Round 1: constantwonder v jasonjnelson: Secrets Are The Cause Of Terror., page

September 11, 2001 is a date that will forever be remembered as probably the worst terrorist attack on american soil in its short history. After these attacks alot has changed in our world. One of the biggest changes that has occured in the wake of this tragedy is the ability of the intellegance community to have free reign over many aspects of our lives and namely our telecommunications.

In such an era of paranoia and seemingly constant threat of another attack it is of paramount importance that various intellegence and law enforcement agencies be able to access any form of telecom they wish without having to reveil themselves by seeking warrants and following what were once proper channels to aquire the information.

This type of "spying" has already yeilded measurable results and prevented terrorist attacks. In 2007 arrests were made of members of the terror group "Islamic Jihad Union". Director of national security Mike McConnell told congress when adressing this event, "The government’s ability to eavesdrop on terrorism suspects overseas allowed the United States to obtain information that helped lead to the arrests last week of three Islamic militants accused of planning bomb attacks in Germany" he goes to state "allowed us to see and understand all the connections” they had with a breakaway cell of a Central Asian terrorist,Because we could understand it, we could help our partners through a long process of monitoring and observation, realizing that the perpetrators had actually obtained explosive liquids" (www.nytimes.com... )

German officials also weighed characterizing the communications as both specific and alarming.

This is but one example of many that display the effectiveness of the new policies. Many people are conserned about their prsonal privacy being invaded but if one has nothing to hide then they have nothing to fear. In actuality the surveillance program has been effective. After all, this country has not been successfully hit by a terrorist strike in the seven years since the world trade center and pentagon were so maliciously attacked.

Personally I enjoy feeling safe when im in a large public venue. Haveing nothing to hide i do not worry about anyone intercepting my communications. The information gathered isnt information in the public domain and since i dont turn on the news and hear that an intellegance agency has reason to believe that my neighbor is having a surprise birthday party this weakend i believe that even if my privacy has been encroached upon they have no interest in it and it goes in file 13.

if the government cannot take action against suspected terrorists until after they become confirmed terrorists, then the government is holding itself hostage. How can we expect attacks to be prevented if we must wait till they happen to act. Interestingly enough i will close by quoting a man many considerd to be a great terrorist threat

“Our sovereignty may be dependent on our ability to eavesdrop on transmissions between our enemies on the outside and those on the inside with sympathies for them. I trust my ability to determine who to mark for examination and so will you.” - Saddam Hussein-

A quick note of thanks to the Moderator and the judges of this debate! Thanks for the opportunity...



On September 11th, 2001, I awoke to family calling from NYC, frantic about planes hitting buildings less than two blocks from where they were.

To imply that I would do anything to defend my family from harm is an understatement.

The debate that has been put before us, pertaining to the use of surveillance on our telecommunications in order to prevent such attacks, would seem one that I would readily argue the "pro" position for. I had actually phrased my debate in such a way as to leave room for such a position to be acceptable as a means to an end.

My opponent has kindly changed that for me. The fact is, I now realize that I maintained this position from my own viewpoint, and the ways in which I would execute such a program. My opponent has provided multiple arguments to remind me that there are many other ways to execute such programs, and there is very little that would make me decide that giving up personal privacy, and the effects such programs would have, are worth any safety gains that result from them.

In my attempt to prove my argument, I will stick to three simple points;

1- Monitoring citizens telecommunications domestically provides little to no usable data when fighting terrorism, therefore it has little intrinsic value.

My opponent was kind enough to point out that many crimes have been prevented by these new, and dangerously far-reaching laws.

, "The government’s ability to eavesdrop on terrorism suspects overseas allowed the United States to obtain information that helped lead to the arrests last week of three Islamic militants accused of planning bomb attacks in Germany" he goes to state "allowed us to see and understand all the connections” they had with a breakaway cell of a Central Asian terrorist,Because we could understand it, we could help our partners through a long process of monitoring and observation, realizing that the perpetrators had actually obtained explosive liquids" (www.nytimes.com... )

German officials also weighed characterizing the communications as both specific and alarming.

Thats great.
If you live in Germany.
You see, I am not completely familiar with the German rules of warrants, and eavesdropping. I am familiar with U.S. laws, and they were put in place to protect the people from the state, not the opposite, as my opponent suggests.

If it were true that such data trolling yields results, then why is so little spent on it?
epic.org...

I cannot paste the chart, however the Homeland security budget shows that nearly NOTHING of there total operating budget is spent on such tools. Seems to me that they know something we don't.

2- I have long heard the argument that , as my opponent put it,

Many people are conserned about their prsonal privacy being invaded but if one has nothing to hide then they have nothing to fear.

