and so Americans are quick to get their
hackles up. Using drones in targeted killings abroad is different. Theres a
sense again, an accurate one that the laws of war are different than the
domestic laws that govern a nation. That said, we should worry about Americans
not caring about the targeted killing program . Lethal drone strikes are
described as precise and clean much cleaner than traditional forms of warfare. The
public can use this reassurance to assuage its moral concern s and direct its
attention to more immediate, if not more morally pressing, issues at home. If you
have to decide between confronting injustice in your backyard and
addressing injustices half a world away, the backyard, for better or for worse, gets
cleaned up first. In this case, I think its for the worse. Selinger: Why has Congress pushed for more
Government at Cornell University. Edited excerpts follow. Selinger:

oversight on the government using drones for domestic surveillance than international military missions? Kaag:
Theres a simple answer to this question. It can. Once Congress approves the Authorization of Use of Military Force
(AUMF), an extension of the War Powers Resolution, it has relatively little authority over the actions taken by the

Historically, most armed conflicts were initiated by a


declaration of war. Not so anymore. When President Obama ordered strikes to be
carried out against ISIS in fall of 2014, he cited the authority granted by the AUMF
executive in military actions abroad.

in 2001. But that authorization was made against Al Qaeda, not ISIS, and these two organizations are largely
rivals. So, an extension of presidential power has occurred, and Congress has little power to curtail it. At the same
time, Congress has considerably more oversight over domestic matters, and members of Congress have been
consistently pushed by their constituents to oversee the FBI and other government agencies to secure their

Do you think its wrong that were more concerned


about domestic uses of drones than foreign ones? Kaag: Yes. This attitude
reflects a disturbing mix of provincialism and exceptionalism that
Americans should acknowledge and oppose. 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 put pressure on the media to continue to cover the
stories that allow us to make this crucial evaluation. The asymmetry suggests a
strange political and moral myopia. Yes, 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 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,
constitutional rights. Selinger:

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 justified to do so. Many drone strikes
are in fact legitimate. But certain signature strikes, I would argue, are not. And the American public should be aware
of this difference. Selinger: Why have some argued new courts should be created to review when drones are used
for targeted killings that are modeled upon the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court system? Kaag: On the face of
it, the implementation of FISA-like courts makes sense. The FISA courts were created in 1978, after Watergate, to
regulate government eavesdropping. When government agencies such as the NSA or the FBI want to spy on
American citizens, they often have to go through the FISA court to get approval before doing so. The FISA courts are
an extension of domestic law enforcement that issues warrants without compromising the secret nature of
intelligence collection activities. Many senators, particularly Angus King [of Maine], have called for establishing
similar courts to monitor and approve the kill lists used in the US drone program. The proposed drone courts
would evaluate the imminence of threat, whether the drone strike upholds distinction and proportionality in the
laws of war, and whether a target could be captured rather than killed. Senator King, sticking to the model of the
FISA courts, is especially worried about the targeting of American citizens abroad. Selinger: Why are you skeptical
about replicating the FISA court model in this context? Kaag: 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, 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 recent expansion of 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. Selinger: What
do you mean by checks and balances? Kaag: The call for transparency in the targeted killing program was
amplified early in 2013 around the confirmation hearings of John Brennan as the director of the CIA. At this time,
there was a call for the Obama administration to release secret legal memoranda concerning the targeting of
American citizens on foreign soil. Some of these documents were released to Congress in the lead up to the
Brennan confirmation. This is the sort of information exchange at the heart of checks and balances. And this
exchange shouldnt simply be used in the deal making of a confirmation hearing, but rather should slowly and
carefully become the norm in our age of drone warfare. Obviously, Congress is regularly briefed about the drone

program, but the Brennan hearing highlighted that there is a long way to go for sufficient oversight. This is what

Without making significant compromises to national security,


we, the people, could have an informed debate not only about the status of
American terror suspects abroad, but also about the deeper political and military
rationale for targeting foreign nationals in accord with international law. What
exactly is the risk that these targets pose to US national security? Thats a question
Americans need to ask and answer in a sober and detailed way.
would happen in an ideal word:

This capitalistic business of war entrenches the military


industrial complex and legitimates the securitization of
societies
Bazian, University of California Berkeley Near Eastern Ethnic
Studies senior lecturer, 14
[Hatem Bazian, co-editor/founder of the Islamophobia Studies Journal, director of
the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project, senior lecturer in the
Departments of Near Eastern and Ethnic Studies at University of California,
Berkeley, February 16, 2014, Al Jazeera, Drones: the dark side of power,

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/02/drones-dark-side-power201421584612694231.html, date accessed 6.26.15, AM]


In the real world of military strikes and the mounting losses of civilian lives in Arab
and Muslim nations, in the United States' war on terror one of the many weapons of
choice are drones, which can be deployed anywhere in the world, and their effects
are immediately devastating. It is the indiscriminate killing of so-called targets of
interest without the mobilisation or loss of US troops on the ground. Added to this is
the highly dubious tactic of "double taps", whereby a second strike closely follows
the first strike, as people gather to help the injured. This makes the use of drones
even more controversial because it increases the number of casualties to include
rescuers. It also blatantly reveals the destructive power drone warfare. It enables
President Obama to become "really good at killing people". War is business and the
business of war is the ongoing securitisation of societies across the globe. It is
ironic that President Obama has been the direct beneficiary of both the anti-war and the civil rights movements,
which allowed many generations to discover their inner power and harness it for positive change. The relationship
of the struggle for human dignity led by the civil rights movement and the victory of President Obama should never

this continuation and strategic escalation of the


"war on terror" policies, in particular drone warfare, mars his legacy. I voted for President
be underestimated or underappreciated. But

Obama in two elections hoping that he would uphold the legacy of the real "Jedi order" of civil and human rights
advocates. But alas, it is a loss and a profound disappointment that he opted for the allure of the "Dark Side".

What would Martin Luther King, Jr and Nelson Mandela say about the drones? The
easy, silent and clinical deployment of death and destruction while constructing
the illusion that it is a sound, legally defensible policy and in-line with universal
human right principles is confusing at best, and outrageous at worst. Blood is not
an argument and the ability to kill without being seen and not knowing how many
are being killed is not a rationale or an argument for dealing with the threat of
terrorism. Drones and the military industrial complex The military industrial complex is alive
and well in the US and around the globe, and during Obama's presidency it has

managed to expand its tentacles into every aspect of our lives.

The "war on terror" has


become the catch-all for the "Dark Side" to penetrate further into our consciousness and make the case that only
death machines, and new and improved "Death Stars" can save us from the enemy. However Pogo's famous line,
"We

have met the enemy and he is us," is a more apt description of what we
collectively have become as a nation and what we have allowed to be done in our
name. Raining death indiscriminately from a drone represents our collective national kneeling to the "Dark Side"
and accepting the politics of revenge as a convenient substitute for values, ethics and principles. What made the
"Death Star" such a powerful symbol in the "Star Wars" franchise is its total massive, destructive power

But the decision to deploy


this weapon is one of choice and the power to do so is animated by indiscriminate
and reckless disregard for life itself. The logic of " ends justifies the means" is
very problematic since our ends, the desire of the good society, are already
embedded into an advanced military industrial economy. Thus in pursuing a better
and more "peaceful" future, we have all surrendered our moral and ethical
imperative to end the war and its business. Drones are in reality a growth industry
and are part of the economy and they are no longer only an ethical, moral and legal
justification for fighting terrorism. The choices that we make in the military
industrial economy are used to expand government and private expenditure to save
"us" from the imminent threat. War is business and the business of war is the
ongoing securitisation of societies across the globe. Drone production, deployment, and
representing the Empire's ability to cause death and destruction from afar.

warfare moved from the battlefields of Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen to US and European urban centres, where

The peaceful spin-offs of the military drone technology are


many and their use in the civilian market will complicate our relations with them
and curtail the ability to resist the constant deployment of this weapon of choice .
police has started using drones.

Indeed, the American public accepted its utility first in fighting terrorists abroad but it was only a matter of time
before corporate and security interests saw the giant domestic market and moved to create the needed rationale

Fear of terrorists abroad has led us to accept government


intrusion into our privacy, and now spying and wire-tapping our conversations and
deployment of drones are all driven by economy and growth dynamics. Becoming
good at killing people is about selling and marketing weapons of choice in the
modern battlefield that has no limits for rationalising death and destruction,
and no rationales are more alluring than money and power.
for its adoption across the country.

2NC- Latin American Link


The presence of United States drones in Latin America is
nothing new, it is just a new wave in the weaponized
surveillance state that characterizes the War on Drugs.
International Communist Review, 14
[11/24/14, On Imperialist military intervention in Latin America, Limits and
contradictions http://www.iccr.gr/en/news/On-Imperialist-military-intervention-inLatin-America-Limits-and-contradictions/ accessed 6/27/14 CWS]

The F-22, F-35 and other fighters of fifth and sixth


generation are extremely complex devices. This presupposes components that require higher
productivity to generate, sadly for capitalism higher productivity leads to a higher grade of
organic composition of capital, and this in turn reduces the rate of surplus valu e, a
We shall further illustrate these contradictions.

contradiction perfectly insurmountablecontradiction for the military-industrial complex of the U.S. and other

These devices are based on modern global production;they depend


for their sustaining on being exported outside the U.S. itself and at the same time
for manufacturing inputs to be imported worldwide . Now, imperialists are fighting
each other for the control of materials using modern weaponry , which in turn depends on
imperialist centers.

these same materials. This tangle complicatesany sustainable progress in the implementation of new technologies
in combat activity. For example, many advanced electronic components, such as those used for the so-called "smart
bombs", or satellite communications, etc., rely on the use of rare minerals that are refined up to 95% by China, and
whose global reserves are found in 60% in the hands of China, India, Korea, and countries ofsoutheast Asia. Global
manufacturing of high-flux magnets, superconductors, lasers, nuclear magnetic resonance equipment, aerospace

One might think


that the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), drones, would be a more sustainable option for
imperialism than fighters, fighter-bombers and missiles. However the problem is
that flight and maintenance costs are 30 times higher than similar sized manned
aircraft, UAVs also have a bigger limit imposed on the number of weapons they can
move. Increasesof the size of the UAVin order to shift more firepower or materiel
displacement makes maintenance costs grow geometrically. The RQ-9 Reaper flies
at a cost of $3600 USD per hour, costing tens of times more than a Cessna plane that would be its
equipment, computer screens, etc. depend onNeodymium and other capricious rare earths.

equivalent. The other problem is that the U.S. is not the only global player who came up with that idea. Iran, for
example, has developed its own drones from captured RQ- 170 Sentinel and Scan Eagles. Even Mexico, has

Drones and other UAVs have advantages from the


point of view of the surprise factor and maximum conservation of one's forces,
which is significant when determining the form of the art of war, but they do not prevent
developed its own one, called S4 Ehcatl.

financial headaches for imperialism when using them to defend profits that are in turn absorbed by the use of their

But in order that these technological marvels do not spend thousands


and thousands of useless flight hours they require intelligence services. The recent
Snowden affair exposed the PRISM project. This program intervenes in all electronic
communications on the planet, storing them in a database and then extracting and analyzing them
according to keywords or persons of interest of the intelligence services of the United States. But behind the
program, behind screens are human analysts who receive and collect that
information, and at least one of these analysts has denounced this activity, which makes all comes to fret and
military equipment.

the secret service program is not so secret anymore. Olympia has noticed an abnormal increase in its sales of
typewriters, and the FSO (Russian intelligence) have ordered a massive purchase of typewriters with a special tape
to avoid their communications being intercepted. If the complex could not be destroyed by the simple, there would

Before the era of email and social networking sites the


Vietnamese resistance organized through writtenand oral messages a simultaneous
be no reason for fatal bacterial diseases.

offensive over 100 military colonialist posts. The Bolsheviks took control during the insurrection of
telephones, telegraphs, drawbridges, etc., and they ceased to serve the bourgeois government, which was isolated.
There is hope for our struggle, with an efficient organization, bold and correct tactics, it can still sink imperialism.

