Terrorism DA

***Neg***

***1NC***

Terror risk is high- maintaining current surveillance is keyInserra, 6-8-2015David Inserra is a Research Associate for Homeland Security and Cyber Security in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign and National Security Policy of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, at The Heritage Foundation, 6-8-2015, "69th Islamist Terrorist Plot: Ongoing Spike in Terrorism Should Force Congress to Finally Confront the Terrorist Threat," Heritage Foundation, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2015/06/69th-islamist-terrorist-plot-ongoing-spike-in-terrorism-should-force-congress-to-finally-confront-the-terrorist-threat

On June 2 in Boston, Usaamah Abdullah Rahim drew a knife and attacked police officers and FBI agents, who then shot and killed him. Rahim was being watched by Boston’s Joint Terrorism Task Force as he had been plotting to behead police officers as part of violent jihad. A conspirator, David Wright or Dawud Sharif Abdul Khaliq, was arrested shortly thereafter for helping Rahim to plan this attack. This plot marks the 69th publicly known Islamist terrorist plot or attack against the U.S. homeland since 9/11, and is part of a recent spike in terrorist activity. The U.S. must redouble its efforts to stop terrorists before they strike, through the use of properly applied intelligence tools. The Plot According to the criminal complaint filed against Wright, Rahim had originally planned to behead an individual outside the state of Massachusetts,[1] which, according to news reports citing anonymous government officials, was Pamela Geller, the organizer of the “draw Mohammed” cartoon contest in Garland, Texas.[2] To this end, Rahim had purchased multiple knives, each over 1 foot long, from Amazon.com. The FBI was listening in on the calls between Rahim and Wright and recorded multiple conversations regarding how these weapons would be used to behead someone. Rahim then changed his plan early on the morning of June 2. He planned to go “on vacation right here in Massachusetts…. I’m just going to, ah, go after them, those boys in blue. Cause, ah, it’s the easiest target.”[3] Rahim and Wright had used the phrase “going on vacation” repeatedly in their conversations as a euphemism for violent jihad. During this conversation, Rahim told Wright that he planned to attack a police officer on June 2 or June 3. Wright then offered advice on preparing a will and destroying any incriminating evidence. Based on this threat, Boston police officers and FBI agents approached Rahim to question him, which prompted him to pull out one of his knives. After being told to drop his weapon, Rahim responded with “you drop yours” and moved toward the officers, who then shot and killed him. While Rahim’s brother, Ibrahim, initially claimed that Rahim was shot in the back, video surveillance was shown to community leaders and civil rights groups, who have confirmed that Rahim was not shot in the back.[4 ] Terrorism Not Going Away This 69th Islamist plot is also the seventh in this calendar year. Details on how exactly Rahim was radicalized are still forthcoming, but according to anonymous officials, online propaganda from ISIS and other radical Islamist groups are the source.[5] That would make this attack the 58th homegrown terrorist plot and continue the recent trend of ISIS playing an important role in radicalizing individuals in the United States. It is also the sixth plot or attack targeting law enforcement in the U.S., with a recent uptick in plots aimed at police. While the debate over the PATRIOT Act and the USA FREEDOM Act is taking a break, the terrorists are not. The result of the debate has been the reduction of U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism capabilities, meaning that the U.S. has to do even more with less when it comes to connecting the dots on terrorist plots.[6] Other legitimate intelligence tools and capabilities must be leaned on now even more. Protecting the Homeland To keep the U.S. safe, Congress must take a hard look at the U.S. counterterrorism enterprise and determine other measures that are needed to improve it. Congress

should: Emphasize community outreach. Federal grant funds should be used to create robust community-outreach capabilities in higher-risk urban areas. These funds must not be used for political pork, or so broadly that they no longer target those communities at greatest risk. Such capabilities are key to building trust within these communities, and if the United States is to thwart lone-wolf terrorist attacks, it must place effective community outreach operations at the tip of the spear. Prioritize local cyber capabilities. Building cyber-investigation capabilities in the higher-risk urban areas must become a primary focus of Department of Homeland Security grants. With so much terrorism-related activity occurring on the Internet, local law enforcement must have the constitutional ability to monitor and track violent extremist activity on the Web when reasonable suspicion exists to do so. Push the FBI toward being more effectively driven by intelligence. While the FBI has made high-level changes to its mission and organizational structure, the bureau is still working on integrating intelligence and law enforcement activities. Full integration will require overcoming inter-agency cultural barriers and providing FBI intelligence personnel with resources, opportunities, and the stature they need to become a more effective and integral part of the FBI. Maintain essential counterterrorism tools. Support for important investigative tools is essential to maintaining the security of the U.S. and combating terrorist threats. Legitimate government surveillance programs are also a vital component of U.S. national security and should be allowed to continue. The need for effective counterterrorism operations does not relieve the government of its obligation to follow the law and respect individual privacy and liberty. In the American system, the government must do both equally well. Clear-Eyed Vigilance The recent spike in terrorist plots and attacks should finally awaken policymakers—all Americans, for that matter—to the seriousness of the terrorist threat. Neither fearmongering nor willful blindness serves the United States. Congress must recognize and acknowledge the nature and the scope of the Islamist terrorist threat, and take the appropriate action to confront it.

Surveillance is critical to stopping terror threatsLewis 14 [James Andrew Lewis, Director and Senior Fellow of the Technology and Public Policy Program at the CSIS, December 2014, "Underestimating Risk in the Surveillance Debate", Center for Strategic and International Studies, http://csis.org/files/publication/141209_Lewis_UnderestimatingRisk_Web.pdf pg 10-11 jf]

Assertions that a collection program contributes nothing because it has not singlehandedly prevented an attack reflect an ill-informed understanding of how the United States conducts collection and analysis to prevent harmful acts against itself and its allies. Intelligence does not work as it is portrayed in films—solitary agents do not make startling discoveries that lead to dramatic, last-minute success (nor is technology consistently infallible). Intelligence is a team sport. Perfect knowledge does not exist and success is the product of the efforts of teams of dedicated individuals from many agencies, using many tools and techniques, working together to assemble fragments of data from many sources into a coherent picture. Analysts assemble this mosaic from many different sources and based on experience and intuition. Luck is still more important than anyone would like and the alternative to luck is acquiring more information. This ability to blend different sources of intelligence has improved U.S. intelligence capabilities and gives us an advantage over some opponents. Portrayals of spying in popular culture focus on a central narrative, essential for storytelling but deeply misleading. In practice, there can be many possible narratives that analysts must explore simultaneously. An analyst might decide, for example, to see if there is additional confirming information that points to which explanation deserves further investigation. Often, the contribution from collection programs comes not from what they tell us, but what they let us reject as false. In the case of the 215 program, its utility was in being able to provide information that allowed analysts to rule out some theories and suspects. This allows analysts to focus on other, more likely, scenarios. In one instance, an attack is detected and stopped before it could be executed. U.S. forces operating in Iraq discover a bomb-making factory. Biometric data found in this

factory is correlated with data from other bombings to provide partial identification for several individuals who may be bomb-makers, none of whom are present in Iraq. In looking for these individuals, the United States receives information from another intelligence service that one of the bombers might be living in a neighboring Middle Eastern country. Using communications intercepts, the United States determines that the individual is working on a powerful new weapon. The United States is able to combine the communications intercept from the known bomb maker with information from other sources—battlefield data, information obtained by U.S. agents, collateral information from other nations’ intelligence services—and use this to identify others in the bomber’s network, understand the plans for bombing, and identify the bomber’s target, a major city in the United States. This effort takes place over months and involves multiple intelligence, law enforcement, and military agencies, with more than a dozen individuals from these agencies collaborating to build up a picture of the bomb-maker and his planned attack. When the bomb-maker leaves the Middle East to carry out his attack, he is prevented from entering the United States. An analogy for how this works would be to take a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, randomly select 200 pieces, and provide them to a team of analysts who, using incomplete data, must guess what the entire picture looks like. The likelihood of their success is determined by how much information they receive, how much time they have, and by experience and luck. Their guess can be tested by using a range of collection programs, including communications surveillance programs like the 215 metadata program. What is left out of this picture (and from most fictional portrayals of intelligence analysis) is the number of false leads the analysts must pursue, the number of dead ends they must walk down, and the tools they use to decide that something is a false lead or dead end. Police officers are familiar with how many leads in an investigation must be eliminated through legwork and query before an accurate picture emerges. Most leads are wrong, and much of the work is a process of elimination that eventually focuses in on the most probable threat. If real intelligence work were a film, it would be mostly boring. Where the metadata program contributes is in eliminating possible leads and suspects. This makes the critique of the 215 program like a critique of airbags in a car—you own a car for years, the airbags never deploy, so therefore they are useless and can be removed. The weakness in this argument is that discarding airbags would increase risk. How much risk would increase and whether other considerations outweigh this increased risk are fundamental problems for assessing surveillance programs. With the Section 215 program, Americans gave up a portion of their privacy in exchange for decreased risk. Eliminating 215 collection is like subtracting a few of the random pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. It decreases the chances that the analysts will be able to deduce what is actually going on and may increase the time it takes to do this. That means there is an increase in the risk of a successful attack. How much of an increase in risk is difficult to determine.