I feel this argument to be wrong in every way.

Is this really going to be the crux of your argument?
There are so many fallacies within this, I don't know where to start...
My opponent operates under the premise that the World as she knows it will not change, and what is normal now, will be forever. However, when one looks at history, (prohibition, anti-red crusades, etc.) they will see that laws and regularities change often.
Who decides what the laws, or terrorism are in the first place? What if there were laws placed against something you feel is not wrong in the slightest? Would you allow an officer in your house for daily inspections? How about being stopped for "papers" every 15 miles? What if having this very debate was considered "subversive" and led to "terrorist activities"?

This is what China is today, what Russia was under Stalin, and Germany under the Nazi party.

Freedom is not given to me by the state, therefore it cannot take it away. Being concerned for the sanctity of the state over it's own citizens freedoms and privacy is a trademark of tyrannical regimes....
Which leads me to what will be my third point...

3- Although I understand the sentiment, of "how many things would one give up for personal safety?", I would ask a better question, in my eyes anyway.

"How much personal safety would one give up for Liberty?"

This is the very question that once occupied the minds of many revolutionaries around the world, throughout all of history.
When one looks at Iraq, where they fought a near-civil war, and underwent years of persecution under a totalitarian government, I wonder if they consider it a fair trade off to be allowed some measure of freedom. After all, you did quote their former leader as saying that his enemies, and enemies of the "state", being monitored was a fair trade off for the safety that his country maintained.

Which pretty much sums up my argument for me, even in this opening post.

"Our sovereignty may be dependent on our ability to eavesdrop on transmissions between our enemies on the outside and those on the inside with sympathies for them. I trust my ability to determine who to mark for examination and so will you.” - Saddam Hussein-

Would my opponent like to take the time and quote Stalin, or Hitler while she is at it? I am sure that they could give us some great tips on maintaining the status quo.

Socratic Questions for my Opponent
1- Are you not worried about handing the power to prosecute indiscriminately, to the very same people who derive power from prosecuting us?

2- Can you yourself think of many times when you may have been in the "grey" area concerning laws, and yet you escaped prosecution from this by not having the aforementioned "surveillance"?

3- Can you name an instance in the U.S. where such surveillance led to an arrest that would not have been possible without other police methods?

First off I'd like to aplogize to you jasonj, I had assumed that German lives would be just as valuable as American lives. ^.~


Now getting down to business.... Before I begin my surrebuttal to your argument allow me first to very earnestly address your questions.

1- No, because no one is being handed that power. The ability to intercept communications doesnt give the ability to haphazardly go about bringing legal charges against people. Im sure there is quite a bit of discretion when acting upon any information obtained in this manner, due to the sensitive nature of the subject of warrentless wiretapping amongst the public.

2- Being one who occasionaly enjoys certain "illicet" botanicals I'd have to say yes. (I'd say thats a little more of the black area than the "grey.") Often I use the phone usually talking fairly non-discretely about the aforementioned, and well im here now writing this so obviously nothing has come of it over a period of years. So yes i escaped because they weren't surveilling my communications, and if they were I'm just not that important or interesting on a national security level.

3- Of course I can. You didnt think I'd bring a knife to this gun fight did you? I present without further ado Lyman Faris. An Ohio trucker who pled guilty to charges of providing money to al qaida. Authorities also said he had "scouted" sites in the US for terrorist attacks and sabotage including the Brooklyn Bridge. I cannot see any other way this information could be obtained.... perhaps telepathy, channeling, or a terrorist dowsing rod?

(www.cbsnews.com...)

On the matter of your "3 simple points," I think the answer to question 3 addressed your first point perfectly so I will not continue to beat the proverbial "dead horse". Why is so little being spent on this surveillence, because it requires very little infrastructure on the intellegence agencies' end. They dont really have to buy anything, build anything, engineer new devices, or anything of that nature so the costs aren't signifigant.

To your so called second point..... Of course i understand that the world changes and in this "information age" it can occur rapidly. But one thing that has not changed in a long time is the use of warrentless wiretaps. Both of us have already mentioned 9/11 allow me if you will to take you back to the before time, a time when the World Trade Center stood tall and americans rejoiced at the closing of the cold war, a distant time... the early 1990s when warrantless wiretapping was already being used to intercept communications between people in the United States and Latin America in an effort to gain intellegence on narcotics traffiking. This has been going on for years and i dare say not once have i heard a complaint about anyones privacy being invaded. (Until the beggining of these frivalous law suites against the telecom companies of course.) If you do not know your being surveilled and the information never makes it into the public domain then does it really matter if some fed over heard you telling granny happy birthday, or calling an escort service for a date? Honestly, if you dont know who cares, how much damage has really been done?