But is not only that imperialist intervention is loaded with these contradictions but
also that it has historical limits that constantly threaten to tear it down completely.
Social collapse and war are odious calamities for the peoples, but at the same time
accelerate contradictions, and expose to sunlight the class nature of State and the various political forces, creating

we reject geographical fatalism and other


forms of carrying defeatism to the working class of our countries, which are
propagated by those who would see us bend the knee before imperialism . Certainly the
power defending monopolies reacts fiercely against those who oppose it . But there is the
the preconditions for a revolutionary break. Therefore

dialectics, as Hegel described it ( Herrschaft und Knechtschaft ), of the master and slave, when the slave rebels not
only he puts himself at risk but also the master that confronts the double risk of being destroyed or cease to be
master if he cannot control his former slave without destroying him. The Cuban Revolution was a huge

After
decades and decades of war and military intervention, of launching against the
FARC-EP operationssuch as LASO, Destroyer 1, Destroyer 2, Sonora, Casa Verde,
Plan Patriota, Plan Colombia, etc., the guerrillas still thrives, expressing the heartfelt
yearnings of peasants and workers in Colombia , attracting thousands of new young people that
demonstration that a revolution can be done even with an imperialist center thrown into preventing it.

are brought to its ranks harassed by paramilitaries themselves and the dreadful economic situation.

Alternative

2NC- Solvency
The alternatives engagement in interrogating US society and
its relationship with drones reveals the invisible kill chain and
question the existence of a safe civilian space in the drone
wars.
Delmont, Scripps College American studies assistant professor,
13
[Matt, 2013, Muse.jhu.edu, Drone Encounters: Noor Behram, Omer Fast, and Visual
Critiques of Drone Warfare,
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_quarterly/v065/65.1.delmont.html, Accessed
June 23, A.H]
Behrams photographs contest one aspect of the visual power of drones, the ability
to see and kill precisely and accurately across great distances , Omer Fasts short
film 5000 Feet Is the Best offers an imaginative critique of the ability of
drones to resist being seen. In a Las Vegas hotel room in fall 2010, Fast conducted two interviews
If

with a former Predator drone pilot turned casino security guard. The video and audio from these interviews appear
occasionally in the thirty-minute video, with the pilots face and voice obscured. Rather than use these interviews to
present a documentary picture of a drone pilot, however, Fast uses the real interviews as small pieces in three
fictionalized sequences that use staged interviews with a fictional drone pilot. Each sequence begins with the
camera focused on the drone pilot (played by Denis OHare) seated on a bed, being interviewed by a man who is
partly off-screen, his back to the camera. As

the pilot begins to tell a story, the video switches


to another set of actors portraying the story he narrates. One sequence begins with
a [End Page 197] family packing their car for a trip: Lets say its the weekend and the family loves the
outdoors. Or maybe they need to get away for a while because of the problems Dads having with the provisional

So the family drives down their quiet block on a weekend morning on their
way to the country. They take a left, then a right. Stop at the usual checkpoints to
present their documents to the occupying forces (fig. 2).17 While aspects of the
narrative, such as provisional authority and occupying forces, evoke militarized
zones, the film is deliberately misplaced and miscast. The setting is suburban Las
Vegas, and it is a white family who stops their Volkswagen station wagon at the
security checkpoint. As the family drives into rural Nevada, they encounter a pickup truck and three white
authority. . . .

men with shovels and guns. Again the narration does not mesh with the images. A teenager with a traditional
headdress is portrayed by an actor with a baseball cap, while the older men dressed in clothes more typical of

As the family approaches and slowly


passes the men, the video alternates between footage of the scene on the ground
and black-and-white aerial images that track the scene unfolding below. The aerial
view resembles drone video footage and anticipates the narrators conclusion: A shrieking
sound pierces the thin air, cleaving through it like the cry of a heavenly messenger. The Hellfire
missile hits the ground before anyone can react, nearly vaporizing the three men on
impact. The pick-up truck takes most of the damage, but the station wagon isnt spared. It pulls up ahead and
waits, generously, patiently. Time passes. Time is on my side. Seeing the world from above doesnt
just flatten things, it sharpens them. It makes relationships clearer. The family continues
their journey. Their bodies will never be buried. Rather than follow a documentary impulse to
capture the reality of the drone wars, Fast instead creates an unnerving
picture of drone strikes on US soil. Fast is playing with what he describes as the
inherent contradiction of drones, being there and not being there. 19 By setting the
tribes from further south, wear flannel and canvas work clothes.

fictionalized drone strike in Nevada near Creech Air Force Base, the center of operations for drone pilots ,

Fasts
film questions the existence of safe civilian spaces in the drone wars and
offers an evocative homecoming for drone technology. Fast uses the real
interview excerpts with the drone pilot to similarly unsettling effect. As the pilot
describes details of operating a drone and the images that the system affords, the images on
the screen show aerial video of Las Vegasarea landscapes. When the pilot describes why
surveying at 5000 feet above is the best and muses that infrared cameras produce images that [End Page 198]

the viewer sees an aerial image of a child riding a bike through a


dirt expanse before reaching the paved road of a suburban subdivision. The camera moves vertically,
until the child is a small black dot moving across a neatly ordered suburban landscape. The aerial
images, coupled with the pilots testimony, imply that a drone is tracking the child.
No Hellfire missile punctuates this sequence, but the film unmistakably makes drones part
of the skyscape of the suburban United States. In doing so, Fast alludes both to
the increasing domestic use of drone technologies and to the everyday implications
of such surveillance. The authors of Living under Drones emphasize that constant
drone surveillance and the persistent threat of missile strikes produce anxiety
and psychological trauma for Pakistanis: Those living under drones have to
face the constant worry that a deadly strike may be fired at any moment, and the
knowledge that they are powerless to protect themselves. 20 The ability to launch missiles
are quite beautiful,

differentiates the drones that hover over Afghanistan, Pakistan, and more recently Yemen and Somalia from drones
and similar remote-controlled aircraft used to patrol the US-Mexico border and for surveillance by the FBI, DEA, and

Without flattening these differences,


Fasts film suggests that drones can have devastating consequences without being
lethally armed. A final sequence in Fasts film emphasizes that the drone operator is part of a larger system
that coordinates attacks, but remains hidden from sight . The scene again places drones in the
domestic skyscape, with the real pilots interview playing over an aerial shot of the Las Vegas strip, with
an increasing number of local law enforcement agencies.21

bright lights shining against the night sky. As the camera moves to close-up images of the thrill rides on top of the
Stratosphere Las Vegas tower, the pilot describes his first drone kill: Usually other outside observers
would come into the GCS [ground control station] at this point, just to kind of watch and monitor the situation. And
the people who sit in the main building, they have projected images up on the wall of camera feeds that are coming

And we fired off a Hellfire


missile and got the target. It didnt quite stand in to me that, hey, I just killed
someone. My first time, that was within my first year there. It didnt quite impact. It was later on, through a
couple more missions, that the dreams started.22 The story ends here, but the suggestion is that, like
many drone pilots, his remote combat role took a psychological toll.23 With his
out, like everything up to the Pentagon can see what were doing on this feed.

references to the video cameras and screens that link Creech Air Force Base, the Pentagon, and the target site in
Afghanistan,

the pilot makes it clear that he is not an independent operator but part of
an attack progression, or what the Air Force calls the [End Page 200] kill chain. As the geographer Derek
Gregory describes, the kill-chain can be thought of as a dispersed and distributed
apparatus, a congeries of actors, objects, practices, discourses and affects, that
entrains the people who are made part of it and constitutes them as particular kinds
of subjects.24 Drone warfare depends on visual technologies that make its
targets visible while making the kill chain invisible, and 5000 Feet Is the
Best reworks the visual tropes of drone warfare to disrupt the ability of
these systems to resist being seen.

***KRITIKAL DRONE
NEGATVE***

Information
Some cards from the affirmative answering the criticism may be used and vice
versa. The majority are posted in both files

Case Frontlines

Surveillance State: 1NC Frontline


No impact - alarmist calls were made about airplanes,
helicopters, and Blackberries- banning drones outright results
in larger violations of privacy
McNeal, Pepperdine University Associate Professor of Law and
Associate Professor of Public Policy J.D. Ph.D., 2014
[Gregory S. is an expert on drones and topics related to security, technology and
crime. He is a nationally recognized commentator for Forbes, and a frequent
keynote speaker about technology, law and policy. His PhD is from Pennsylvania
State University and his JD is from Case Western Reserve, November 2014,
Brookings Institute, Drones and Aerial Surveillance Considerations for Legislator
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Research/Files/Reports/2014/10/drones-aerialsurveillance-legislators/Drones_Aerial_Surveillance_McNeal_FINAL.pdf?la=en,
accessed 6/25/15, GE]
The emergence of unmanned aerial vehicles in domestic skies raises
understandable privacy concerns that require careful and sometimes creative
solutions. The smartest and most effective solution is to adopt a property rights
approach that does not disrupt the status quo. Such an approach, coupled with
time-based prohibitions on persistent surveillance, transparency, and data retention
procedures will create the most effective and clear legislative package. Legislators
should reject alarmist calls that suggest we are on the verge of an
Orwellian police state.73 In 1985, the ACLU argued in an amicus brief filed in
California v. Ciraolo that police observation from an airplane was invasive modern
technology and upholding the search of Ciraolos yard would alter societys very
concept of privacy. Later, in 1988, the ACLU argued in Florida v. Riley that allowing
police surveillance by helicopter was Orwellian and would expose all Americans,
their homes and effects, to highly intrusive snooping by government agents... In a
different context in 2004 (before the advent of the iPhone) police in Boston were
going to use Blackberry phones to access public databases (the equivalent of
Googling). Privacy advocates decried the use of these handheld phones as mass scrutiny of the lives and
activities of innocent people, and a violation of the core democratic principle that the government should not be
permitted to violate a persons privacy, unless it has a reason to believe that he or she is involved in

Reactionary claims such as these get the publics attention and are
easy to make, but have the predicted harms come true? Is the sky truly falling? We
should be careful to not craft hasty legislation based on emotionally charged
rhetoric. Outright bans on the use of drones and broadly worded warrant
requirements that function as the equivalent of an outright ban do little to protect
privacy or public safety and in some instances will only serve to protect criminal
wrongdoing. Legislators should instead enact legislation that maintains the current balance between legitimate
surveillance and individuals privacy rights. The best way to achieve that goal is to follow a
propertycentric approach, coupled with limits on pervasive surveillance, enhanced
transparency measures, and data protection procedures.
wrongdoing.74

We willingly sacrifice our privacy every day on cites like


Facebook etc., the loss of privacy is inevitable for a litany of
causes
Farber University of Massachusetts Law Professor/Regulatory
& Privacy Expert Unmanned Aircraft (Drones), 14
[Hillary, 2/3/14, Syracuse Law Review, EYES IN THE SKY: CONSTITUTIONAL AND
REGULATORY APPROACHES TO DOMESTIC DRONE DEPLOYMENT,
http://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?
ID=026097084021001077083002066103113093042064029044054013126030125
068022076002064101077021017000033037038043080092029068067121091121
053047082012080120117102064066100035009042122105091099008069118002
110115070107121108102070026094101103106074026126120&EXT=pdf&TYPE=2
, Accessed: 6/27, JK]
We live in an age where a vast amount of human activity is transacted
electronically, leaving a digital footprint of our identity . Emails, texts, and postings on Facebook
are primary means of communication. A tremendous amount of commercial activity is transacted over the Internet,

We rarely deposit coins in tollbooths


anymore, and most toll roads are controlled by electronic payment systems.
Closedcircuit televisions and surveillance cameras record us moving about our daily
lives. Information that was once kept in our desk drawer or on our hard drive is now
stored in a virtual repository called the Cloud. If we allow the Fourth Amendment to
be dependent on secrecy, we run the risk that it will become obsolete. Some
scholars argue that new technologies that challenge our longstanding reasonable
expectation of privacy test reveal that privacy is no longer a legitimate proxy for
what the Fourth Amendment protects.205 Professor Paul Ohm observes that, given how rapidly
whereas cash has become a less common method of payment.

technology is changing our everyday lives and our notions about what is considered private, a more appropriate
way to understand

the purpose of the Fourth Amendment is as a restraint on police

power.206 This paradigm shift is a dramatic move away from how we have thought about privacy and its
relationship to the Fourth Amendment for over half a century. But it is not without precedent. Prior to Katz, 207
property was considered that which the Fourth Amendment was created to protect. But Katz changed that by
replacing privacy for property as a proxy for Fourth Amendment protection.208 Ohm and others suggest that in this
era of rapid technological growth, we substitute power as the proxy for that which the Fourth Amendment was
created to restrain.209 Ohms proposition makes sense when one considers how new technologies have made it

Users willingly relinquish some of their privacy to


avail themselves of these new devices.210 For instance, most smartphones are
equipped with tracking software that records the users location with great
precision.211 Cellular systems update and record location data every few minutes of all phones on their
easierand cheaperto obtain information.

networks.212 Cell phone companies typically retain this data for a year or longer.213 In June 2011, more than 322
million wireless devices were in use in the United States.214 Most users are aware of the phones tracking
capability, yet most opt for the convenience of having their phone with them and choose to ignore concerns of

As Ohm argues, the prevalence of people with phones equipped with


this technology may make location data public no matter how it is retrieved.
being tracked.215

Surveillance State: 2NC- AT: Biopower Impact


Biopower does not make massacres vitala specific form of
violent sovereignty is also required.
Ojakangas, Academy research fellow at the Helsinki Collegium,
05
[Mika Ojakangas, PhD in Social Science and Academy research fellow at the Helsinki
Collegium for Advanced Studies at the University of Helsinki, 2005 The Impossible
Dialogue on Biopower: Foucault and Agamben, Foucault Studies, No. 2, AMM]
Admittedly, in the era of biopolitics, as Foucault writes, even massacres have become
vital. This is not the case, however, because violence is hidden in the foundation of
biopolitics, as Agamben believes. Although the twentieth century thanatopolitics is the reverse of biopolitics,
it should not be understood, according to Foucault, as the effect, the result, or the
logical consequence of biopolitical rationality. Rather, it should be understood, as
he suggests, as an outcome of the demonic combination of the sovereign power
and biopower, of the city-citizen game and the shepherd-flock game or as I would like to put it, of patria
potestas (fathers unconditional power of life and death over his son) and cura maternal (mothers unconditional

Although massacres can be carried out in the name of care,


they do not follow from the logic of biopower for which death is the object of
taboo. They follow from the logic of sovereign power, which legitimates killing by
whatever arguments it chooses, be it God, Nature, or life.
duty to take care of her children).