Terrorists will use bioweapons- guarantees extinctionCooper 13

(Joshua, 1/23/13, University of South Carolina, “Bioterrorism and the Fermi Paradox,” http://people.math.sc.edu/cooper/fermi.pdf, 7/15/15, SM)

We may conclude that, when a civilization reaches its space-faring age, it∂ will more or less at the same moment (1) contain many individuals who seek to cause large-scale destruction, and (2) acquire the capacity to tinker with its own genetic chemistry. This is a perfect recipe for bioterrorism , and, given the many very natural pathways for its development and the overwhelming∂ evidence that precisely this course has been taken by humanity, it is hard to∂ see how

bioterrorism does not provide a neat, if profoundly unsettling, solution∂ to Fermi’s paradox. One might object that, if omnicidal

individuals are ∂ successful in releasing highly virulent and deadly genetic

malware into the∂ wild, they are still unlikely to succeed in killing everyone. However, even if∂ every such mass death event results only in a high (i.e., not total) kill rate and∂ there is a large gap between each

such event (so that individuals can build up∂ the requisite scientific infrastructure again ), extinction would be inevitable ∂ regardless. Some of the engineered bioweapons will be more

successful than∂ others; the inter-apocalyptic eras will vary in length; and post-apocalyptic∂ environments may be so war-torn, disease-stricken, and impoverished of genetic variation that they may culminate in true extinction events even if the initial cataclysm ‘only’ results in 90% death rates , since they may cause the ∂ effective population size to dip below the so-called “minimum viable population.”∂ This author ran a Monte Carlo simulation using as (admittedly very∂ crude and poorly informed, though arguably conservative) estimates the following∂ Earth-like parameters: bioterrorism event mean death rate 50% and∂ standard deviation 25% (beta distribution), initial population 1010, minimum∂ viable population 4000, individual omnicidal act probability 10−7 per annum,∂ and population growth rate 2% per annum. One thousand trials yielded an∂ average post-space-age time until extinction of less than 8000 years. This is∂ essentially instantaneous on a cosmological scale, and varying the parameters∂ by quite a bit does nothing to make the survival period comparable with the∂ age of the universe.

***Neg Uniqueness***

Yes ISIS attackIsis is mobilizing now and ready to take action.Randy DeSoto May 7, 2015http://www.westernjournalism.com/isis-claims-to-have-71-trained-soldiers-in-targeted-u-s-states/ (Randy DeSoto is a writer for Western Journalism, which consistently ranks in the top 5 most popular conservative online news outlets in the country)Purported ISIS jihadists issued threats against the United States Tuesday, indicating the group has trained soldiers positioned throughout the country, ready to attack “any target we desire.” The online post singles out controversial blogger Pamela Geller, one of the organizers of the “Draw the Prophet” Muhammad cartoon contest in Garland, Texas, calling for her death to “heal the hearts of our brothers and disperse the ones behind her.” ISIS also claimed responsibility for the shooting, which marked the first time the terror group claimed responsibility for an attack on U.S. soil, according to the New York Daily News. “The attack by the Islamic State in America is only the beginning of our efforts to establish a wiliyah [authority or governance] in the heart of our enemy,” the ISIS post reads. As for Geller, the jihadists state: “To those who protect her: this will be your only warning of housing this woman and her circus show. Everyone who houses her events, gives her a platform to spill her filth are legitimate targets. We have been watching closely who was present at this event and the shooter of our brothers.” ISIS further claims to have known that   the Muhammad cartoon contest venue would be heavily guarded, but conducted the attack to demonstrate the willingness of its followers to die for the “Sake of Allah.” The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, in fact, issued a bulletin on April 20 indicating the event would be a likely terror target. ISIS drew its message to a close with an ominous threat: We have 71 trained soldiers in 15 different states ready at our word to attack any target we desire. Out of the 71 trained soldiers 23 have signed up for missions like Sunday, We are increasing in number bithnillah [if God wills]. Of the 15 states, 5 we will name… Virginia, Maryland, Illinois, California, and Michigan…The next six months will be interesting. Fox News reports that “the U.S. intelligence community was assessing the threat and trying to determine if the source is directly related to ISIS leadership or an opportunist such as a low-level militant seeking to further capitalize on the Garland incident.” Former Navy Seal Rob O’Neill told Fox News he believes the ISIS threat is credible, and the U.S. must be prepared. He added that the incident in Garland “is a prime example of the difference between a gun free zone and Texas. They showed up at Charlie Hebdo, and it was a massacre. If these two guys had gotten into that building it would have been Charlie Hebdo times ten. But these two guys showed up because they were offended by something protected by the First Amendment, and were quickly introduced to the Second Amendment.” Geller issued a statement regarding the ISIS posting: “This threat illustrates the savagery and barbarism of the Islamic State. They want me dead for violating Sharia blasphemy laws. What remains to be seen is whether the free world will finally wake up and stand for the freedom of speech, or instead kowtow to this evil and continue to denounce me.”

Isis threat level at military bases increasing Starr, Barbara 5/8/15 (cnn pentagon correspondent) “ISIS activity prompts threat level increase at bases” http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/08/politics/isis-activity-prompts-threat-level-increase-at-bases/On Thursday, FBI Director James Comey told reporters that there are thousands of ISIS, also known as ISIL, followers online in the U.S. "We have a general concern, obviously, that ISIL is focusing on the uniformed military and law enforcement," Comey told reporters Thursday. The order to upgrade the threat level was signed by Admiral William Gortney, head of the U.S. Northern Command, which oversees all U.S. military installations in the continental U.S. The security order affects 3,200 sites, including bases,

National Guard facilities, recruiting stations and health clinics, a Pentagon official said. "We have the same concern about the potential threat posed by violent homegrown extremists," said Captain Jeff Davis, spokesman for the U.S. Northern Command, or NORTHCOM. Davis declined to specify the new security measures. But the change in threat level status could mean more checks of vehicles entering bases, and more thorough identity checks of all personnel. Davis emphasized that "this is the new normal, that we are going to have increased vigilance and force protection. We seek to be unpredictable." A U.S. military official said the order to raise the force protection level to Bravo also applies to all National Guard installations, recruiting stations, and ROTC detachments, though practically speaking, the official acknowledges it will be difficult for the ROTC detachments to do much more than security awareness. In addition, security was raised recently at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, in response to a perceived threat to the base security, another U.S. military official said. The threat was never deemed credible, but it came after another security concern at a base in Delaware used by Vice President Joe Biden when he flies home. On Friday, Wright-Patterson announced that the Air Force museum, which is part of the base, was canceling a planned Friday night concert and was stopping tours that were regularly offered until further notice. The base said this was "due to elevated security measures." Since NORTHCOM was established in October 2002, the threat level has reached Bravo on four occasions: Feb. 9, 2003, amid concerns al Qaeda was planning attacks on American targets; Dec. 21, 2003, when officials were concerned about attacks during the holiday season; May 1, 2011, in the aftermath of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden; and the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