Also, on a side note you say my idea is full of fallicies but failed to point out any falicies.

You go on to ask,

"What if there were laws placed against something you feel is not wrong in the slightest? Would you allow an officer in your house for daily inspections? How about being stopped for "papers" every 15 miles? What if having this very debate was considered "subversive" and led to "terrorist activities"?

Ok thats one issue broken into three questions but i will try to answer in in the most concise way possible here. Nothing new has been made illegal first of all, secondly no "Joe Everybody" is being surveilled constantly as you would try and make it sound with your statement. They arent checking every communique out there the that would be a legisticle nightmare. I'm sure there are very stringent guidelines governing (from inside the individual agencies) who is surveilled and why. It is the only way they would be able to prioritize and not be simply overwhelmed by the volume of communication traffic.

And finaly to your third point. Id like to start by defining the term Liberty as stated in the webster-marriom dictionary.

liberty- a: a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or grant: privilege b: permission especially to go freely within specified limits

In this case some of our liberties (privileges) may be skewed as a means to an end. This is a dangerous time we live in. Like I said before if you dont know its happening and your information is not being splashed all over the media then really have you been violated on anything other than pure principle? (no one including the people being surveilled gets this info so unless your really really paranoid and/or insecure what difference does it make).

Ah yes my Suddam Hussein quote how did I know I'd catch flak for that? I merely used that quote because it was a good illistration of the concept that our government has adopted. Unlike Ol' Saddam however our country isnt commiting genocide against its people, It isnt killing its own citizens over political differences. I merely used his quote I did not however say he was a good example of the use of this strategy.

I do not believe that a thin measure of privacy being invaded is that great of a price to pay to save lives. I have clearly givin evidence that this type of serveillance is effective. But (humor me if you will) catching terrorists and preventing attacks hasn't been the only upside to this strategy. Perhaps you have heard about Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. military contractors that were rescued. What you probably havent heard however is that warrentless wiretapping played a direct roll in that rescue.

proteinwisdom.com...

In closing i will ask you a few questions of my own

question 1- What qualifies as an infingement upon your privacy.

question 2- If the government is disallowed to continue with this strategy what means of obtaining the information do you suggest.

question 3- How many people have to die because your afraid of having your privacy invaded before you say "enough is enough life is more valuable than petty privacy encroachments tantemount to nothing when you look at the scale at which the information is distributed (which is virtually non exsistent)?

In this modern day, in a country as strong as the United States is, one would have to argue that the greatest threat our country faces is instability.

Our economy grows annually, our military strengthens daily, and our technology advances exponentially at a rate that one cannot calculate. However, as the attacks of 9/11 have proven, our economy, which is our very core, can be derailed by shaking our confidence. This effects both our military and our technological growth.

I further believe that the average American feels helpless, and defenseless against modern enemies; That these same Americans would trade some basic privacy for security, and most of all, the stability that comes with it.

My opponent would have you believe that by trading your privacy, (be it e-mail, telephone calls, or any other electronic communication) we are safer in our lives today. He would also want you to believe that the government is not interested in whether you cheated, lied or partook in herbal medicine, and TPTB are only trolling for terrorists!

I disagree, and will show you, the reader, that there is much to fear in this trend to monitor all citizens, and that our current methods of enforcement should be enough to handle the threats that we face today.

We will start with the case that my opponent has kindly pointed out; Lyman Faris.

Lyman Faris was under suspicion already because of Testimony from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He was targeted, in a manner in which normal warrants would have sufficed. After FBI agents intercepted ONE call, they moved in on this terrorist. They then used him for MULTIPLE calls in order to gain information on other terrorists. This was a man who went multiple times into unfriendly countries, who could have been detained many different times. They actually could have followed the law and just gained a warrant to tap his lines after his name was provided by a prisoner.
en.wikipedia.org...
So no, telepathy is not needed. This was a case of overemphasizing the actual good that this program provided in this case.

There exist already, a number of laws and programs that serve to protect us domestically. Restrictions on explosives, weapons, ammo, rentals, and money transfers require Photo I.D., which is a method that has proven effective for decades. There are also many awareness programs that serve to make the common citizen pay attention to things that are out of the ordinary... and to report what might be suspicious activity.

Now that we have seen that the gov't is willing to over state the gains of said programs, I ask you this;
Is it fair to hazard a guess that if the government decided that for any reason an activity was "terrorism", they could cast a wide net and justify it with a few arrests? THat any activity can be labeled as subversive by a government that can easily detain it's loudest protesters? This is what happened in Saddam Husseins regime.