Biopower is inevitable
Wright, Fellow at the Centre for Global Political Economy, 08
[Nathan, Fellow at the Centre for Global Political Economy, 2008, Camp as
Paradigm: Bio-Politics and State Racism in Foucault and Agamben,
http://gh0stwritten.blogspot.com/2007/02/camp-as-paradigm-bio-politics-andstate.html, Accessed 6/28/15, AMM]
Perhaps the one failure of Foucaults that, unresolved, rings as most ominous is his failure to further examine the

At the
end of the last lecture, Foucault suggests that bio-power is here to stay as a fixture
of modernity. Perhaps given its focus on the preservation of the population of the
nation it which it is practiced, bio-power itself is something that Foucault accepts as
here to stay. Yet his analysis of bio-politics and bio-power leads inevitably to statesanctioned racism, be the government democratic, socialist, or fascist. As a result,
he ends the lecture series with the question, How can one both make a bio-power
function and exercise the rights of war, the rights of murder and the function of
death, without becoming racist? That was the problem, and that, I think, is still the
problem. It was a problem to which he never returned . However, in the space opened by
problem of bio-political state racism that he first raises in his lecture series, Society Must Be Defended.

Foucaults failure to solve the problem of state racism and to elaborate a unitary theory of power (Agamben 1998,
5) steps Agamben in an attempt to complete an analysis of Foucauldian bio-politics and to, while not solve the
problem of state racism, at least give direction for further inquiry and hope of a politics that escapes the problem of
this racism.

Biopower is strategically reversibleit can become a tool of


resistance and empowerment
Campbell, professor of international politics at the University
of Newcastle, 98
[David, professor of international politics at the University of Newcastle, Writing
Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity, pg. 204-205]
The political possibilities enabled by this permanent provocation of power and
freedom can be specified in more detail by thinking in terms of the predominance of
the bio-power discussed above. In this sense, because the governmental practices of
biopolitics in Western nations have been increasingly directed toward modes of being and
forms of life such that sexual conduct has become an object of concern, individual health has been figured
as a domain of discipline, and the family has been transformed into an instrument of government the
ongoing agonism between those practices and the free dom they seek to contain
means that individuals have articulated a series of counterdemands drawn from
those new fields of concern . For example, as the state continues to prosecute people according to sexual
orientation, human rights activists have proclaimed the right of gays to enter into formal marriages, adopt children,

These claims are


a consequence of the permanent provocation of power and freedom in biopolitics,
and stand as testament to the strategic reversibility of power relations: if the
terms of governmental practices can be made into focal points for resistances, then
the history of government as the conduct of conduct is interwoven with the
history of dissenting counterconducts. 39 Indeed, the emergence of the state as the
major articulation of the political has involved an unceasing agonism between
those in office and those they rule. State intervention in everyday life has long incited popular coland receive the same health and insurance benefits granted to their straight counterparts.

lective action, the result of which has been both resistance to the state and new claims upon the state. In particular,
the core of what we now call citizenship consists of multiple bargains hammered out by rulers and ruled in the
course of their struggles over the means of state action, especially the making of war. In more recent times,
constituencies associated with womens, youth, ecological, and peace movements (among others) have also issued

These resistances are evidence that the break with the


discursive/nondiscursive dichotomy central to the logic of interpretation
undergirding this analysis is (to put it in conventional terms) not only theoretically licensed;
it is empirically warranted. Indeed, expanding the interpretive imagination so as to enlarge the categories
claims on society.

through which we understand the constitution of the political has been a necessary precondition for making sense
of Foreign Policys concern for the ethical borders of identity in America. Accordingly, there are manifest political
implications that flow from theorizing identity. As Judith Butler concluded: The deconstruction of identity is not the
deconstruction of politics; rather, it establishes as political the very terms through which identity is articulated.

Biopower is a production of the state actions to undo while


still engaging institutions are doomed to fail
Macdonald, Colorado State associate professor of political
science, 02
[Bradley J. Macdonald, associate professor of political science at Colorado State
University, 2002, Marx, Foucault, and Genealogy, Polity, Vol. 34 No. 3, Pages 259
-284, AMM]
While this only scratches the surface of Foucault's discussion of the discourses associated with Marxism within the
European context-a discussion, moreover, that shows a close attention to the historical and political context of
Western Marxism, and is far from a vituperative attack even in its most negative-it does elucidate why he

Aside from his


philosophical problems with European Marxism, Foucault's own experience of the
revolutionary practices that began in 1968 reinforced both his disdain for Marxist
dogmatics and the importance of his own tentative studies associated with
madness, medicine and penal institutions, studies that he would later realize were
ultimately related to issues of "power." "What was it that was being questioned
everywhere?," Foucault queries. I think my answer is that the
dissatisfaction from the way in which a kind of permanent oppression in
daily life was being put into effect by the state or by other institutions and
oppressive groups. That which was ill-tolerated and continuously
questioned, which produced that sort of discomfort, was "power." And not
only state power, but also that which was exercised within the social body
through extremely different channels, forms, and institutions.
consistently distanced himself from a Marxist (not necessarily Marx's) position.

Islamophobia: 1NC Frontline


Democratic checks prevent their impact from escalating
OKane, Emeritus Professor of Comparative Political Theory,
97
[Rosemary, Modernity, the Holocaust, and politics, Economy and Society,
February, ebsco, Date Accessed 6/29/2015, MM]
Chosen policies cannot be relegated to the position of immediate condition (Nazis in power) in the explanation

Modern bureaucracy is not intrinsically capable of genocidal


action (Bauman 1989: 106). Centralized state coercion has no natural move to
terror. In the explanation of modern genocides it is chosen policies which play the greatest part, whether in
of the Holocaust.

effecting bureaucratic secrecy, organizing forced labour, implementing a system of terror, harnessing science

Germany and
genocidal government

and technology or introducing extermination policies, as means and as ends. As Nazi

USSR have shown, furthermore, those chosen policies of


turned away from and not towards modernity. The choosing of policies, however, is
Stalins

not independent of circumstances. An analysis of the history of each case plays an important part in explaining
where and how genocidal governments come to power and analysis of political institutions and structures also

But it is not
just political factors which stand in the way of another Holocaust in modern
society. Modern societies have not only pluralist democratic political
systems but also economic pluralism where workers are free to change jobs and bargain
helps towards an understanding of the factors which act as obstacles to modern genocide.

wages and where independent firms, each with their own independent bureaucracies, exist in competition with

this economic pluralism both promotes


and is served by the open scientific method. By ignoring competition and the capacity
state-controlled enterprises. In modern societies

for people to move between organizations whether economic, political, scientific or social, Bauman overlooks

It is these very
ordinary and common attributes of modernity which stand in the way of
modern genocides.
crucial but also very ordinary and common attributes of truly modern societies.

No root cause to war


Goldstein, Professor Emeritus of International Relations, 2
[Joshua S., War and Gender How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa,
American University (Washington, DC) Research Scholar, University of
Massachusetts and Nonresident Sadat Senior Fellow, CIDCM, University of Maryland
War and Gender , P. 412 2k2, Date Accessed 6/29/2015, MM ]
First, peace activists face a dilemma in thinking about causes of war and working for peace. Many peace scholars
and activists support the approach, if you want peace, work for justice. Then if one believes that sexism
contributes to war, one can work for gender justice specifically (perhaps among others) in order to pursue peace.
This approach brings strategic allies to the peace movement (women, labor, minorities), but rests on the

causality runs at least as


strongly the other way. War is not a product of capitalism, imperialism,
gender, innate aggression, or any other single cause, although all of these influences wars
outbreaks and outcomes. Rather, war has in part fueled and sustained these and other
injustices. So, if you want peace, work for peace. Indeed, if you want justice
(gener and others), work for peace. Causality does not run just upward through the levels of analysis from
assumption that injustices cause war. The evidence in this book suggests that

types of individuals, societies, and governments up to war. It runs downward too. Enloe suggests that changes in
attitudes toward war and the military may be the most important way to reverse womens oppression/ The
dilemma is that peace work focused on justice brings to the peace movement energy, allies and moral grounding,

the emphasis on injustice as the main cause of war


seems to be empirically inadequate.
yet, in light of this books evidence,

Wars for humanity are an ahistorical myth


Teschke, IR prof at the University of Sussex, 11,
[Benno Gerhard, Fatal attraction: a critique of Carl Schmitt's international political
and legal theory, International Theory (2011), 3 : pp 179-227, Date Accessed
6/29/2015, MM]
For at the centre of the heterodox partly post-structuralist, partly realist neo-Schmittian analysis stands the
conclusion of The Nomos: the thesis of a structural and continuous relation between liberalism and violence (Mouffe
2005, 2007; Odysseos 2007). It suggests that, in sharp contrast to the liberal-cosmopolitan programme of
perpetual peace, the geographical expansion of liberal modernity was accompanied by the intensification and deformalization of war in the international construction of liberal-constitutional states of law and the production of

Liberal world-ordering proceeds via the conduit


of wars for humanity, leading to Schmitt's spaceless universalism. In this perspective, a straight
line is drawn from WWI to the War on Terror to verify Schmitt's long-term
prognostic of the 20th century as the age of neutralizations and de-politicizations
(Schmitt 1993). But this attempt to read the history of 20th century
international relations in terms of a succession of confrontations between
the carrier-nations of liberal modernity and the criminalized foes at its
outer margins seems unable to comprehend the complexities and
specificities of liberal world-ordering, then and now . For in the cases of
Wilhelmine, Weimar and fascist Germany, the assumption that their conflicts with the AngloAmerican liberal-capitalist heartland were grounded in an antagonism between liberal modernity and a
recalcitrant Germany outside its geographical and conceptual lines runs counter to the historical
evidence. For this reading presupposes that late-Wilhelmine Germany was not already substantially penetrated
liberal subjectivities as rights-bearing individuals.

by capitalism and fully incorporated into the capitalist world economy, posing the question of whether the causes of
WWI lay in the capitalist dynamics of inter-imperial rivalry (Blackbourn and Eley 1984), or in processes of belated
and incomplete liberal-capitalist development, due to the survival of re-feudalized elites in the German state
classes and the marriage between rye and iron (Wehler 1997). It also assumes that the late-Weimar and early Nazi
turn towards the construction of an autarchic German regionalism Mitteleuropa or Groraum was not deeply
influenced by the international ramifications of the 1929 Great Depression, but premised on a purely political
existentialist assertion of German national identity. Against a reading of the early 20th century conflicts between
the liberal West and Germany as wars for humanity between an expanding liberal modernity and its political

confrontations were interstate conflicts


within the crisis-ridden and nationally uneven capitalist project of modernity . Similar
exterior, there is more evidence to suggest that these

objections and caveats to the binary opposition between the Western discourse of liberal humanity against non-

For how can this optic explain that the liberal


West coexisted (and keeps coexisting) with a large number of pliant authoritarian
client-regimes (Mubarak's Egypt, Suharto's Indonesia, Pahlavi's Iran, Fahd's Saudi-Arabia, even
Gaddafi's pre-intervention Libya, to name but a few), which were and are actively managed
and supported by the West as anti-liberal Schmittian states of emergency, with
concerns for liberal subjectivities and Human Rights secondary to the strategic
interests of political and geopolitical stability and economic access ? Even in the more
obvious cases of Afghanistan, Iraq, and, now, Libya, the idea that Western intervention has to be
conceived as an encounter between the liberal project and a series of foes outside
its sphere seems to rely on a denial of their antecedent histories as geopolitically
and socially contested state-building projects in pro-Western fashion, deeply co-determined by
liberal foes apply to the more recent period.

long histories of Western anti-liberal colonial and post-colonial legacies. If these states (or social forces within them)
turn against their imperial masters, the conventional policy expression is blowback.