ISIS will emerge as a serious threat to the USMorell 15 , Michael Morell is the former deputy director of the CIA and has twice served as acting director. He is the author of The Great War of Our Time: The CIA's Fight Against Terrorism — From al Qa'ida to ISIS. May 14, 2015 Time Magazine ISIS Is a Danger on U.S. Soil http://time.com/3858354/isis-is-a-danger-on-u-s-soil/The terrorist group poses a gathering threat. In the aftermath of the attempted terrorist attack on May 4 in Garland, Texas–for which ISIS claimed responsibility–we find ourselves again considering the question of whether or not ISIS is a real threat. The answer is yes. A very serious one. Extremists inspired by Osama bin Laden’s ideology consider themselves to be at war with the U.S.; they want to attack us. It is important to never forget that–no matter how long it has been since 9/11. ISIS is just the latest manifestation of bin Laden’s design. The group has grown faster than any terrorist group we can remember, and the threat it poses to us is as wide-ranging as any we have seen. What ISIS has that al-Qaeda doesn’t is a Madison Avenue level of sophisticated messaging and social media. ISIS has a multilingual propaganda arm known as al-Hayat, which uses GoPros and cameras mounted on drones to make videos that appeal to its followers. And ISIS uses just about every tool in the platform box–from Twitter to YouTube to Instagram–to great effect, attracting fighters and funding. Digital media are one of the group’s most significant strengths; they have helped ISIS become an organization that poses four significant threats to the U.S. First, it is a threat to the stability of the entire Middle East. ISIS is putting the territorial integrity of both Iraq and Syria at risk. And a further collapse of either or both of these states could easily spread throughout the region, bringing with it sectarian and religious strife, humanitarian crises and the violent redrawing

of borders, all in a part of the world that remains critical to U.S. national interests. ISIS now controls more territory–in Iraq and Syria–than any other terrorist group anywhere in the world. When al-Qaeda in Iraq joined the fight in Syria, the group changed its name to ISIS. ISIS added Syrians and foreign fighters to its ranks, built its supply of arms and money and gained significant battlefield experience fighting Bashar Assad’s regime. Together with the security vacuum in Iraq and Nouri al-Maliki’s alienation of the Sunnis, this culminated in ISIS’s successful blitzkrieg across western Iraq in the spring and summer of 2014, when it seized large amounts of territory. ISIS is not the first extremist group to take and hold territory. Al-Shabab in Somalia did so a number of years ago and still holds territory there, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb did so in Mali in 2012, and al-Qaeda in Yemen did so there at roughly the same time. I fully expect extremist groups to attempt to take–and sometimes be successful in taking–territory in the years ahead. But no other group has taken so much territory so quickly as ISIS has. Second, ISIS is attracting young men and women to travel to Syria and Iraq to join its cause. At this writing, at least 20,000 foreign nationals from roughly 90 countries have gone to Syria and Iraq to join the fight. Most have joined ISIS. This flow of foreigners has outstripped the flow of such fighters into Iraq during the war there a decade ago. And there are more foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq today than there were in Afghanistan in the 1980s working to drive the Soviet Union out of that country. These foreign nationals are getting experience on the battlefield, and they are becoming increasingly radicalized to ISIS’s cause. There is a particular subset of these fighters to worry about. Somewhere between 3,500 and 5,000 jihadist wannabes have traveled to Syria and Iraq from Western Europe, Canada, Australia and the U.S. They all have easy access to the U.S. homeland, which presents two major concerns: that these fighters will leave the Middle East and either conduct an attack on their own or conduct an attack at the direction of the ISIS leadership. The former has already happened in Europe. It has not happened yet in the U.S.–but it will. In spring 2014, Mehdi Nemmouche, a young Frenchman who went to fight in Syria, returned to Europe and shot three people at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels. The third threat is that ISIS is building a following among other extremist groups around the world. The allied exaltation is happening at a faster pace than al-Qaeda ever enjoyed. It has occurred in Algeria, Libya, Egypt and Afghanistan. More will follow. These groups, which are already dangerous, will become even more so. They will increasingly target ISIS’s enemies (including us), and they will increasingly take on ISIS’s brutality. We saw the targeting play out in early 2015 when an ISIS-associated group in Libya killed an American in an attack on a hotel in Tripoli frequented by diplomats and international businesspeople. And we saw the extreme violence play out just a few weeks after that when another ISIS-affiliated group in Libya beheaded 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians. And fourth, perhaps most insidiously, ISIS’s message is radicalizing young men and women around the globe who have never traveled to Syria or Iraq but who want to commit an attack to demonstrate their solidarity with ISIS. These are the so-called lone wolves. Even before May 4, such an ISIS-inspired attack had already occurred in the U.S.: an individual with sympathies for ISIS attacked two New York City police officers with a hatchet. Al-Qaeda has inspired such U.S. attacks–the Fort Hood shootings in late 2009 that killed 13 and the Boston Marathon bombing in spring 2013 that killed five and injured nearly 300. The attempted attack in Texas is just the latest of these. We can expect more of these kinds of attacks in the U. S. Attacks by ISIS-inspired individuals are occurring at a rapid pace around the world–roughly 10 since ISIS took control of so much territory. Two such attacks have occurred in Canada, including the October 2014 attack on the Parliament building. And another occurred in Sydney, in December 2014. Many planning such attacks–in Australia, Western Europe and the U.S.–have been arrested before they could carry out their terrorist plans. Today an ISIS-directed attack in the U. S. would be relatively unsophisticated (small-scale), but over time ISIS’s capabilities will grow. This is what a long-term safe haven in Iraq and Syria would give ISIS, and it is exactly what the group is planning to do. They have announced their intentions–just like bin Laden did in the years prior to 9/11.

ISIS will attack – three reasons – its capabilities are growing, an attack would be good propaganda, and it basically hates all things America Rogan 15 (Tom, panelist on The McLaughlin Group and holds the Tony Blankley Chair at the Steamboat Institute, “Why ISIS Will Attack America,” National Review, 3-24-15, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/415866/why-isis-will-attack-america-tom-rogan)//MJ

There is no good in you if they are secure and happy while you have a pulsing vein. Erupt volcanoes of jihad everywhere. Light the earth with fire upon all the [apostate rulers], their soldiers and supporters. — ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, November 2014. Those words weren’t idle. The Islamic State (ISIS) is still advancing, across continents and cultures. It’s attacking Shia Muslims in Yemen, gunning down Western tourists in Tunisia, beheading Christians in Libya, and murdering or enslaving all who do not yield in Iraq and Syria. Its black banner seen as undaunted by the international coalition against it, new recruits still flock to its service. The Islamic State’s rise is, in other words, not over, and it is likely to end up involving an attack on America. Three reasons why such an attempt is inevitable: ISIS’S STRATEGY PRACTICALLY DEMANDS IT Imbued with existential hatred against the United States, the group doesn’t just oppose American power, it opposes America’s identity. Where the United States is a secular democracy that binds law to individual freedom, the Islamic State is a totalitarian empire determined to sweep freedom from the earth. As an ideological and physical necessity, ISIS must ultimately conquer America. Incidentally, this kind of total-war strategy explains why counterterrorism experts are rightly concerned about nuclear proliferation. The Islamic State’s strategy is also energized by its desire to replace al-Qaeda as Salafi jihadism’s global figurehead. While al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and ISIS had a short flirtation last year, ISIS has now signaled its intent to usurp al-Qaeda’s power in its home territory. Attacks by ISIS last week against Shia mosques in the Yemeni capital of Sana’a were, at least in part, designed to suck recruits, financial donors, and prestige away from AQAP. But to truly displace al-Qaeda, ISIS knows it must furnish a new 9/11. ITS CAPABILITIES ARE GROWING Today, ISIS has thousands of European citizens in its ranks. Educated at the online University of Edward Snowden, ISIS operations officers have cut back intelligence services’ ability to monitor and disrupt their communications. With EU intelligence services stretched beyond breaking point,   ISIS has the means and confidence to attempt attacks against the West. EU passports are powerful weapons: ISIS could attack — as al-Qaeda has repeatedly — U.S. targets around the world. AN ATTACK ON THE U.S. IS PRICELESS PROPAGANDA For transnational Salafi jihadists like al-Qaeda and ISIS, a successful blow against the U.S. allows them to claim the mantle of a global force and strengthens the narrative that they’re on a holy mission. Holiness is especially important: ISIS knows that to recruit new fanatics and deter its enemies, it must offer an abiding narrative of strength and divine purpose. With the group’s leaders styling themselves as Mohammed’s heirs, Allah’s chosen warriors on earth, attacking the infidel United States would reinforce ISIS’s narrative. Of course, attacking America wouldn’t actually serve the Islamic State’s

long-term objectives. Quite the opposite: Any atrocity would fuel a popular American resolve to crush the group with expediency. (Make no mistake, it would be crushed.) The problem, however, is that, until then, America is in the bull’s eye.