Even in this country, we have 9/11 Truthers equated with terrorists! I would argue that this kind of power cannot be handed to any one group, especially if we want to keep our democracy intact! The ability to abuse this system is beyond measure, as our history with J. Edgar Hoover should attest.

My opponent would argue that the average person is not being surveilled, yet the power for this to happen is in the hands of those that also decide their own restraint! This is NOT the mark of a free country!

The laws that are on the books today, can and should protect against domestic attacks, when followed properly. Until this can be done, I see no need to sign over more power.

To answer my opponents questions;
question 1- What qualifies as an infingement upon your privacy.

This is a rather broad question, but one that I will answer simply.
An Invasion of my privacy is when I am being observed, or monitored, when I am under the illusion that I am not.

question 2- If the government is disallowed to continue with this strategy what means of obtaining the information do you suggest.

I suggest we continue to use the same police methods that have been used for years, while also using all methods possible overseas.


question 3- How many people have to die because your afraid of having your privacy invaded before you say "enough is enough life is more valuable than petty privacy encroachments tantemount to nothing when you look at the scale at which the information is distributed (which is virtually non exsistent)?

I guess that we will differ greatly on what one might consider to be "petty". I don't feel like my private correspondence is a "petty" matter.

As for how many have to die? Well, if there were many attacks in a row, and we could not find the attackers to destroy them, then I believe that personal privacy will not be an issue. See my opening statement.

However, this is not about multiple attacks. In order to have caught the 9/11 terrorists, they would have had to troll EVERY line in this country for months. Would I have considered that a fair trade? I guess not when I consider the many gaps that these men slipped through on the way to their attack. Normal police work, and laws at that date, would have stopped those men had procedure been followed. (at least some of them)

There was one attack. And seeing as I would die for the personal freedom I have now, I guess that the number is higher than three thousand, but less than everyone.

Socratic Question for my Opponent;

1. Seeing the nature of this site, is it really all that far fetched to say that trust in government prevents many (rightfully so) from embracing these new tactics?

When one looks at our world today they see things that 20 even 10 years ago would have seemed absurd. Today i can send an email to someone over seas who recieves it in seconds. I (with the right skills) could wreak havok on financial institutions computer networks. I could order all the things needed to build a explosive devices without ever having to reveal myself to anyone.

Let's say that someone with a real distaste for America or Americans wants to do harm to an American establishment or on a gathering of civilions. Could that person easily fly under the radar? Could that person attack at will with the public being non the wiser to their activity. Without warentless wiretapping? The answer is quite simply yes.

What if this person recieves the go ahead from his/her orginization to commit a terrorist act? They can order the chemicle materials buy the electronic portions of a "bomb" without ever revealing themselves to the authorities. Thankfully however the NSA and other intellegence orginizations can without having to reveal themselves look at the electronic records sent usually via email and recognize the threat.

The warrentless wiretapping program only applies to people who are already suspected in having direct ties to terrorist orginizations, or are considered to be supporting said orginizations via financial support legisticle support or harboring suspected terrorist on demestic soil.

Vice president Dick Cheney had this to say when asked about the results of this program "this program has produced intelligence for us that has been very valuable in the global war on terror both in terms of saving lives and breaking up plots directed at the United States. It has been a very useful source of intelligence for us and we need to continue the program." The VP then went on to say "This has been one of the most important sources of intelligence we've had during the global war on terror. It's not an accident that we haven't been struck in the last four years. Some people think well it's just dumb luck. No, it's not. It's because the president has made some very good decisions, because we've had first-rate military and intelligence capabilities working on this problem, it's because we've aggressively gone after the terrorists wherever we could find them, and it's because we've had very good intelligence."

Of course being such a sensive operation in terms of its need to be secret not much can be found about the specifics of said operation but even though the wiretapping is warentless there are guidelines to protect the average citizen with no connection to terrorist orginizations.

"The requirements for this authorization to be utilized are that one end of the communication has to be outside the United States, and one end of the communication has to involve reason to believe that it's al-Qaida related or affiliated or part of the al-Qaida network. Now those are two very important and very clear-cut criteria, and for this presidential authorization to be used in this way, those two conditions have to be met." says vice president Cheney.

(www.pbs.org...)

Now my oppenent has tried to take away from the case of Lyman Ferris by saying it was just one call. The reality is that all the calls Ferris was making while in safe keeping by american intellegence agencies were tapped without warrents. There were several calls Ferris made to help the intellegence community do its job. All of these calls were warentless wiretaps.