And as the

Schmittian analytical vocabulary does not include a conception of human


agency and social forces only friend/enemy groupings and collective political
entities governed by executive decision it also lacks the categories of analysis
to comprehend the social dynamics that drive the struggles around sovereign
power and the eventual overcoming, for example, of Tunisian and Egyptian
states of emergency without US-led wars for humanity. Similarly, it seems
unlikely that the generic idea of liberal world-ordering and the production of liberal
subjectivities can actually explain why Western intervention seems improbable in
some cases (e.g. Bahrain, Qatar, Yemen or Syria) and more likely in others (e.g. Serbia, Afghanistan,
Iraq, and Libya). Liberal world-ordering consists of differential strategies of building, coordinating, and drawing
liberal and anti-liberal states into the Western orbit, and overtly or covertly intervening and refashioning them once
they step out of line. These are conflicts within a world, which seem to push the term liberalism beyond its original

The generic Schmittian idea of a liberal spaceless universalism sits


uncomfortably with the realities of maintaining an America-supervised informal
empire, which has to manage a persisting interstate system in diverse and
case-specific ways. But it is this persistence of a worldwide system of states, which encase national
meaning.

particularities, which renders challenges to American supremacy possible in the first place.

Liberalism can affirm cultural difference and contingency


better than the alt their critique is a totalizing portrayal of
liberalism that destroys progressive change
Arslan, Professor of Political Sciences, 99
[Zhutu, president of The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Turkey Polis
Akademisi Gvenlik Bilimleri Fakltesi, Taking Rights Less Seriously, Res Publica 5,
1999, , Date Accessed 6/29/2015, MM]
postmodernists reject the idea that human beings
have certain rights simply by virtue of being human. Foucault for instance claims that, like the
Incredulous of foundational truth claims, the

individual, civil liberties are nothing but expressions of governance and disciplinary power.98 Gaete writes: [A] PostModern perspective would assume that human rights are neither the expression of a universal truth nor a denial of
it and regard their truth claims as only local moves in a game the subject enters when formulating his/her
relationship to power in the language of fundamental rights.99 The postmodern hymn of relativity rules out the

In the postmodern condition, it would be


impossible to argue that individuals have some basic rights irrespective of their
nationality or geography. The inevitable consequence of the relativisation of truth-claims is
to undercut any universal, principled, normative basis for claiming that human rights
simply exist.100 But without such a basis, we are left in a situation in which we lack any criteria to
distinguish between right and wrong. This ethical vacuum may easily lead to the apparent
possibility of any universal claim to human rights.

legitimation and justification of almost any belief and practice in the realm of rights. This conservative support of
the prevailing status quo is an obvious rejection of the revolutionary nature of universal human rights. At the end
of the day, the notion of rights is forced to surrender its power as a legitimating factor of political regimes. With the

postmodernists in fact undermine any possible resistance


against oppressive orders. As Touraine asserts, [T]he idea of the subject is a dissident idea which has
demise of the subject and his/her rights, the

always upheld the right to rebel against an unjust power.101 Touraine also reminds the murderers of the subject
what a subject-less world would look like: [T]he day when the Subject is debased to meaning introspection, and the
Self to meaning compulsory social roles, our social and personal life will lose all its creative power and will be no
more than a post-modern museum in which multiple memories replace our inability to produce anything of lasting

is equally
problematic. The very idea of uncertainty itself implies the existence of a certainty, after all: [ I]f you
tried to doubt everything, you would not get as far as doubting anything. The game
of doubting itself presupposes certainty.103 Human beings live with their values, and
importance.102

The postmodern defence of

uncertainty and contingency

need to rank them. Their highest values, or what Charles Taylor calls hypergoods,104 play a
central role in our lives. Individuals define and are defined by these hypergoods, be they a divine being,
Brahma, Nirvana, Justice, Reason, Science, Progress, Cogito or Superman. To kill our hypergoods therefore
means an attempt to kill the sources of the self , sources which confer meaning on the
lives of human beings. The need for hypergoods points to the necessity of an
absolute truth, to use Sartres phrase.105 This necessity is also the precondition of any critique.
Thus Habermas claims that Nietzsches critique consumes the critical impulse itself; for if thought can no longer
operate in the realms of truth and validity claims, then analysis and critique lose their meaning. 106 Oddly,
perhaps, Derrida seems to agree with Habermas when he says that he cannot conceive of a radical critique which
would not be ultimately motivated by some sort of affirmation, acknowledged or not.107 Postmodernity, despite its

Such a dream itself anyway


reflects, however implicitly and unintentionally, the belief in linear progress, one of the hypergoods of
modernity.109 Postmodernism turns out to be a new grand narrative: a grand narrative
of postmodernity.110 Even Lyotard comes close to acknowledging the existence of this new metanarrative.
dream of a godless epoch,108 cannot escape the necessity we have explored.

He states that the great narratives are now barely credible. And it is therefore tempting to lend credence to the

As a new totalising project,


postmodernism reproduces the very predicaments of modernity,112 and its rejection of
metaphysics becomes a merely rhetorical claim.113 The real question now is how to establish a
socio-political framework in which peoples hypergoods might peacefully live side by
side without people trying to kill each other. This is the project of political liberalism: but it is also to
certain extent the project of postmodernism itself, as we have earlier seen.114 In other words, pluralism is the
common value which in fact pervades the writings of liberals and postmodernists alike,115
even though it is expressed in different terms, and on different epistemological grounds,
great narrative of the decline of great narratives.111

amounting, ironically, to both the ethical relativism of John Keane116 and the moral universalism of
Habermas.117 Keane writes: [T]o defend relativism requires a social and political stance which is throughly modern.
It implies the need for establishing or strengthening a democratic state and a civil society consisting of a plurality of
public spheres, within which individuals and groups can openly express their solidarity with (or opposition to)
others ideas.118 In an interview, Habermas explains what his moral universalism stands for: [W]hat does

universalism mean, after all? That one relativizes ones own way of life with regard to the
legitimate claims of other forms of life, that one grants the strangers and the others, with all
their idiosyncrasies and incomprehensibilities, the same rights as oneself, that one does not insist
on universalizing ones own identity, that one does not simply exclude that which deviates from it,
that the areas of tolerance must become infinitely broader than they are today moral universalism means all
these things.119 At the core of this pluralism required by ethical relativism and moral universalism alike lies the
conception of autonomy.120 Indeed, as Raz puts it, pluralism is a necessary requirement of the value of

Autonomy, however, is inextricably connected with rights. An autonomous


individual who is the author of his own life has certain rights. 122 In Razs words
autonomy.121

autonomy is constituted by rights and nothing else: the autonomous life is a life within unviolated rights.123

autonomy constitutes a
sufficient ontological justification for rights and thus gives an invaluable support to
those who seek for a justificatory ground for them.124 Autonomy requires the existence of the
Since it is an essential part and parcel of human being (or being human),

Other(s).125 The Other is not simply external to me, but he or she at the same time constitutes my identity: I am in
a way parasitic on the Other. My autonomy makes sense only insofar as there exist others. As Sartre puts it, [T]he
other is indispensable to my existence, and equally so to any knowledge I can have of myself.126 And unless I in
turn recognise others as autonomous beings I shall end up in the fundamental predicament of absolute loneliness
and terror.127 This points to the absolute necessity of living with others,128 as a zoon politikon in Marxs
words.129 Thus autonomy is a key value not only for I, but also for others. The postmodernists must take into
account autonomy, if they are to present an ethical/political project part of which involves rights, however locally.
They can do so, furthermore, without having to abandon their conceptual tools. Difference and otherness, the
magical terms of postmodern discourse, are in fact quite compatible with such conceptions as autonomy and
universality. As Lyotard himself argues, a human being has rights only if she is also an other human being. Likewise,

universalism and difference are not mutually exclusive.


Difference may need universalism. The idea of difference is indeed likely to be
as Terry Eagleton emphasises,

undermined by certain militant particularisms of our day .130 V. CONCLUSION Whatever the
merits of the entirety of their arguments, the postmodernists emphasise the paramount importance of human
rights: they are, after all, its starting-point. As Bauman points out, [T]he great issues of ethics like human
rights . . . have lost nothing of their topicality,131 and he is well aware of the fact that [m]oral issues tend to be
increasingly compressed into the idea of human rights .132 Lyotard himself likewise states that [A] human being
has rights only if he is other than a human being. And if he is to be other than a human being, he must in addition
become an other human being.133 More importantly, influenced by the communitarian and postmodern critique of
metaphysical grounds for ethical and political claims, some liberal rights theorists such as Ronald Dworkin and John
Rawls adopt a kind of apologetic attitude towards the theoretical foundation of rights, refusing to play the
traditional role of moral magician by plucking ethical claims out of a metaphysical hat. In a recent essay, Rawls

rights do not depend on any particular comprehensive


moral doctrine or philosophical conception of human nature , such as, for example that
makes it clear that [T]hese [human]

human beings are moral persons and have equal worth or that they have certain particular moral and intellectual
powers that entitle them to these rights. To show this would require a quite deep philosophical theory that many if
not most hierarchical societies might reject as liberal or democratic or else as in some way distinctive of Western
political tradition and prejudicial to other countries.134 This passage implies that in fact the idea of human rights is
a product of the western liberal tradition, but in order to make it universally applicable we must refrain from any
theoretical attempt to reveal this fact. Lets pretend that human rights are simply there. They do not need any

there need be no contradiction between the


postmodernists and the liberals; nor need the latter apologize for rights. For, as we have seen, the
postmodernists have never underestimated the importance of human rights. They
argue that ethical issues such as human rights only need to be seen , and dealt with, in
a novel way.135 Yet the postmodernists have not presented us with any postmodern
novel way in which human rights might be seen . It seems to be difficult, if not impossible,
for them to show this novel way without taking into account the conceptions of autonomous self and
universality. Perhaps they need to begin taking rights more seriously.
moral or philosophical ground for justification. But

Solvency: 1NC Frontline


Critical theory lacks a mechanism for reform and is too
abstract to bring about social change
Bryant, Collin College professor of philosophy, 12
(Levi Bryant, Professor of Philosophy at Collin College, 2012, Critique of the
Academic Left, http://larvalsubject...-academic-left/, Accessed 6/28/15, AMM )
Unfortunately, the academic left falls prey to its own form of abstraction.