Terrorism threat highTerror threat high now—encryption and radicalization Investor's Business Daily, 6-23-2015, "Despite Obama's Claim, Our Terror Threat Level Is High," http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/062315-758709-diminishing-us-power-has-elevated-our-terror-threat-level.htmHomeland Security: The president repeatedly claims we're safer than ever. The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee just warned of the opposite. Apparently we have difficulty tracking U.S.-based terrorist cells. The attitude of the Obama administration toward terrorism is summed up by the National Terrorism Advisory System page on the Homeland Security website. "There are no current alerts," it reports. And "there are no expired alerts." Nearby is the question, "Was this page helpful?" The answer is no. The five post-9/11 color-coded terrorism alert levels, abandoned in 2011, were lampooned by comedians for being vague and based on hidden criteria. With the threat level never dropping below "elevated" (yellow), down to "guarded" (blue) or "low" (green), the public was ignoring it, it was said. But now, in its place, is a National Terrorism Advisory System that never issues alerts. In fact, over nearly six and a half years, President Obama has not once, under either the old or new system, issued an alert. Last August he promised "things are much less dangerous now than they were 20 years ago, 25 years ago, or 30 years ago." That contradicted his own Joint Chiefs chairman, secretary of defense, and even his then-Attorney General Eric Holder, who called potential undetectable explosives smuggled in from Syria the most frightening thing he had seen while in office. Enter House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., who told CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday that "we face the highest threat level we have ever faced in this country today . .. including after 9/11." Because of obstacles such as encrypted Internet chat rooms, "we are having a tough time tracking terrorist cells," according to Nunes. And "the flow of fighters" from Western nations who have been radicalized into the Islamic State, but "who have now come out" and may seek to commit terrorist attacks back home, is another reason the threat is greater than ever. Nunes noted that the FBI has "cases open in 50 states." Then there is civil war in Yemen, with the AQAP branch of al-Qaida "everywhere," according to Nunes. Last September, outlining his noncombat approach against the Islamic State, Obama cited his Yemen policy as the model. Eleven days later, Iranian-backed Houthi rebels toppled the U.S.-backed government. Obama is poised to make a nuclear deal with those same Iranians, lifting sanctions and handing Tehran tens of billions in cash to terrorize even more and gain regional dominance — all before getting nuclear weapons, which will launch an atomic arms race in the Mideast. Russia's new aggressiveness counters Obama's claims that the Cold War is ancient history. Iran, the Islamic State and other terrorists are actually, while lacking Moscow's massive nuclear arsenal, a greater threat because of the theocratic-based, self-destructive irrationality and instability underlying their motivations. The Soviets, after all, never murdered thousands of Americans on their own soil. Far less powerful Islamist fanatics did. Under the old color-coded system, today's level of alert would be "severe" (red).

Terror threat high now—Al Qaeda initiatives proveMail Online, 7-15-2015, "Terror alert remains high," http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-181751/Terror-alert-remains-high.htmlBritain and the US remained on terror alert today, following a call from Osama bin Laden's deputy for Muslims to attack the "missions" of the two countries. An audio tape said to have come from Ayman al-Zawahri was played on Arabic television station al-Jazeera, urging "brothers" to follow the example of the September 11 hijackers. "Consider your 19 brothers who attacked America in Washington and New York with their planes as an example," said the voice, identified as al-Zawahri by al-Jazeera, which did not say how it got the tape. "Attack the missions of the United States, the UK, Australia and Norway and their interests, companies and employees. Turn the ground beneath their feet into an inferno and kick them out of your countries," said the tape. "Know that you are not alone in this battle. Your mujahadeen brothers are following the enemies as well and are lying in wait for them." Al-Zawahri, who has not been seen since the war in Afghanistan, lashed out at Arab leaders for offering "airports and the facilities" to the Allied troops, in an apparent reference to the war on Iraq. His call to arms came as British and US embassies in the Saudi capital Riyadh remained shut amid fears they could be targeted in "imminent" terrorist attacks, and America upped its homeland terror alert status. Hijack plot foiled And details emerged of a possible al Qaida plot to hijack a civilian airliner in the Saudi town of Jeddah and crash it into a bank. According to reports, three armed Moroccans arrested in Jeddah's airport on Monday had planned the suicide hijack and hoped to crash the plane into the headquarters of Saudi's National Commercial Bank. It was not clear if they were linked to last week's triple suicide bombings of foreign residential compounds in Riyadh which killed 34, including two Britons, or similar bombings in Morocco on Friday. Security boosted Security officials warned that al Qaida appeared to be entering an "active" phase of attacks, aimed at showing it was still operational despite the so-called "war on terror". The British, German and Italian embassies in the Saudi capital Riyadh closed to the public yesterday following intelligence reports that terrorist attacks were being planned. The British consulate in Jeddah and trade office in al Khobar were also closed from yesterday. It is expected the offices will reopen on Saturday, although the situation will be kept under review. The US closed its embassy and consulates in the Middle Eastern kingdom on Tuesday, a week after the series of suicide bomb attacks in Riyadh. The Bush administration raised America's terror alert level to orange, its second highest level, amid fears that the wave of terrorist attacks in Saudi, Morocco and Israel will spread to the US.

Homegrown terrorism on the rise—74 plots discoveredCarrie Blackmore, 1-17-2015, "Number of homegrown terrorists is rising," USA TODAY, http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/01/17/number-of-homegrown-terrorists-is-rising/21940159/CINCINNATI — We are far from knowing the outcome of the case against Christopher Cornell, the young local man accused of plotting an attack on

the U.S. Capitol, but if he is convicted, he would be added to a growing list of homegrown jihadist terrorists. From Sept. 11, 2001, to January 2014, there were 74 known terrorist plots perpetrated by Americans, lawful U.S. residents or visitors largely radicalized here in the United States, according to the most recent data reported by the Congressional Research Service. Five of those plots were carried out before law enforcement was able to intervene. Fifty-three of the cases – almost 72 percent – happened after April 2009. That's a 152 percent increase over that time period – and constitutes a spike, according to the report by the service, an agency that works exclusively for the U.S. Congress, providing policy and legal analysis to committees and members of the House and Senate. "It may be too early to tell how sustained this uptick is," the report reads. "Regardless, the apparent spike in such activity after April 2009 suggests that ideologies supporting violent jihad continue to influence some Americans – even if a tiny minority." A review of the 74 cases shows that just seven were initiated by someone working independently, a lone wolf. Forty-five of the 74 planned to attack a domestic target.