He was then granted a deal to work as a double agent, reporting to the FBI. He was ordered to leave his home in Columbus, and stay at a safe house in Virginia from which he would appear to continue discussions with his contacts.

(en.wikipedia.org...)

Now i would like to take the time to adress a few of the counter points my opponent has sited in his last statement.

"There are also many awareness programs that serve to make the common citizen pay attention to things that are out of the ordinary... and to report what might be suspicious activity."

This is a debate about the infringement of personal privacy and my opponent has said here that this truley more invasive method should be used as an alternative. This is really quite laughable. Let us think hypotheticaly for a moment. What if I am building a propane grill in my backyard, and lets also say that my neighbors are employing this "awareness program" and thinks that I am building some sort of bomb and they call the authorities who in turn come to check out my "bomb". My personal privacy has then taken a back seat to my neighbors unfounded presumptions about what im up to in my backyard. My opponent must harbor the idea that this form of surveilence by untrained citizens is better than a strictly adhered to program for surveiling suspected terrorist via communique surveillence.

I live in a town where a great deal of the population are foriegn people who attend the university here. I often see them acting in ways that are unfamiliar to me as an American. According to my opponent these observations of out of the ordinary behavior would justify me contacting authorities just because I am not familiar with their behaviors. This would be domestic "spying" at its most extreme. Perhaps my oppenent secretly belives that warrentless wiretapping isnt enough and we should be sticking our noses into the business of others with absolutely no thought for the privacy of others.

My opponent also uses the fact that there are regulations on explosives, guns, rentals and money transfers to defend his position. While these may have some impact on terrorist activities they also are known regulations and that makes them incredibly easy to bypass. Guns and ammo can be purchased under the table. You can go to the convienience store and by a prepaid credit card for nearly any amount of money. Whats to stop a terrorist from just buying a few of these and dispersing them to his/her coherts? One also doesnt necissarily need "explosives" or regulated chemicles to carry out an attack. There are no regulations on bleach or ammonia the two principle ingredients in mustard gas. Styrofoam and gasoline can be used to make a primitive napalm. Whats to say a terrorist doesnt get a call saying to do this instead of high explosives or bio-terror. Most people citizen or police wouldn't recognize these purchases as potentially threatening. So my opponents suggestions on how to thwart attacks in this case do not hold water. The only way these type of plots could be thwarted would be through intercepted communiques.

"Is it fair to hazard a guess that if the government decided that for any reason an activity was "terrorism", they could cast a wide net and justify it with a few arrests? THat any activity can be labeled as subversive by a government that can easily detain it's loudest protesters?"

This is not what is going on here. The government isnt just flying off the handle saying this is terrorism and that is terrorism. This warrentless wiretapping program is limited to conversations with suspected terrorist and their over seas counterparts. No one inside the government is suggesting that we use this 100% domestically to spy on American citizens.
That isnt the policy and if it were the opposition would be over-whelming. In other words that would never fly.

As for your statement about the so called 9/11 truthers, if the attack was mounted by terrorists then the unjustified rhetoric that it was infact an internal attack perpetuated by the government then I would say that those people are terrorist in that they are trying to cause fear of the government. This however is not the debate.

Yes I am arguing that the average American isnt being surveilled but my oppent would have you believe that over night the government could all of a sudden decide to surveille anyone they choose for whatever reason. This is not the case as seen by the huge controversy of the subject we are discussing. The intellegence commitee the supreme court and others must still approve of any changes to FISA. Congress was breifed on warentless wiretapping and approved they however would not approve of a domestic spying program that encompassed everyone in the U.S. I find this to be fearmonguring on behalf of my oppenent who wants you to believe that our government just has free weilding power to do whatever they want.

My opponent says infringement on his privacy is him being observed when unaware of said observation, yet he says we should spy on each other and watch out for and report "out of the ordinary" behavior, a vastly more invasive tactic. He also says we should continue to use all methods over seas... is foriegn privacy not as important as yours? How can you argue that your rights are any more important than theirs? You're sayin hey its ok to do this as long as your not doing it to me.

So more than 3000 people have to die before you say its ok to secretly watch suspected terrorist how quaint again your self righteousness would leave the door open for many more to die. Have you considered that there hasnt been more attacks because of this new strategy?

To answer your question

1. No of course its not far fetched to believe that a conspiracy site would harbor anti government sentiment. This being rightfully so however is questionable... these sentiments are based on conspiracies that may or may not be fact.

now my questions

1. What are these supposed effective police methods that have been used for years?

2. What makes this "awareness program" less invasive to privacy than wiretapping?

3. How do you propose we go about stopping a terrorist attack when the only evidence may be a communique? (like in my example of mustard gas and napalm)