Its good
at carrying out critiques that denounce various social formations, yet very poor at proposing any sort of realistic
constructions of alternatives. This because it thinks abstractly in its own way, ignoring how networks, assemblages,
structures, or regimes of attraction would have to be remade to create a workable alternative. Here Im reminded
by the underpants gnomes depicted in South Park: The underpants gnomes have a plan for achieving profit that
goes like this: Phase 1: Collect Underpants Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Profit! They even have a catchy song to go with their
work: Well this is sadly how it often is with the academic left. Our plan seems to be as follows: Phase 1: UltraRadical Critique Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Revolution and complete social transformation! Our problem is that we
seem perpetually stuck at phase 1 without ever explaining what is to be done at phase 2. Often the
critiques articulated at phase 1 are right, but there are nonetheless all sorts of problems with those critiques
nonetheless. In order to reach phase 3, we have to produce new collectives. In order for new collectives to be
produced, people need to be able to hear and understand the critiques developed at phase 1. Yet this is where

Even though these critiques are often right, we express them


in ways that only an academic with a PhD in critical theory and post-structural
theory can understand. How exactly is Adorno to produce an effect in the world if
only PhDs in the humanities can understand him? Who are these things for? We seem
everything begins to fall apart.

to always ignore these things and then look down our noses with disdain at the Naomi Kleins and David Graebers of
the world. To make matters worse, we publish our work in expensive academic journals that only universities can
afford, with presses that dont have a wide distribution, and give our talks at expensive hotels at academic
conferences attended only by other academics. Again, who are these things for? Is it an accident that so many
activists look away from these things with contempt, thinking their more about an academic industry and tenure,
than producing change in the world? If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, it doesnt make a sound!

too
often act like assholes. We denounce others, we condemn them, we berate them for not
engaging with the questions we want to engage with, and we vilify them when they
dont embrace every bit of the doxa that we endorse. We are every bit as off-putting
and unpleasant as the fundamentalist minister or the priest of the inquisition (have people yet
Seriously dudes and dudettes, what are you doing? But finally, and worst of all, us Marxists and anarchists all

understood that Deleuze and Guattaris Anti-Oedipus was a critique of the French communist party system and the

This type
of revolutionary is the greatest friend of the reactionary and capitalist because they do
more to drive people into the embrace of reigning ideology than to undermine reigning
ideology. These are the people that keep Rush Limbaugh in business . Well done! But this
Stalinist party system, and the horrific passions that arise out of parties and identifications in general?).

isnt where our most serious shortcomings lie. Our most serious shortcomings are to be found at phase

We almost never make concrete proposals for how things ought to be restructured, for
what new material infrastructures and semiotic fields need to be produced, and when
we do, our critique-intoxicated cynics and skeptics immediately jump in with an analysis of
all the ways in which these things contain dirty secrets, ugly motives, and are doomed to
fail. How, I wonder, are we to do anything at all when we have no concrete
proposals? We live on a planet of 6 billion people. These 6 billion people are dependent on a certain network
2.

of production and distribution to meet the needs of their consumption. That network of production and distribution
does involve the extraction of resources, the production of food, the maintenance of paths of transit and
communication, the disposal of waste, the building of shelters, the distribution of medicines, etc., etc., etc. What
are your proposals? How will you meet these problems? How will you navigate the existing mediations or semiotic
and material features of infrastructure? Marx and Lenin had proposals. Do you? Have you even explored the
cartography of the problem? Today we are so intellectually bankrupt on these points that we even have theorists
speaking of events and acts and talking about a return to the old socialist party systems, ignoring the horror they

generated, their failures, and not even proposing ways of avoiding the repetition of these horrors in a new system
of organization. Who among our critical theorists is thinking seriously about how to build a distribution and
production system that is responsive to the needs of global consumption, avoiding the problems of planned
economy, ie. Who is doing this in a way that gets notice in our circles? Who is addressing the problems of microfascism that arise with party systems (theres a reason that it was the Negri & Hardt contingent, not the Badiou
contingent that has been the heart of the occupy movement). At least the ecologists are thinking about these
things in these terms because, well, they think ecologically. Sadly we need something more, a melding of the
ecologists, the Marxists, and the anarchists. Were not getting it yet though, as far as I can tell. Indeed, folks seem
attracted to yet another critical paradigm, Laruelle.

I would love, just for a moment, to hear

a radical environmentalist talk about his ideal high school that would be academically sound. How would
he provide for the energy needs of that school? How would he meet building codes in an environmentally sound

What would be her plan for waste


disposal? And most importantly, how would she navigate the school board, the state legislature, the
federal government, and all the families of these students? What is your plan? What is your
alternative? I think there are alternatives. I saw one that approached an alternative in Rotterdam. If you want to
make a truly revolutionary contribution, this is where you should start. Why should
anyone even bother listening to you if you arent proposing real plans ? But
way? How would she provide food for the students?

we havent even gotten to that point. Instead were like underpants gnomes, saying revolution is the answer!
without addressing any of the infrastructural questions of just how revolution is to be produced, what alternatives it
would offer, and how we would concretely go about building those alternatives. Masturbation. Underpants gnome

We need
less critique not because critique isnt important or necessary it is but because we know the
critiques, we know the problems. Were intoxicated with critique because its easy
and safe. We best every opponent with critique. We occupy a position of moral superiority with critique. But do
we really do anything with critique? What we need today, more than ever, is composition or
carpentry. Everyone knows something is wrong. Everyone knows this system is
destructive and stacked against them. Even the Tea Party knows something is wrong with the
economic system, despite having the wrong economic theory. None of us, however, are proposing
alternatives. Instead we prefer to shout and denounce. Good luck with that.
deserves to be a category in critical theory; a sort of synonym for self-congratulatory masturbation.

Their moral tunnel vision is complicit with the evil they criticizeutilitarian thought it better
Issac 2 (Professor of Political Science at Indiana-Bloomington, Director of the
Center for the Study of Democracy and Public Life, PhD from Yale (Jeffery C.,
Dissent Magazine, Vol. 49, Iss. 2, Ends, Means, and Politics, p. Proquest)
It is assumed that U.S.
military intervention is an act of "aggression," but no consideration is
given to the aggression to which intervention is a response. The status
quo ante in Afghanistan is not, as peace activists would have it, peace,
but rather terrorist violence abetted by a regime--the Taliban--that rose
to power through brutality and repression. This requires us to ask a question that most
"peace" activists would prefer not to ask: What should be done to respond to the
violence of a Saddam Hussein, or a Milosevic, or a Taliban regime? What
means are likely to stop violence and bring criminals to justice? Calls for diplomacy and
international law are well intended and important; they implicate a
decent and civilized ethic of global order. But they are also vague and
empty, because they are not accompanied by any account of how
diplomacy or international law can work effectively to address the
problem at hand campus left offers no such account. To do so would require it to
contemplate tragic choices in which moral goodness is of limited utility .
As a result, the most important political questions are simply not asked.

Here what matters is not purity of intention but the intelligent exercise of power. Power is not a dirty word or an
unfortunate feature of the world. It is the core of politics. Power is the ability to effect outcomes in the world.

Politics, in large part, involves contests over the distribution and use of
power. To accomplish anything in the political world, one must attend to
the means that are necessary to bring it about. And to develop such means is to
develop, and to exercise, power. To say this is not to say that power is beyond
morality. It is to say that power is not reducible to morality . As writers such as
Niccolo Machiavelli, Max Weber, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Hannah Arendt have taught, an unyielding
concern with moral goodness undercuts political responsibility . The concern
may be morally laudable, reflecting a kind of personal integrity, but it suffers from three fatal flaws: (1) It fails to

the purity of one's intention does not ensure the achievement of


what one intends. Abjuring violence or refusing to make common cause
with morally compromised parties may seem like the right thing; but if
such tactics entail impotence, then it is hard to view them as serving
any moral good beyond the clean conscience of their supporters; (2) it
fails to see that in a world of real violence and injustice, moral purity is
not simply a form of powerlessness; it is often a form of complicity in
injustice. This is why, from the standpoint of politics--as opposed to religion-pacifism is always a potentially immoral stand. In categorically
repudiating violence, it refuses in principle to oppose certain violent
injustices with any effect; and (3) it fails to see that politics is as much
about unintended consequences as it is about intentions; it is the
effects of action, rather than the motives of action, that is most
significant. Just as the alignment with "good" may engender impotence, it is often the pursuit of "good"
see that

that generates evil. This is the lesson of communism in the twentieth century: it is not enough that one's goals

it is equally important, always, to ask about the effects


of pursuing these goals and to judge these effects in pragmatic and
historically contextualized ways. Moral absolutism inhibits this
judgment. It alienates those who are not true believers. It promotes
arrogance. And it undermines political effectiveness.
be sincere or idealistic;

Also- using the state is a double turn with their evidence- Any
attempt to reconcile social ills within the structure of the
state is doomed to fail it must be abandoned
Duffield, Professor Emeritus and former Director of the Global
Insecurities Center University of Bristol, 07
[Mark Duffield, Professor Emeritus and former Director of the Global Insecurities
Center, University of Bristol, Development, Security and Unending War Governing
the World of People, Pg. 230-232, AMM]
self-reliance but of its
essential success; that is, its ability to allow non-insured people, groups and communities to
forge livelihoods and survival strategies beyond and outside the state (Keen 1994 and
1998; Duffield 2001: 136-60). The increase in Western interventionism is occurring at a time
when people are actively deserting the state . The vast literature on 'war economies', for example,
is illustrative of an innovative and radical self-reliance. Transborder and shadow economies have
expanded at the same time as a medley of actors - ranging from ethnic associations,
Humanitarian emergencies are, in some respects, not the result of the breakdown of

clan leaders and religious groups to warlords, Mafiosi and terrorist organizations have all learned the biopolitical art of enfranchising the dispossessed through
alternative forms of protection, legitimacy and welfare as a necessary adjunct of
their own political survival (Tishkov 1997; Goldenburg 2001; Kent et al. 2004). Such 'actually
existing development' beyond and outside the state deepens the crisis of
containment and gives urgency, for example, to Western efforts to reconstruct fragile
states and reterritorialize the people living within them . Apart from highlighting the fact that
such states have no established or centralized welfare function, the difficulty is that even if successfully
reconfigured as governance states, they can only promise the non-material salvation of sustainable development

The success of surplus life in


forging patterns of actually existing development beyond states defines an
important area of contestation and recapture within the framework of unending war .
through social reorganization around basic needs and self-reliance.

In one of the few attempts to examine global development from a comparative welfare regime perspective, Wood
and Gough (2006) identify three generic types: the welfare state, the informal security regime and the insecurity
regime. The last two are systems where self-reliance, in terms of the familyzand community forms of reciprocity,
provides the bulk of public welfare. The insecurity regime, however, corresponds to zones of crisis and state fragility
where these reciprocities have broken down. Whereas welfare states are characterized by the de-commodification
of life, for example, through protection from employment risks, within informal security regimes patron-client
relations predominate. Reflecting the absence of a mass labour market rather than de-commodification, especially
within insecure societies, generalizing welfare is argued to require a process of 'de-clientization' - that is, the
practice 'of de-linking client dependants from their personalized, arbitrary and discretionary entrapment to persons
with intimate power over them' (ibid.: 1708). In framing this argument, the authors have unwittingly rearticulated
the global 'hearts and minds' role into which unending war has channelled development assistance (DAC 2003).

When nationalists and liberation movements sought to remake the state during the
Cold War, such events were labelled as radical or even revolutionary . Today, as the
West takes on this role directly, it finds itself embroiled in expansive and totalizing
forms of counter-insurgency. The idea that an alternative development lies in the
'insuring' of the non-insured raises many difficulties. Given the widespread
desertion of the borderland state by the dispossessed, such endeavours easily
become means of recapturing and bolstering the West's own security; in other words, it
would have to contend with the governance function of insurance-based technologies of biopower. This
includes the importance of welfare rights as a means of excluding migrants and
encoding racial identity and conflict in mass consumer society . At the same time, through
the digitalization of life processes, insurance technologies are providing increasingly finely textured mechanisms for
the monitoring and modulation of conduct more generally (Ericson and Doyle 2003). These difficulties suggest that,

in attempting to rescue the emancipatory urge embedded in development, we


should consider following the lead of the dispossessed and global justice
movements and also desert the state (Patel and McMichael 2004). Or at least, in the process, the
power of an already monstrously powerful state should not be further extended or
deepened. Freeing the impulse to protect and better should avoid measures that
further privilege the state or, like human security, invoke the state as central to its
own existence. This concern underlines the tragedy of the N GO movement and its hopeless enmeshment.
That a distancing is required is also suggested from a different but related quarter. During the course of the

a state of emergency has become a normal and accepted


paradigm of government (Agamben 2005). Following Foucault, Agamben has argued that security can
be distinguished from disciplinary power in that the latter seeks to isolate and close
territories in the pursuit of order, while security 'wants to regulate disorder' (Agamben
2001: 1). A dangerous contemporary development is the thought of security itself (Homqvist 2004). As security
becomes the basic task of the state, politics is progressively neutralized. The
thought of security 'bears with it an essential risk. A state which has security as its
sole task and source of legitimacy is a fragile organism; it can always be provoked
twentieth century, invoking

by terrorism to become itself terroristic' (Agamben 2001). Between terrorism and


counter-terrorism a curious complicity exists in which each needs the other for its
own existence, whether as a legitimation of its own violence or a justification for the
draconian methods it requires in defending society . Both share a common ground in
the acceptance of a design of war that privileges the state. During the Cold War the
geopolitical stand-off between nuclear-armed superpowers was underpinned by the threat of 'mutually assured

Today we have acquired a sort of biopolitical MADness that


interconnects the survival and various fundamentalisms of insurgents and counterinsurgents alike in the fateful and mutually conditioning embrace of unending war.
In this encounter the inevitable victor is the state and the unavoidable victim is
politics itself. Like actually existing development, the pursuit of emancipation
involves working beyond and outside the state, ignoring rather than confronting it,
as part of the rediscovery of politics in the practical solidarity of the governed.
destruction' or MAD.