The likelihood of a lone wolf attack is growingZenko 5/19/15 (Micah, Council on Foreign Relations, "Is US Foreign Policy Ignorning Homegrown Terrorists?")On February 12, National Counterterrorism Center Director Nicholas Rasmussen told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:¶ “We face a much greater, more frequent, recurring threat from lone offenders and probably loose networks of individuals. Measured in terms of frequency and numbers, it is attacks from those sources that are increasingly the most noteworthy…”¶ On February 26, during the annual worldwide threats hearing, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper warned:¶ “Home-grown violent extremists continue to pose the most likely threat to the homeland.”¶ Last Friday, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson stated on MSNBC:¶ “We’re in a new phase…in the global terrorist threat where, because of effective use of social media, the Internet, by ISIL, al-Qaeda, we have to be concerned about the independent actor who is here in the homeland who may strike with little or no warning…”¶ Finally, yesterday, former CIA deputy director Michael Morell described the messaging efforts of jihadist groups generally and the self-declared Islamic State (IS) more specifically:¶ “Their narrative is pretty powerful: The West, the United States, the modern world, is a significant threat to their religion. Their answer to that is to establish a caliphate. And they are being attacked by the U.S. and other Western nations, and by these apostate regimes in the region. Because they are being attacked they need support in two ways; people coming to fight for them, and people coming to stand up and attack coalition nations in their home.”¶ In summary, the most likely—though not most lethal—terror threats to Americans come from individuals living within the United States who are partially motivated to undertake self-directed attacks based upon their perception that the United States and the West are at war with the Muslim world.

Surveillance increasing US surveillance is increasing to deal with new terrorist threatsBennett 5/18/15 (Brian, washington based reporter for the LA Times, "White House Steps Up Warning About Terrorism on US Soil")Alarmed about the growing threat from Islamic State, the Obama administration has dramatically stepped up warnings of potential terrorist attacks on American soil after several years of relative calm.¶ Behind the scenes, U.S. authorities have raised defenses at U.S. military bases, put local police forces on alert and increased surveillance at the nation's airports, railroads, shopping malls, energy plants and other potential targets.¶ Driving the unease are FBI arrests of at least 30 Americans on terrorism-related charges this year in an array of "lone wolf" plots, none successful, but nearly all purportedly inspired by Islamic State propaganda or appeals.¶ The group's leader, Abu Bakr Baghdadi, drove home the danger in a 34-minute audio recording released online Thursday. He urged Muslims everywhere to "migrate to the Islamic State or fight in his land, wherever that may be."¶ It is pretty easy for [Islamic State] to reach out to a very large number of people using a very robust social media presence. I suspect we should see more plots going forward.¶ - J.M. Berger, a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution¶ The audio was released with translations in English, French, German, Russian and Turkish, signaling the militants' increasingly ambitious attempts to draw new recruits — and to spark violence — around the world.¶ U.S. officials estimate the Sunni Muslim group has drawn 22,000 foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq, including about 3,700 from Western nations. About 180 Americans have gone, or tried to go.¶ U.S. counter-terrorism officials initially viewed Islamic State as primarily a regional security threat, focused on expanding and protecting its self-proclaimed Islamist caliphate in Syria and Iraq, rather than launching attacks abroad.¶ But the analysis has shifted sharply as gunmen inspired by the group, but not controlled or assisted by them, opened fire at the Parliament in Ottawa; at a cafe in Sydney, Australia; at a kosher grocery in Paris; and, on May 3, in Garland, Texas.¶ In the Texas case, two would-be terrorists apparently prompted by Islamic State social media messages tried to shoot their way into a provocative contest for caricatures of the prophet Muhammad. Both gunmen were shot to death, and no one else was killed. Islamic State later claimed responsibility for the assault, the first time it has done so for an attack on U.S. soil.¶ James B. Comey, the FBI director, warned this month that "hundreds, maybe thousands" of Americans are seeing recruitment pitches from Islamic State on Facebook, Twitter and other social media, as well as messages sent to smartphones of "disturbed people" who could be pushed to attack U.S. targets.¶ "It's like the devil sitting on their shoulders saying, 'Kill, kill, kill,'" Comey told reporters.¶ The United States has entered a "new phase, in my view, in the global terrorist threat," Jeh Johnson, director of Homeland Security, said Friday on MSNBC.¶ "We have to be concerned about the independent actor, and the independent actor who is here in the homeland who may strike with little or no warning," he said. "The nature of the global terrorist threat has evolved."¶ That poses a special challenge for U.S. intelligence and law

enforcement agencies, which spent years desperately trying to penetrate and understand Al Qaeda's rigid hierarchy and top-down approach to terrorism.¶ Now they are struggling to detect and prevent lethal attacks by individuals — such as the April 2013 bombing of the Boston Marathon by two Russian-born brothers — with little or no outside communication or support.¶ The administration has sought to stiffen homeland defenses, and intelligence gathering, in response.

Surveillance KeyMass surveillance has thwarted many attacks – more transparency of the programs makes attacks very likely Nakashima 13 [Ellen Nakashima, national security reporter for The Washington Post. She focuses on issues relating to intelligence, technology and civil liberties. “Officials: Surveillance programs foiled more than 50 terrorist plots”, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/officials-surveillance-programs-foiled-more-than-50-terrorist-plots/2013/06/18/d657cb56-d83e-11e2-9df4-895344c13c30_story.html, June 18th, 2013//Rahul]The U.S. government’s sweeping surveillance programs have disrupted more than 50 terrorist plots in the United States and abroad, including a plan to bomb the New York Stock Exchange, senior government officials testified Tuesday. The officials, appearing before a largely friendly House committee, defended the collection of telephone and Internet data by the National Security Agency as central to protecting the United States and its allies against terrorist attacks. And they said that recent disclosures about the surveillance operations have caused serious damage. “We are now faced with a situation that, because this information has been made public, we run the risk of losing these collection capabilities,” said Robert S. Litt, general counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. “We’re not going to know for many months whether these leaks in fact have caused us to lose these capabilities, but if they do have that effect, there is no doubt that they will cause our national security to be affected.” The hearing before the House Intelligence Committee was the third congressional session examining the leaks of classified material about two top-secret surveillance programs by Edward Snowden, 29, a former NSA contractor and onetime CIA employee. Articles based on the material in The Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian newspaper have raised concerns about intrusions on civil liberties and forced the Obama administration to mount an aggressive defense of the effectiveness and privacy protections of the operations. Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the head of the NSA, told the committee that the programs had helped prevent “potential terrorist events over 50 times since 9/11.” He said at least 10 of the disrupted plots involved terrorism suspects or targets in the United States. Alexander said officials do not plan to release additional information publicly, to avoid revealing sources and methods of operation, but he said the House and Senate intelligence committees will receive classified details of the thwarted plots. Newly revealed plots In testimony last week, Alexander said the surveillance programs had helped prevent an attack on the subway system in New York City and the bombing of a Danish newspaper. Sean Joyce, deputy director of the FBI, described two additional plots Tuesday that he said were stopped through the surveillance — a plan by a Kansas City, Mo., man to bomb the New York Stock Exchange and efforts by a San Diego man to send money to terrorists in Somalia. The officials said repeatedly that the operations were authorized by Congress and subject to oversight through internal mechanisms and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, whose proceedings are secret. Alexander said that more than 90 percent of the information on the foiled plots came from a program targeting the communications of foreigners, known as PRISM. The program was authorized under Section 702 of a 2008 law that amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The law authorizes the NSA to collect e-mails and other Internet communications to and from foreign targets overseas who are thought to be involved in terrorism or nuclear proliferation or who might provide critical foreign intelligence. No American in the country or abroad can be targeted without a warrant, and no person inside the United States can be targeted without a warrant. A second program collects all call records from U.S. phone companies. It is authorized under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. The records do not include the content of calls, location data, or a subscriber’s name or address. That law, passed in 2001 and renewed twice since then, also amended FISA. Snowden, a high school dropout who worked at an NSA operations center in Hawaii for 15 months as a contractor, released highly classified information on both programs, claiming they represent government overreach. He has been in hiding since publicly acknowledging on June 9 that he leaked the material. Several lawmakers pressed for answers on how Snowden, a low-level systems administrator, could have had access to highly classified material such as a court order for phone records. “We need to seal this crack in the system,” said Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (Md.), the

ranking Democrat on the intelligence panel. Alexander said he is working with intelligence officials to come up with a “two-person” rule to ensure that the agency can block unauthorized people from removing information from the system. But Alexander and the other witnesses focused more heavily on justifying the programs and arguing that they operate under legal guidelines. “As Americans, we value our privacy and our civil liberties,” Alexander said. “As Americans, we also value our security and our safety. In the 12 years since the attacks on September 11th, we have lived in relative safety and security as a nation. That security is a direct result of the intelligence community’s quiet efforts to better connect the dots and learn from the mistakes that permitted those attacks to occur on 9/11.”