Solvency: 2NC Util Wall


Every life is an end in and of itself All lives are infinitely
valuable, the only ethical option is to maximize the number
saved
Cummisky 96 (David, professor of philosophy at Bates, Kantian
Consequentialism, p. 131)
even if one grants that saving two persons with dignity cannot
outweigh and compensate for killing onebecause dignity cannot be
added and summed in this waythis point still does not justify deontological
constraints. On the extreme interpretation, why would not killing one person be a
stronger obligation than saving two persons? If I am concerned with the
priceless dignity of each, it would seem that I may still save two ; it is just
Finally,

that my reason cannot be that the two compensate for the loss of the one. Consider Hill's example of a priceless
object: If I can save two of three priceless statutes only by destroying one, then I cannot claim that saving two
makes up for the loss of the one. But similarly, the loss of the two is not outweighed by the one that was not

even if dignity cannot be simply summed up, how is the extreme


interpretation inconsistent with the idea that I should save as many priceless objects
as possible? Even if two do not simply outweigh and thus compensate for the loss of the one, each is
priceless; thus, I have good reason to save as many as I can . In short, it is not
destroyed. Indeed,

clear how the extreme interpretation justifies the ordinary killing/letting-die distinction or even how it conflicts
with the conclusion that the more persons with dignity who are saved, the better.8

Exclusion is a reason to vote neg They advocate that the


group they save is more important than the rest of humanity
Since all lives are equal, you should treat them that way by
protecting the greatest number
Dworkin 77 (Professor of Law and Philosophy at New York University (Ronald
1977, Taking Rights Seriously pg 274-5)
The liberal conception of equality sharply limits the extent to which ideal arguments of policy may be used to
justify any constraint on liberty. Such arguments cannot be used if the idea in question is itself controversial
within the community. Constraints cannot be defended, for example, directly on the ground that they contribute
to a culturally sophisticated community, whether the community wants the sophistication or not, because that
argument would violate the canon of the liberal conception of equality that prohibits a government from relying

Utilitarian argument
of policy, however, would seem secure from that objection. They do not
suppose that any form of life is inherently more valuable than any other ,
but instead base their claim, that constraints on liberty are necessary to advance some
collective goal of the community, just on the fact that that goal happens to be desired more
widely or more deeply than any other. Utilitarian arguments of policy, therefore, seem not to
oppose but on the contrary to embody the fundamental right of equal concern
and respect, because they treat the wishes of each member of the
community on a par with the wishes of any other, with no bonus or
discount reflecting the view that that member is more or less worthy of
on the claim that certain forms of life are inherently more valuable than others.

concern, or his views more or less worthy of respect, than any other. This appearance of egalitarianism has, I
think, been the principal source of the great appeal that utilitarianism has had, as a general political philosophy,
over the last century. In Chapter 9, however, I pointed out that the egalitarian character of a utilitarian argument
is often an illusion. I will not repeat, but only summarize, my argument here. Utilitarian arguments fix on the
fact that a particular constraint on liberty will make more people happier, or satisfy more of their preferences,

depending upon whether psychological or preference utilitarianism is in play. But people's overall preference for
one policy rather than another may be seen to include, on further analysis, both preference that are personal,
because they state a preference for the assignment of one set of goods or opportunities to him and preferences
that are external, because they state a preference for one assignment of goods or opportunities to others. But a
utilitarian argument that assigns critical weight to the external preferences of members of the community will
not be egalitarian in the sense under consideration. It will not respect the right of everyone to be treated with
equal concern and respect.

Extinction destroys all human aspiration Claims to outweigh


it destroy value to life
Schell 82 (Jonathan, Visiting professor of liberal studies at Harvard University,
Fate of the Earth)
For the generations that now have to decide whether or not to risk the future of the species, the implication of
our species unique place in the order of things is that while things in the life of [hu]mankind have worth, we
must never raise that worth above the life of [hu]mankind and above our respect for that lifes existence. To do

To sum up
the worth of our species by reference to some particular standard , goal, or
ideology, no matter how elevated or noble it might be, would be to prepare the
way for extinction by closing down in thought and feeling the openended possibilities for human development which extinction would close
down in fact. There is only one circumstance in which it might be possible to sum up the life and
this would be to make of our highest ideals so many swords with which to destroy ourselves.

achievement of the species, and that circumstance would be that it had already died; but then, of course, there
would be no one left to do the summing up. Only a generation that believed itself to be in possession of final,

only generations
that recognized the limits to their own wisdom and virtue would be likely to
subordinate their interests and dreams to the as yet unformed interests
and undreamed dreams of the future generations, and let human life go on.
absolute truth could ever conclude that it had reason to put an end to human life, and

Utilitarianism is key to morality Extinction prevents future


generation from attaining other values
Nye 86 (Joseph S. 1986; Phd Political Science Harvard. University; Served as
Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs; Nuclear
Ethics pg. 45-46)
Is there any end that could justify a nuclear war that threatens the
survival of the species? Is not all-out nuclear war just as self contradictory in the real world as
pacifism is accused of being? Some people argue that "we are required to undergo
gross injustice that will break many souls sooner than ourselves be the
authors of mass murder."73 Still others say that "when a person makes survival the highest value,
he has declared that there is nothing he will not betray. But for a civilization to sacrifice itself
makes no sense since there are not survivors to give meaning to the
sacrifical [sic] act. In that case, survival may be worth betrayal." Is it
possible to avoid the "moral calamity of a policy like unilateral
disarmament that forces us to choose between being dead or red (while
increasing the chances of both)"?74 How one judges the issue of ends can be affected by how
one poses the questions. If one asks "what is worth a billion lives (or the survival of the
species)," it is natural to resist contemplating a positive answer. But suppose one asks, " is it possible to
imagine any threat to our civilization and values that would justify
raising the threat to a billion lives from one in ten thousand to one in a
thousand for a specific period?" Then there are several plausible answers, including a

When we
pursue several values simultaneously, we face the fact that they often
conflict and that we face difficult tradeoffs. If we make one value
absolute in priority, we are likely to get that value and little else.
Survival is a necessary condition for the enjoyment of other values, but
that does not make it sufficient. Logical priority does not make it an absolute value. Few
democratic way of life and cherished freedoms that give meaning to life beyond mere survival.

people act as though survival were an absolute value in their personal lives, or they would never enter an

We can give survival of the species a very high priority without


giving it the paralyzing status of an absolute value. Some degree of risk
is unavoidable if individuals or societies are to avoid paralysis and
enhance the quality of life beyond mere survival. The degree of that risk
is a justifiable topic of both prudential and moral reasoning.
automobile.

Counterplan

2NC- AT: Reform Bad


Criticism of instrumental rationality is wrong and overstated
only our framework can self-correct ensuring constitutive and
introspective opportunities
Brady 85 (Neil F., A Defense of Utilitarian Policy Processes in Corporate and
Public Management, Journal of Business Ethics, February)
the largest question is whether the subjective function of reason as found in
the predominantly utilitarian or instrumental processes of the administrative world
excessively distorts life, as Horkheimer and others suggest. Despite its great difficulty the need to
resolve the issue leaves the thoughtful administrator with significant philosophical discomfort. Are utilitarian
techniques fundamentally flawed, biased, or distorted? Does one serve society well who
Therefore,

merely manages resources in the service of unexamined wants, without considering whether things (especially
preferences) should be any different from what in fact they now are? The link of corporate and public policy with
utilitarian theory is virtually axiomatic, with little or no recognition given to the objective goals or philosophical
purpose. At the same time, its procedures have been severely criticized and are well-known to policy analysts
[MacIntyre, 1977; Tribe, 1972; Tribe, 1974). Such problems will not go away, but will continually serve to keep
makers of policy firmly if comfortably immersed in the fluid reality of human wants and needs. Yet, the focus of this
paper goes beyond these well-known procedural difficulties to defend utilitarian policy-analytic techniques against
charges of alleged distortion to human nature inherent in its use. If procedures have flaws, that is one matter, but if
a method intrudes upon essential relationships or modifies important social processes, that is quite another.

this paper cannot respond to Horkheimers large assertions head on, it does respond to
two specific charges made against utilitarian processes in the world of corporate and
public policy making. The first is the claim that utilitarian policy processes systematically discriminate
Therefore, although

against the rights of non-human life and suppress any feelings of sympathy or obligations humans might feel for
animals or plants. The second is the argument that utilitarianism circumvents considerations of process which are
essential to the development of individual and societal identity. This paper hopes to show that from a philosophical
point of view,

utilitarian policy-analytic techniques hold their own against

certain powerful

and specific complaints. In that event, the monkey is places on the back of those who are so critical of the
predominantly utilitarian nature of policy processes ti show what the objective function of reason and add to policy
processes beyond the present contribution of utilitarian techniques. Continues A second criticism of utilitarian
theory applied in policy making objects to its circumvention of a process valuable to society, viz. the constitutive or
value-learning process. Marx, for example, objects to utilitarianism from the perspective of a social reformer. For
him, utilitarian methods promote a static society: the theory of utility [changes]into a mere apology of what
exists; into a demonstration that under the existing conditions the present relations among men are the most
advantageous and in the general interest. It has this character in all the recent economists [Bottomore, 1956, p.
166]. That is, utilitarian ethics only inquires after the strength of current values; it does not promote their review or
change. Of course, Marxs interest in promoting societal dynamism is motivated by a sense of direction; a dynamic
society is a revolutionary society which will, in the long run, promote the classical Marxist ideals. On the other hand,
ones interest in societal dynamism need not be instrumental; awareness and self-criticism can be prized for their
own sake, regardless of the outcome. More specifically, the process in which a society chooses what it will value is
one in which the society continually constitutes itself; and contrasted with a system of runaway technology, for
example, where societal values are in part determined by the forward momentum of technological development, a
society which continually or periodically studies the implications of technological development for its well-being
chooses itself. It may do so incrementally and without lofty vision, but all that is important is that society takes its
development into its own hands. Laurence Tribe (1972) has argued that the utilitarian system of technology
assessment institutionalized in the United States often results in the circumvention of the kind of process essential
for the development of the higher forms of human rationality and for the promotion of democracy. That is, standard
utilitarian assessment techniques are outcome-oriented: they collapse what might otherwise be a healthy review of
public values into a speedy judgment regarding the comparative merit of possible outcomes. In most areas of
human endeavor from performing a symphony to orchestrating a society the processes and rules that constitute
the enterprise and define the roles played by its participants matter quite apart from any identifiable end state
that is ultimately produced. Indeed, in many cases it is the process itself that matters most to those who take part
in it. By focusing all but exclusively on how to optimize some externally defined end state, policy analytic methods
distort thought, and sometimes action, to whatever extent process makes or ought to make an independent
difference. (Tribe, 1973, p. 631) Thus, he fundamentally utilitarian nature of technology assessment may distort or
abbreviate an important societal process simply in order to obtain closure on an issue. Another way to describe the

phenomenon involves seeing technology assessment procedures as a scientific method in terms of scientific ideals,
no measuring technique should have an effect upon the items is seeks to measure. Yet, if Tribe is correct, utilitarian
assessment techniques do distort the nature of the phenomenon they inquire after, principally by virtue of the fact
that they ignore the truly societal nature of policy processes in the course of sampling personal preferences. Daniel
Bell is getting at the same problem when he writes that utilitarianism neglects the reality of structures that
necessarily stand outside individuals. (1976, p. 257) Nevertheless, despair over the propriety of utilitarian

There are at least two reasons for supposing


the critiques of utilitarianism outlined above to be overstated. The first is related to the
techniques for societal processes may be premature.

corporate experience with utilitarian policy making. It simply is not clear that the traditionally utilitarian character of
corporate decision-making stifles the more constitutive or value-choosing functions of reason. Indeed, the decisionmaking phase of weighing preferences at least causes executives to consider the comparative strengths of
corporate values, if not absolute strengths. A company, for example, which is wrestling with the issue of expansion
of facilities must review the comparative strengths of several goals: the short-term interests of stockholders, the
long-term survival and growth interests of the corporation, public image, the sacrificing of alternative uses of the

Just because utilitarian methods press for


outcomes does not require that the constitutive function of reason be short-circuited
altogether. The question What do I want? in situations of conflicting goals often prompts the
capital, etc. Such discussions can be vigorous.

question How badly do I want it? The later question is not far removed from Why do I want it? and What ought I

respect human rationality in its own right and not just for its
instrumental capacities. The second reason for justified optimism is the cyclical
nature of utilitarian assessment process. Descriptions of utilitarian decision-making often
conclude with a feed-back loop. (Rowen, 1969) The effect of the loop on the process is to diffuse some
of the thrust toward closure and to promote continued reflection and assessment. That is, when
to want?, which

one feels intuitive discomfort with the result of a utilitarian assessment, the cause may be failure in any or all of

List all alternative


courses of action. (2) List all relevant criteria for evaluating the alternatives. (3) Weigh the
criteria with respect to their importance. Presumably, the inclusion of feedback loops is prima facia recognition of
three traditional utilitarian steps which only rarely can be completed with confidence: (1)

the freedom and lack of closure inherent in these earlier stages of utilitarian procedures. So, if these two arguments

one need not despair altogether over the alleged process-collapsing


application of utilitarian or instrumental strategies in the policy-forming process.
Instrumental rationality as expressed in utilitarian assessments is subtly infected
with introspective opportunities chances to redetermine what values are relevant
for assessing goals, how important each value is, and whether further insight can be
achieved regarding alternatives and their consequences. Continues Returning, finally, to
have merit,

Marxs initial complaint regarding the alleged natural tendency of utilitarian techniques to defend the status quo

one might conclude that the alternative to utilitarian rationality , viz. constitutive
thinking, could have posed an even greater obstacle to societal dynamism! The
contribution of the constitutive function of rationality s discovery the identification of values or principles which

The danger lies in attributing


more permanence or absoluteness to the products of constitutive thought than is
consistent with changing times the result being institutionalized dogma and a form
of constitutive rationality which no longer constitutes but merely reaffirms. It seems
sustain themselves over time and lend permanence to individual identity.

fair to conclude, then, that Marx would have been unhappy with too much societal stability, whether it were due to
policies derived from the utilitarian inertia of present preferential relations among men or to the privileged status of

Both instrumental and constitutive forms of rationality can be carried


to extremes: but there is nothing about the application of utilitarian techniques to
the process of policy-formation that theoretically requires societal stagnation or
abdication of self-formative responsibilities. The successful management of societies as well as
historical ideology.

corporations must rely upon an uncomfortable balancing of instrumental and constitutive rationality - of operating
in an ambiguous realm of no knowing fully what should be achieved or how it should be achieved of the
counterposition of incremental policy formulation with fell swoop analysis.

Critical Legal Studies reinforce imperialism through asserting


interpretations incremental changes bring change closer.
Delgado, University of Alabama Chair of Law, 2009
[Richard, self appointed Minority scholar, J.D. from the University of California,
Berkeley, his books have won eight national book prizes, including six Gustavus
Myers awards for outstanding book on human rights in North America, the American
Library Associations Outstanding Academic Book, and a Pulitzer Prize nomination.
Professor Delgados teaching and writing focus on race, the legal profession, and
social change, Arguing about Law, pages 588-590, //Evann]
2. The CLS critique of piecemeal reform Critical scholars reject the idea of piecemeal reform. Incremental change,
they argue, merely postpones the wholesale reformation that must occur to create a decent society. Even worse, an
unfair social system survives by using piecemeal reform to disguise and legitimize oppression. Those who control
the system weaken resistance by pointing to the occasional concession to, or periodic court victory of, a black
plaintiff or worker as evidence that the system is fair and just. In fact, Crits believe that teaching the common law
or using the case method in law school is a disguised means of preaching incrementalism and thereby maintaining
the current power structure. To avoid this, CLS scholars urge law professors to abandon the case method, give up

The CLS
critique of piecemeal reform is familiar, imperialistic and wrong. Minorities
know from bitter experience that occasional court victories do not mean the
Promised Land is at hand. The critique is imperialistic in that it tells minorities and
other oppressed peoples how they should interpret events affecting them . A court
order directing a housing authority to disburse funds for heating in subsidized housing may
postpone the revolution, or it may not. In the meantime, the order keeps a number
of poor families warm. This may mean more to them than it does to a
comfortable academic working in a warm office. lt smacks of paternalism to assert that the
the effort to find rationality and order in the case law, and teach in an unabashedly political fashion.

possibility of revolution later outweighs the certainty of heat now, unless there is evidence for that possibility. The
Crits do not offer such evidence. Indeed, some

incremental changes may bring

revolutionary changes closer, not push them further away. Not all small reforms induce
complacency; some may whet the appetite for further combat. The welfare family may hold a
tenants union meeting in their heated living room. CLS scholars critique of
piecemeal reform often misses these possibilities, and neglects the question of whether total
change, when it comes, will be what we want. 3. CLS Idealism The CLS program is also
idealistic. CLS scholars idealism transforms social reality into mental construct. Facts become intelligible only
through the categories of thought that we bring to experience. Crits argue that the principal impediments to
achieving an ideal society are intellectual.

People are imprisoned by a destructive system of


mental categories that blocks any vision of a better world." Liberal capitalist ideology so
shackles individuals that they willingly accept a truncated existence and believe it to be the best available.

Changing the world requires primarily that we begin to think about it


differently. To help break the mental chains and clear the way for the creation of a
new and better world, Crits practice "trashing"a process by which law and social structures are shown to
be contingent, inconsistent and irrationally supportive of the status qua without good reason. CLS scholars'
idealism has a familiar ring to minority ears. We cannot help but be reminded of those fundamentalist preachers
who have assured us that our lot will only improve once we "see the light" and are "saved."

Disadvantage

2NC- Defense of Terror Talk


The state is a rational actor and can accurately predict threatsespecially in the context of terror studies
Ravenal, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service
Professor Emeritus, 9
[Earl C, distinguished senior fellow in foreign policy studies @ Cato, is professor
emeritus of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. He is an expert on
NATO, defense strategy, and the defense budget. Critical Review: An
Interdisciplinary Journal of Politics and Society 21.1 (2009) 21-75, A.H]
The underlying notion of the security bureaucracies . . . looking for new enemies is a threadbare concept that has
somehow taken hold across the political spectrum, from the radical left (viz. Michael Klare [1981], who refers to a
threat bank), to the liberal center (viz. Robert H. Johnson [1997], who dismisses most alleged threats as
improbable dangers), to libertarians (viz. Ted Galen Carpenter [1992], Vice President for Foreign and Defense

What is missing from most


analysts claims of threat inflation, however, is a convincing theory of why, say, the
American government significantly(not merely in excusable rhetoric) might magnify and even
invent threats (and, more seriously, act on such inflated threat estimates). In a few
Policy of the Cato Institute, who wrote a book entitled A Search for Enemies).

places, Eland (2004, 185) suggests that such behavior might stem from military or national security bureaucrats
attempts to enhance their personal status and organizational budgets, or even from the influence and dominance of
the military-industrial complex; viz.: Maintaining the empire and retaliating for the blowback from that empire
keeps what President Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex fat and happy. Or, in the same section: In
the nations capital, vested interests, such as the law enforcement bureaucracies . . . routinely take advantage of
crisesto satisfy parochial desires. Similarly, many corporations use crises to get pet projects a.k.a. porkfunded
by the government. And national security crises, because of peoples fears, are especially ripe opportunities to grab
largesse. (Ibid., 182) Thus, bureaucratic-politics theory, which once made several reputa- tions (such as those of
Richard Neustadt, Morton Halperin, and Graham Allison) in defense-intellectual circles, and spawned an entire subindustry within the field of international relations,5 is put into the service of dismissing putative security threats as
imaginary. So, too, can a surprisingly cognate theory, public choice,6 which can be considered the right-wing
analog of the bureaucratic-politics model, and is a preferred interpretation of governmental decision- making

Public-choice theory argues [that]


the government itself can develop sepa- rate interests from its citizens. The
government reflects the interests of powerful pressure groups and the interests of
the bureaucracies and the bureaucrats in them. Although this problem occurs in both foreign and
among libertarian observers. As Eland (2004, 203) summarizes:

domestic policy, it may be more severe in foreign policy because citizens pay less attention to policies that affect
them less directly. There is, in this statement of public-choice theory, a certain ambiguity, and a certain degree of
contradiction: Bureaucrats are supposedly, at the same time, subservient to societal interest groups and

state autonomy is a
likely consequence of the publics ignorance of most areas of state activity (e.g., Somin
1998; DeCanio 2000a, 2000b, 2006, 2007; Ravenal 2000a). But state autonomy does not necessarily
mean that bureaucrats substitute their own interests for those of what could be
called the national society that they ostensibly serve . I have argued (Ravenal 2000a) that,
precisely because of the public-ignorance and elite-expertise factors, and especially
because the opportunitiesat least for bureaucrats (a few notable post-government lobbyist cases
nonwithstanding)for lucrative self-dealing are stringently fewer in the defense and
diplomatic areas of government than they are in some of the contract-dispensing
and more under-the-radar-screen agencies of government, the public-choice
imputation of self-dealing, rather than working toward the national interest (which,
autonomous from society in general. This journal has pioneered the argument that

however may not be synonymous with the interests, perceived or expressed, of citizens!) is less likely to hold. In
short,

state autonomy is likely to mean, in the derivation of foreign policy,


that state elites are using rational judgment, in insulation from self-

promoting interest groupsabout what strategies, forces, and weapons


are required for national defense. Ironically, public choicenot even a species of economics,
but rather a kind of political interpretationis not even about public choice, since, like the bureaucratic-politics
model, it repudiates the very notion that bureaucrats make truly public choices; rather, they are held,
axiomatically, to exhibit rent-seeking behavior, wherein they abuse their public positions in order to amass
private gains, or at least to build personal empires within their ostensibly official niches. Such sub- rational models
actually explain very little of what they purport to observe. Of course, there is some truth in them, regarding the
behavior of some people, at some times, in some circumstances, under some conditions of incentive and
motivation. But the factors that they posit operate mostly as constraints on the otherwise rational optimization of
objectives that, if for no other reason than the playing out of official roles, transcends merely personal or parochial
imperatives. My treatment of role differs from that of the bureaucratic-politics theorists, whose model of the
derivation of foreign policy depends heavily, and acknowledgedly, on a narrow and specific identification of the roleplaying of organizationally situated individuals in a partly conflictual pulling and hauling process that results in
some policy outcome. Even here, bureaucratic-politics theorists Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow (1999, 311) allow
that some players are not able to articulate [sic] the governmental politics game because their conception of their
job does not legitimate such activity. This is a crucial admission, and one that points empiricallyto the need for
a broader and generic treatment of role. Roles (all theorists state) give rise to expectations of performance. My

virtually every governmental role, and especially national-security


roles, and particularly the roles of the uniformed mili- tary, embody
expectations of devotion to the national interest; rational- ity in the
derivation of policy at every functional level; and objectivity in the
treatment of parameters, especially external parameters such as
threats and the power and capabilities of other nations. Sub-rational
models (such as public choice) fail to take into account even a partial dedication
to the national interest (or even the possibility that the national interest may be honestly misconceived in
more paro- chial terms). In contrast, an officials role connects the individual to the (state-level)
process, and moderates the (perhaps otherwise) self-seeking impulses of the
individual. Role-derived behavior tends to be formalized and codified; relatively transparent and at least peerpoint is that

reviewed, so as to be consistent with expectations; surviving the particular individual and trans- mitted to
successors and ancillaries; measured against a standard and thus corrigible; defined in terms of the performed
function and therefore derived from the state function; and uncorrrupt, because personal cheating and even

direct observation suggests that


defense decision-makers attempt to frame the structure of the problems that they
try to solve on the basis of the most accurate intelligence . They make it their
business to know where the threats come from. Thus, threats are not
socially constructed (even though, of course, some values are). A major reason for the
rationality, and the objectivity, of the process is that much security planning is
done, not in vaguely undefined circum- stances that offer scope for idiosyncratic,
subjective behavior, but rather in structured and reviewed organizational
frameworks. Non-rationalities (which are bad for understanding and prediction) tend to get filtered out.
People are fired for presenting skewed analysis and for making bad predictions. This is
egregious aggrandizement are conspicuously discouraged. My own

because something important is riding on the causal analysis and the contingent prediction. For these reasons,
public choice does not have the feel of reality to many critics who have participated in the structure of defense
decision-making. In that structure, obvious, and even not-so-obvious,rent-seeking would not only be shameful; it
would present a severe risk of career termination. And, as mentioned, the defense bureaucracy is hardly a
productive place for truly talented rent-seekers to operatecompared to opportunities for personal profit in the

A bureaucrats very self-placement in these reaches of


government testi- fies either to a sincere commitment to the national
interest or to a lack of sufficient imagination to exploit opportunities for
personal profit.
commercial world.