Mass surveillance key to prevent terrorist attacks—ISIS is recruiting from the USRory Carroll, 4-1-2015, "NSA surveillance needed to prevent Isis attack, claims former intelligence chair," Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/22/mass-surveillance-needed-isis-attack-mike-rogersMass surveillance should be retained because of the prospect of Islamic State attacks within the United States, a key Republican ally of the National Security Agency has claimed. Mike Rogers, the former chairman of the House intelligence committee, said the NSA needed to preserve its wide powers in case Isis used its bases in Syria and Iraq to unleash atrocities on the US homeland. “Now you have a very real face on what the threat is,” Rogers told the Guardian on Tuesday. “Somebody calling back from Syria to Minnesota, either recruiting somebody or giving the operational OK to do something. That’s real and it’s serious. Before it seemed all hypothetical. Now you can see it.” He added: “Think about how many people are in Syria with western passports or even American passports. I want to know if they pick up the phone. If they’re calling back to the States, I don’t know about you, but I want to know who they’re talking to and what they’re talking about.”

UQ- Risk of major terror attack is high; continued data surveillance is key to continue to prevent attacks Lewis, senior fellow and program director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, December 2014 (James, Center for Strategic and International Studies, “Underestimating Risk in the Surveillance Debate” http://csis.org/files/publication/141209_Lewis_UnderestimatingRisk_Web.pdf; accessed 7/14/15 JH @ DDI) Americans are reluctant to accept terrorism is part of their daily lives, but attacks have been planned or attempted against American targets (usually airliners or urban areas) almost every year since 9/11. Europe faces even greater risk, given the thousands of European Union citizens who will return hardened and radicalized from fighting in Syria and Iraq. The threat of attack is easy to exaggerate, but that does not mean it is nonexistent. Australia’s then-attorney general said in August 2013 that communications surveillance had stopped four “mass casualty events” since 2008. The constant planning and preparation for attack by terrorist groups is not apparent to the public. The dilemma in assessing risk is that it is discontinuous. There can be long periods with no noticeable activity, only to have the apparent calm explode. The debate over how to reform communications surveillance has discounted this risk. Communications surveillance is an essential law enforcement and intelligence tool. There is no replacement for it. Some suggestions for alternative approaches to surveillance, such as the idea that the National Security Agency (NSA) only track known or suspected terrorists, reflect wishful thinking, as it is the unknown terrorist who will inflict the greatest harm.

UQ- Empirics arguments don’t matter terrorism can happen at anytimeLewis 14 [James Andrew Lewis, Director and Senior Fellow of the Technology and Public Policy Program at the CSIS, December 2014, "Underestimating Risk in the Surveillance Debate", Center for Strategic and International Studies, http://csis.org/files/publication/141209_Lewis_UnderestimatingRisk_Web.pdf pg 19-20 jf]The phrase “terrorism” is overused, and the threat of terrorist attack is easily exaggerated, but that does not mean this threat it is nonexistent. Groups and individuals still plan to attack American citizens and the citizens of allied countries. The dilemma in assessing risk is that it is discontinuous. There can be long periods where no activity is apparent, only to have the apparent calm explode in an attack. The constant, low-level activity in planning and preparation in Western countries is not apparent to the public, nor is it easy to identify the moment that discontent turns into action.There is general agreement that as terrorists splinter into regional groups, the risk of attack increases. Certainly, the threat to Europe from militants returning from Syria points to increased risk for U.S. allies. The messy U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and (soon) Afghanistan contributes to an increase in risk.24 European authorities have increased surveillance and arrests of suspected militants as the Syrian conflict lures hundreds of Europeans. Spanish counterterrorism police say they have broken up more terrorist cells than in any other European country in the last three years.25 The chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, who is better placed than most members of Congress to assess risk, said in June 2014 that the level of terrorist activity was higher than he had ever seen it.26 If the United States overreacted in response to September 11, it now risks overreacting to the leaks with potentially fatal consequences.A simple assessment of the risk of attack by jihadis would take into account a resurgent Taliban, the power of lslamist groups in North Africa, the continued existence of Shabaab in Somalia, and the appearance of a powerful new force, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Al Qaeda, previously the leading threat, has splintered into independent groups that make it a less coordinated force but more difficult target. On the positive side, the United States, working with allies and friends, appears to have contained or eliminated jihadi groups in Southeast Asia.Many of these groups seek to use adherents in Europe and the United States for manpower and funding. A Florida teenager was a suicide bomber in Syria and Al Shabaab has in the past drawn upon the Somali population in the United States. Hamas and Hezbollah have achieved quasi-statehood status, and Hamas has supporters in the United States. Iran, which supports the two groups, has advanced capabilities to launch attacks and routinely attacked U.S. forces in Iraq. The United Kingdom faces problems from several hundred potential terrorists within its large Pakistani population, and there are potential attackers in other Western European nations, including Germany, Spain, and the Scandinavian countries. France, with its large Muslim population faces the most serious challenge and is experiencing a wave of troubling anti-Semitic attacks that suggest both popular support for extremism and a decline in control by security forces.The chief difference between now and the situation before 9/11 is that all of these countries have put in place much more robust surveillance systems, nationally and in cooperation with others, including the United States, to detect and prevent potential attacks. Another difference is that the failure of U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan and the opportunities created by the Arab Spring have opened a new “front” for jihadi groups that makes their primary focus regional. Western targets still remain of interest, but are more likely to face attacks from domestic sympathizers. This could change if the well-resourced ISIS is frustrated in its efforts to establish a new Caliphate and turns its focus to the West. In addition, the al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen (al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) continues to regularly plan attacks against U.S. targets. 27The incidence of attacks in the United States or Europe is very low, but we do not have good data on the number of planned attacks that did not come to fruition. This includes not just attacks that were detected and stopped, but also attacks where the jihadis were discouraged and did not initiate an operation or press an attack to its conclusion because of operational

difficulties. These attacks are the threat that mass surveillance was created to prevent. The needed reduction in public anti-terror measures without increasing the chances of successful attack is contingent upon maintaining the capability provided by communications surveillance to detect, predict, and prevent attacks. Our opponents have not given up; neither should we.

Yes nuclear capabilitiesTerrorist groups have the financial and nuclear capabilities to attack the US—transporting weapons into the US is a simple task—empirics proveMac Slavo, 5-26-2015, "Report: Terrorist Nuke Attack May Be Carried Out Inside the United States in Next 12 Months," Infowars, http://www.infowars.com/report-terrorist-nuke-attack-may-be-carried-out-inside-the-united-states-in-next-12-months/With nuclear material having been stolen on multiple occasions in Mexico, and close terrorist ties to intelligence organizations in the middle east, it appears that if an organization was committed to acquiring nuclear material they could do so. Finding the scientists to build such a weapon, whether dirty or actual, wouldn’t be all that difficult. Moreover, smuggling such a device into the U.S. is possible, as evidenced by a 2011 report which confirms that at least one nuclear weapon of mass destruction was seized as it entered the United States. According to a report from Zero Hedge, such a plan may be in the works over the next twelve months, as the Islamic State claims it may be actively pursuing a nuclear weapon intended for detonation on American soil. Three weeks after the first supposed attack by Islamic State supporters in the US, in which two ISIS “soldiers” wounded a security guard before they were killed in Garland, Texas, the time has come to raise the fear stakes. In an article posted in the terrorist group’s English-language online magazine Dabiq (which as can be see below seems to have gotten its design cues straight from Madison Avenue and is just missing glossy pages filled with ‘scratch and sniff’ perfume ads ) ISIS claimed that it has enough money to buy a nuclear weapon from Pakistan and “carry out an attack inside the United States next year.” In the article, the ISIS columnist said the weapon could be smuggled into the United States via its southern border with Mexico. Curiously, the author of the piece is John Cantlie, a British photojournalist who was abducted by ISIS in 2012 and has been held hostage by the organization ever since; he has appeared in several videos since his kidnapping and criticized Western powers. As the Telegraph notes, “Mr Cantlie, whose fellow journalist hostages have all either been released or beheaded, has appeared in the group’s propaganda videos and written previous pieces. In his latest work, presumed to be written under pressure but in his hall-mark style combining hyperbole, metaphor and sarcasm, he says that President Obama’s policies for containing Isil have demonstrably failed and increased the risk to America.” Cantlie describes the following “hypothetical” scenario in Dabiq : Let me throw a hypothetical operation onto the table. The Islamic State has billions of dollars in the bank, so they call on their wilayah in Pakistan to purchase a nuclear device through weapons dealers with links to corrupt officials in the region. The weapon is then transported overland until it makes it to Libya, where the muj?hid?n move it south to Nigeria. Drug shipments from Columbia bound for Europe pass through West Africa, so moving other types of contraband from East to West is just as possible. The nuke and accompanying mujahadin arrive on the shorelines of South America and are transported through the porous borders of Central America before arriving in Mexico and up to the border with the United States. From there it’s just a quick hop through a smuggling

tunnel and hey presto, they’re mingling with another 12 million “illegal” aliens in America with a nuclear bomb in the trunk of their car. Cantlie continues: Perhaps such a scenario is far-fetched but it’s the sum of all fears for Western intelligence agencies and it’s infinitely more possible today than it was just one year ago. And if not a nuke, what about a few thousand tons of ammonium nitrate explosive? That’s easy enough to make. The Islamic State make no secret of the fact they have every intention of attacking America on its home soil and they’re not going to mince about with two mujahidin taking down a dozen casualties if it originates from the Caliphate. They’ll be looking to do something big, something that would make any past operation look like a squirrel shoot, and the more groups that pledge allegiance the more possible it becomes to pull off something truly epic. Remember, all of this has happened in less than a year. How more dangerous will be the lines of communication and supply a year on from today? If the West completely failed to spot the emergence of the Islamic State and then the allies who so quickly pledged allegiance to it from around the world, what else of massive significance are they going to miss next?

ISIS has the ability to acquire a nuclear weapon and explosives—al Qaeda provesFox News, 7-16-2015, "ISIS Magazine: Terror Army Could Buy Nuclear Weapon From Pakistan," Fox News Insider, http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/05/26/isis-magazine-terror-army-could-buy-nuclear-weapon-pakistancxc An article in the official magazine of ISIS claims that the terror army has the financial wherewithal to purchase a nuclear weapon, possibly from corrupt officials in Pakistan. The article in Dabiq was written last week under the name of British photojournalist John Cantlie, who's been held by ISIS for the last two years. If a nuclear weapon cannot be obtained, the article suggests ISIS look into procuring a few thousand tons of ammonium nitrate explosives. Meantime, new photos show the terror army's rapidly growing arsenal of guns, ammo and explosives, seized when Iraqi forces fled Ramadi. Brian Kilmeade discussed these troubling developments with Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research. Shaffer said the nuclear threat from ISIS is "very real," adding that al Qaeda went down this path years ago. Shaffer said al Qaeda was only one-tenth as smart as ISIS and about one one-hundredth as well financed. He argued that if Iran obtains a nuclear weapon, it's going to cause proliferation throughout the Middle East, increasing the chance that ISIS can get a nuclear device. "They're available. Last time I checked on the black market, these things run about 400 million dollars per warhead. So, ya know, it's there," said Shaffer.

ISIS is on track to gaining nuclear capabilities—US recruits and financial resources increase probability of a nuclear attack or a dirty bombJoseph Cirincione, 9-30-2014, "ISIS will get nukes if allowed to consolidate: expert," NY Daily News, http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/isis-nukes-allowed-consolidate-expert-article-1.1958855The risk of a terrorist attack using nuclear or chemical weapons has just gone up. ISIS is willing to kill large numbers of innocents, and it has added three capabilities that catapult the threat beyond anything seen before:

control of large, urban territories, huge amounts of cash, and a global network of recruits. British Home Secretary Theresa May warned that if ISIS consolidates its control over the land it occupies, “We will see the world’s first truly terrorist state” with “the space to plot attacks against us.” Its seizure of banks and oil fields gave it more than $2 billion in assets. If ISIS could make the right connection to corrupt officials in Russia or Pakistan, the group might be able to buy enough highly enriched uranium (about 50 pounds) and the technical help to build a crude nuclear device. Militants recruited from Europe or America could help smuggle it into their home nations. Or ISIS could try to build a “dirty bomb,” conventional explosives like dynamite laced with highly radioactive materials. The blast would not kill many directly, but it would force the evacuation of tens of square blocks contaminated with radioactive particles. The terror and economic consequences of a bomb detonated in the financial districts of London or New York would be enormous. ISIS could also try to get chemical weapons, such as deadly nerve gases or mustard gas. Fortunately, the most likely source of these terror weapons was just eliminated.

Terrorist organizations have nuclear capabilities—ISIS has access to nuclear materials and are planning an attackLora Moftah, 6-30-2014, "Does ISIS Have A Nuclear Weapon? Islamic State Supporter Claims Militants Have Dirty Bomb," International Business Times, http://www.ibtimes.com/does-isis-have-nuclear-weapon-islamic-state-supporter-claims-militants-have-dirty-1731890Islamic State group has reportedly developed a nuclear weapon made from radioactive material stolen from an Iraqi university, according to a militant who claims insider knowledge. Hamayun Tariq, a British ISIS member now based in Syria, claimed on social media that the group obtained the uranium from Mosul University and now possesses a “dirty bomb” that it is now considering detonating in a public area. If true, this would confirm fears voiced by Iraq’s United Nations ambassador back in July following the seizure of 40 kilograms of uranium compounds from Mosul University. In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon dated July 8, ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim warned that these materials “can be used in manufacturing weapons of mass destruction,” according to Reuters. "These nuclear materials, despite the limited amounts mentioned, can enable terrorist groups, with the availability of the required expertise, to use it separate or in combination with other materials in its terrorist acts," said Alhakim.

***Neg Links***

Mass Surv LinksMass surveillance has thwarted many attacks – more transparency of the programs makes attacks very likely Nakashima 13 [Ellen Nakashima, national security reporter for The Washington Post. She focuses on issues relating to intelligence, technology and civil liberties. “Officials: Surveillance programs foiled more than 50 terrorist plots”, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/officials-surveillance-programs-foiled-more-than-50-terrorist-plots/2013/06/18/d657cb56-d83e-11e2-9df4-895344c13c30_story.html, June 18th, 2013//Rahul]The U.S. government’s sweeping surveillance programs have disrupted more than 50 terrorist plots in the United States and abroad, including a plan to bomb the New York Stock Exchange, senior government officials testified Tuesday. The officials, appearing before a largely friendly House committee, defended the collection of telephone and Internet data by the National Security Agency as central to protecting the United States and its allies against terrorist attacks. And they said that recent disclosures about the surveillance operations have caused serious damage. “We are now faced with a situation that, because this information has been made public, we run the risk of losing these collection capabilities,” said Robert S. Litt, general counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. “We’re not going to know for many months whether these leaks in fact have caused us to lose these capabilities, but if they do have that effect, there is no doubt that they will cause our national security to be affected.” The hearing before the House Intelligence Committee was the third congressional session examining the leaks of classified material about two top-secret surveillance programs by Edward Snowden, 29, a former NSA contractor and onetime CIA employee. Articles based on the material in The Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian newspaper have raised concerns about intrusions on civil liberties and forced the Obama administration to mount an aggressive defense of the effectiveness and privacy protections of the operations. Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the head of the NSA, told the committee that the programs had helped prevent “potential terrorist events over 50 times since 9/11.” He said at least 10 of the disrupted plots involved terrorism suspects or targets in the United States. Alexander said officials do not plan to release additional information publicly, to avoid revealing sources and methods of operation, but he said the House and Senate intelligence committees will receive classified details of the thwarted plots. Newly revealed plots In testimony last week, Alexander said the surveillance programs had helped prevent an attack on the subway system in New York City and the bombing of a Danish newspaper. Sean Joyce, deputy director of the FBI, described two additional plots Tuesday that he said were stopped through the surveillance — a plan by a Kansas City, Mo., man to bomb the New York Stock Exchange and efforts by a San Diego man to send money to terrorists in Somalia. The officials said repeatedly that the operations were authorized by Congress and subject to oversight through internal mechanisms and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, whose proceedings are secret. Alexander said that more than 90 percent of the information on the foiled plots came from a program targeting the communications of foreigners, known as PRISM. The program was authorized under Section 702 of a 2008 law that amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The law authorizes the NSA to collect e-mails and other Internet communications to and from foreign targets overseas who are thought to be involved in terrorism or nuclear proliferation or who might provide critical foreign intelligence. No American in the country or abroad can be targeted without a warrant, and no person inside the United States can be targeted without a warrant. A second program collects all call records from U.S. phone companies. It is authorized under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. The records do not include the content of calls, location data, or a subscriber’s name or address. That law, passed in 2001 and renewed twice since then, also amended FISA. Snowden, a high school dropout who worked at an NSA operations center in Hawaii for 15 months as a contractor, released highly classified information on both programs, claiming they represent government overreach. He has been in hiding since publicly acknowledging on June 9 that he leaked the material. Several lawmakers pressed for answers on how Snowden, a low-level systems administrator, could have had access to highly classified material such as a court order for phone records. “We need to seal this crack in the system,” said Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (Md.), the