Speaking about terrorists is key to stopping it


Macy, General Systems Scholar and Deep Ecologist, 95

[Ecologist, 1995, Ecopsychology, A.H]


that negative thoughts are self-fulfilling . This is of a piece with the
notion, popular in New Age circles, that we create our own reality I have had people tell me that to speak of
catastrophe will just make it more likely to happen. Actually, the contrary is nearer
to the truth. Psychoanalytic theory and personal experience show us that it is
precisely what we repress that eludes our conscious control and tends to erupt into
behavior. As Carl Jung observed, When an inner situation is not made conscious, it
happens outside as fate. But ironically, in our current situation, the person who
gives warning of a likely ecological holocaust is often made to feel guilty of
contributing to that very fate.
There is also the superstition

Not everybody is a terrorist, but making distinctions is


important-we use reasonable criteria
Elshtain, University of Chicago Divity School Professor of Social
and Political Ethics, 03
[Jean Bethke, Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at
the University of Chicago Divinity School, and is a contributing editor for The New
Republic, 2003, Just War Against Terror, A.H]
The designation of terrorism becomes contested because terrorists and their apologists would prefer not to be

In some hotly contested


political situations, it may be in the interest of one side to try to label its
opponents as "terrorists" rather than "combatants" or "soldiers" or "fighters. " We
must ask who such men (and women) are attacking. Do they target soldiers at
outposts or in the field? Do they try to disable military equipment, killing soldiers
in the process? As they carry out such operations, are they open to negotiation and
diplomacy at the same time? If so, it seems reasonable to resist any blanket
label of "terrorism" for what they are up to. In a situation in which noncombatants are
depicted accurately. It is important to distinguish between two cases here.

deliberately targeted and the murder of the maximum number of noncombatants is the explicit aim, using terms
like "fighter" or "soldier" or "noble warrior" is not only beside the point but pernicious. Such language collapses the
distance between those who plant bombs in cafs or fly civilian aircraft into office buildings and those who fight

There is a nihilistic edge to


terrorism: It aims to destroy, most often in the service of wild and utopian goals that
make no sense at all in the usual political ways. The distinction between terrorism,
domestic criminality, and what we might call "normal" or "legitimate" war is vital to
observe. It helps us to assess what is happening when force is used. This distinction, marked in
historic moral and political discourses about war and in the norms of international
law, seems lost on those who call the attacks of September 11 acts of "mass
murder" rather than terrorism and an act of war under international law, and who go on to claim
that the United States has also engaged in "mass murder" in its legally authorized
counteroffensive that removed the Taliban and disrupted the Al Qaeda network and
its terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. This argument perpetrates a moral equivalence that
amounts to the "pile of garbage" that Stephen Carter noted.15 If we could not distinguish between an
accidental death resulting from a car accident and an intentional murder, our
criminal justice system would fall apart. And if we cannot distinguish the killing of combatants from
other combatants, taking the risks attendant upon military forms of fighting.

the in-tended targeting of peaceable civilians and the deliberate and indiscriminate sowing of terror among
civilians, we live in a world of moral nihilism.

In such a world, everything reduces to the same

shade of gray and we cannot make distinctions that help us take our political and
moral bearings. The victims of September 11 deserve more from us.

Terror Attack Turns the K


A terrorist attack would cause massive securitization and loss
of civil liberties
Beinart CUNY Associate professor of journalism and political
science 8,
[Peter, 2008, The Good Fight; Why Liberals and only Liberals Can Win the War on
Terror and Make America Great Again, 110-1]
White House officials
exploited a shift in public values after 9/11. When asked by Princeton Survey Research Associates in
Indeed, while the Bush administration bears the blame for these hor- rors,

1997 whether stopping terrorism required citizens to cede some civil liberties, less than one-t hird of Americans said
yes. By the spring of 2002, that had grown to almost three- quarters. Public support for the governments right to

In fact, polling in the months after


the attack showed Americans less concerned that the Bush administration was
violating civil liberties than that it wasnt violating them enough. What will happen
the next time? It is, of course, impossible to predict the reaction to any particular attack. But in 2003, the
Center for Public Integrity got a draft of something called the Domestic Security
Enhance- ment Act, quickly dubbed Patriot II. According to the centers executive
director, Charles Lewis, it expanded government power five or ten times as much as
its predecessor. One provision permitted the government to strip native-born
Americans of their citizenship, allowing them to be indefinitely imprisoned without
legal recourse if they were deemed to have provided any support even nonviolent support
to groups designated as terrorist . After an outcry, the bill was shelved. But it offers a
hint of what this administrationor any administrationmight do if the United States
were hit again. When the CIA recently tried to imagine how the world might look in
2020, it conjured four potential scenario s. One was called the cycle of fear, and it drastically
wire- tap phones and read peoples mail also grew exponentially.

inverted the assumption of security that C. Vann Woodward called central to Americas national character. The

the government has responded with largescale intrusive security measures. In this dystopian future, two arms dealers, one with jihadist
United States has been attacked again and

ties, text- message about a potential nuclear deal. One notes that terrorist networks have turned into mini-s
tates. The other jokes about the global recession sparked by the latest attacks. And he muses about how terrorism
has changed American life. That

new Patriot Act, he writes, went way beyond anything


imagined after 9/11. The fear cycle generated by an increasing spread of WMD
and terrorist attacks, comments the CIA report, once under way, would be one
of the hardest to break. And the more entrenched that fear cycle grows, the less
free America will become. Which is why a new generation of American liberals must
make the fight against this new totalitarianism their own.

Terrorists attacks cause destruction of liberties among


Americans- 9/11 proves
Martin, Director of the Center for National Security Studies, 1
[Kate; Nov. 28, 2001; NPR News; Liberty vs. Security: An NPR Special Report;
http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/liberties/viewpoints.martin.html; 6/24/14; DA]
In the first few days after the attacks (9/11), some 75 individuals were picked up
and detained. While the administration sought increased authority from the Congress to detain foreign
individuals on the grounds of national security with no judicial oversight, it picked up hundreds more individuals.

The attorney general announced that 480 individuals had been detained as of Sept.
28; 10 days later another 135 had been picked up; and in one single week during
October, some 150 individuals were arrested. As of Nov. 5, the Justice Department
announced that 1,147 people had been detained. While trumpeting the numbers of arrests in
an apparent effort to reassure the public, the Department has refused to provide the most basic information about
who has been arrested and on what basis. We know that the detainees include citizens, legal residents, and,
according to INS director James Zigler, 185 individuals were being held on immigration violations. According to the
attorney general and FBI director, the remaining group includes a small number of individuals held on material
witness warrants and others held on violations of local, state, or federal laws. Apparently none have been charged
as terrorists, indeed only 10 or 15 are even suspected of being terrorists. At this time, we do not have any idea how
As the number of secret detentions increased, press reports
began to appear, which if accurate, raise serious questions as to whether the rights
of the detainees are being violated. As each successive week has brought hundreds more arrests,
demands for release of basic information have intensified. The unprecedented level of secrecy
surrounding the extraordinary detention of hundreds of individuals, prompted us,
along with nearly 40 other civil liberties, human rights, legal, and public access
organizations to demand release of the detainees' names and the charges against
them under the FOIA request. The chair and other members of this committee and of the Congress have

many have been released.

also demanded a public accounting of the arrests. In response, the department has only stonewalled. Justice
Department officials have refused to release further information on the detentions, and have stopped keeping a
record of those detained, presumably in order to avoid having to answer questions about who is being counted in
the tallies. Public disclosure of the names of those arrested and the charges against them is essential to assure
that individual rights are respected and to provide public oversight of the conduct and effectiveness of this crucial
investigation. Public scrutiny of the criminal justice system is key to ensuring its lawful and effective operation.
Democracies governed by the rule of law are distinguished from authoritarian societies because in a democracy the
public is aware of those who have been arrested. Individuals may not be swept off the street and their whereabouts
kept secret. The government has made varying claims to justify this secrecy. Ironically, it now claims that it is
withholding the names of detained individuals in order to protect their privacy. What is needed to ensure the
protection of the rights of these individuals, who have been jailed by the government now worrying about their
privacy is what we have always relied upon in protecting against government abuses, namely public sunshine.

Likewise, the department's claim that releasing the names and charges could harm
the investigation is contradicted by its own disclosures . Not only have officials already
identified several suspected terrorists, but they have also outlined evidence against them. The attorney general
himself described the evidence against the three individuals whom he believes had prior knowledge of the Sept. 11
attacks. Finally, the Department has made the astonishing claim that because it asked courts to seal some of the
proceedings, it is now helpless to disclose even the identities of the courts or the authorities under which those gag
orders were sought. While we are not seeking the details of the investigation or an outline of the evidence being
collected by the FBI, we do urge this committee to secure the release of information crucial to public accountability:
the names and charges against those who have been detained. There is every reason to fear that the cloak of
secrecy is shielding extensive violations of the rights of completely innocent individuals. These violations include
imprisonment without probable cause, denial of the constitutional right to bail, interference with the right to
counsel, and abusive conditions in detention. We will only outline a few examples, but there are many more. a.
Imprisonment without Probable Cause. While the government has admitted that it has evidence of terrorism

it has imprisoned hundreds of individuals against


whom there is no evidence of criminal activity. For example, a father and son, both
U.S. citizens, were arrested as they returned from a business trip in Mexico because
their passports looked suspicious. The father was released after ten days and sent home wearing a leg
against only a small fraction of the detainees,

monitor, but the son spent two more months in jail until a federal judge determined that the plastic covering had
split. The key factor in their arrest appears to be their Arabic-sounding names. While the
attorney general has announced that terrorists will be arrested for spitting on the sidewalk, he has yet to explain

the department is using the


authority of the material witness statute to detain people. We urge this committee to examine
why innocent Americans will be jailed for doing so.

In a handful of cases,

carefully the circumstances of those detentions, which are now all shrouded in secrecy, and to consider the
dangerous ramifications of using the material witness statute not to secure testimony but to authorize preventive

There is growing evidence that the FBI has abandoned any effort to comply
with the constitutional requirement that an individual may only be arrested when
detention.

there is probable cause to believe he is engaged in criminal activity . The FBI is now
seeking to jail suspicious individuals until the agency decides to clear them. The FBI is providing a form affidavit,
which relies primarily on a recitation of the terrible facts of Sept. 11, instead of containing any facts about the
particular individual evidencing some connection to terrorism, much less constituting probable cause. The affidavit
simply recites that the FBI wishes to make further inquiries. In the meantime, the individual is held in jail. b. Denial
of the Constitutional Right to Bail. The right to be free on bail until trial is a vital part of the constitutional

While individuals can be denied bail when there is a


substantial risk that they would flee or commit acts of violence if released, this
constitutional standard currently seems to have been abandoned. Instead of considering
presumption of innocent until proven guilty.

whether a particular individual is likely to flee, the department is attempting to detain all individuals picked up as
part of the Sept. 11 investigation. If the past few weeks are an example of what the future holds, it is likely that

individuals charged with "spitting on the sidewalk" may serve more time in jail pretrial than they would if they were found guilty. All these circumstances raise serious questions
about the effectiveness of the current effort. Is the FBI carrying out a focused investigation
executing the work necessary to identify and detain actual terrorists, or is this
simply a dragnet, which will only be successful by chance. The fact that 1,000, or even 5,000,
individuals are arrested is no assurance that the truly dangerous ones are among them.

c. Violation of the Right to

Mohammed Rafiq Butt, a Pakistani citizen who was detained for


entering the country illegally, died in custody of an apparent heart attack on Oct.
23. Pakistani diplomats only learned of Mr. Butt's arrest when journalists called the
embassy to ask for a comment on his death. Clyde Howard, director of the State Department's
Consular Notification.

Consular Notification and Outreach Unit, said, "We are concerned about these failures of notification when they
happen to us overseas, so it becomes more difficult for us to assert our rights under the Vienna Convention if we
are not doing a good job in giving the same notification here." We urge this Committee to examine whether since

law enforcement officials have consistently failed to notify foreign


governments when their nationals are arrested. U.S. treaty obligations require
foreign consulates to be so notified. d. Violation of the Right to Counsel and the
Fourth Amendment. Even before the Justice Department announced its new policy of eavesdropping on
Sept. 11,

conversations between detainees and their attorneys, there were numerous reports of interference with the right to

Many immigration detainees were prevented from finding counsel. The


administration's "one call a week" policy made it difficult for detainees to
communicate with their families, find lawyers, or even know if they had successfully
secured representation. There is reason to fear that detainees' lawyers have been muzzled by gag orders,
counsel.

or simply intimidated into silence with threats of actions organized against their clients.

Under the Justice

the Department can


eavesdrop on the privileged attorney-client conversations of persons who have not
even been charged. Such individuals can be held incommunicado, with their
activities severely restricted. While others have outlined the clear unconstitutionality of this policy, I
want to emphasize the equally unlawful way in which it was adopted.
Department's recently announced policy, solely on the Attorney General's say-so,

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