ranking Democrat on the intelligence panel. Alexander said he is working with intelligence officials to come up with a “two-person” rule to ensure that the agency can block unauthorized people from removing information from the system. But Alexander and the other witnesses focused more heavily on justifying the programs and arguing that they operate under legal guidelines. “As Americans, we value our privacy and our civil liberties,” Alexander said. “As Americans, we also value our security and our safety. In the 12 years since the attacks on September 11th, we have lived in relative safety and security as a nation. That security is a direct result of the intelligence community’s quiet efforts to better connect the dots and learn from the mistakes that permitted those attacks to occur on 9/11.”

Bulk surveillance is crucial to detect and act on threats – many examples prove Hines 13 [Pierre Hines is a defense council member of the Truman National Security Project, “Here’s how metadata on billions of phone calls predicts terrorist attacks” http://qz.com/95719/heres-how-metadata-on-billions-of-phone-calls-predicts-terrorist-attacks, June 19th, 2013//Rahul]Yesterday, when NSA Director General Keith Alexander testified before the House Committee on Intelligence, he declared that the NSA’s surveillance programs have provided “critical leads to help prevent over 50 potential terrorist events.” FBI Deputy Director Sean Boyce elaborated by describing four instances when the NSA’s surveillance programs have had an impact: (1) when an intercepted email from a terrorist in Pakistan led to foiling a plan to bomb of the New York subway system; (2) when NSA’s programs helped prevent a plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange; (3) when intelligence led to the arrest of a U.S. citizen who planned to bomb the Danish Newspaper office that published cartoon depictions of the Prophet Muhammad; and (4) when the NSA’s programs triggered reopening the 9/11 investigation. So what are the practical applications of internet and phone records gathered from two NSA programs? And how can “metadata” actually prevent terrorist attacks? Metadata does not give the NSA and intelligence community access to the content of internet and phone communications. Instead, metadata is more like the transactional information cell phone customers would normally see on their billing statements—metadata can indicate when a call, email, or online chat began and how long the communication lasted. Section 215 of the Patriot Act provides the legal authority to obtain “business records” from phone companies. Meanwhile, the NSA uses Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to authorize its PRISM program. According the figures provided by Gen. Alexander, intelligence gathered based on Section 702 authority contributed in over 90% of the 50 cases. One of major benefits of metadata is that it provides hindsight—it gives intelligence analysts a retrospective view of a sequence of events. As Deputy Director Boyce discussed, the ability to analyze previous communications allowed the FBI to reopen the 9/11 investigation and determine who was linked to that attack. It is important to recognize that terrorist attacks are not orchestrated overnight; they take months or years to plan. Therefore, if the intelligence community only catches wind of an attack halfway into the terrorists’ planning cycle, or even after a terrorist attack has taken place, metadata might be the only source of information that captures the sequence of events leading up to an attack. Once a terrorist suspect has been identified or once an attack has taken place, intelligence analysts can use powerful software to sift through metadata to determine which numbers, IP addresses, or individuals are associated with the suspect. Moreover, phone numbers and IP addresses sometimes serve as a proxy for the general location of where the planning has taken place. This ability to narrow down the location of terrorists can help determine whether the intelligence community is dealing with a domestic or international threat. Even more useful than hindsight is a crystal ball that gives the intelligence community a look into the future. Simply knowing how many individuals are in a chat room, how many individuals have contacted a particular phone user, or how many individuals are on an email chain could serve as an indicator of how many terrorists are involved in a plot. Furthermore, knowing when a suspect

communicates can help identify his patterns of behavior. For instance, metadata can help establish whether a suspect communicates sporadically or on a set pattern (e.g., making a call every Saturday at 2 p.m.). Any deviation from that pattern could indicate that the plan changed at a certain point; any phone number or email address used consistently and then not at all could indicate that a suspect has stopped communicating with an associate. Additionally, a rapid increase in communication could indicate that an attack is about to happen. Metadata can provide all of this information without ever exposing the content of a phone call or email. If the metadata reveals the suspect is engaged in terrorist activities, then obtaining a warrant would allow intelligence officials to actually monitor the content of the suspect’s communication. In Gen. Alexander’s words, “These programs have protected our country and allies . . . [t]hese programs have been approved by the administration, Congress, and the courts.” Now, Americans will have to decide whether they agree.

Surveillance is necessary and has very little negative consequences on civil liberty Boot 13 [Max Boot, Max Boot is an American author, consultant, editorialist, lecturer, and military historian, “Stay calm and let the NSA carry on”, http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun/09/opinion/la-oe-boot-nsa-surveillance-20130609, June 9th, 2015//Rahul]After 9/11, there was a widespread expectation of many more terrorist attacks on the United States. So far that hasn't happened. We haven't escaped entirely unscathed (see Boston Marathon, bombing of), but on the whole we have been a lot safer than most security experts, including me, expected. In light of the current controversy over the National Security Agency's monitoring of telephone calls and emails, it is worthwhile to ask: Why is that? It is certainly not due to any change of heart among our enemies. Radical Islamists still want to kill American infidels. But the vast majority of the time, they fail. The Heritage Foundation estimated last year that 50 terrorist attacks on the American homeland had been foiled since 2001. Some, admittedly, failed through sheer incompetence on the part of the would-be terrorists. For instance, Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani American jihadist, planted a car bomb in Times Square in 2010 that started smoking before exploding, thereby alerting two New Yorkers who in turn called police, who were able to defuse it. But it would be naive to adduce all of our security success to pure serendipity. Surely more attacks would have succeeded absent the ramped-up counter-terrorism efforts undertaken by the U.S. intelligence community, the military and law enforcement. And a large element of the intelligence community's success lies in its use of special intelligence — that is, communications intercepts. The CIA is notoriously deficient in human intelligence — infiltrating spies into terrorist organizations is hard to do, especially when we have so few spooks who speak Urdu, Arabic, Persian and other relevant languages. But the NSA is the best in the world at intercepting communications. That is the most important technical advantage we have in the battle against fanatical foes who will not hesitate to sacrifice their lives to take ours. Which brings us to the current kerfuffle over two NSA monitoring programs that have been exposed by the Guardian and the Washington Post. One program apparently collects metadata on all telephone calls made in the United States. Another program provides access to all the emails, videos and other data found on the servers of major Internet firms such as Google, Apple and Microsoft. At first blush these intelligence-gathering activities raise the specter of Big Brother snooping on ordinary American citizens who might be cheating on their spouses or bad-mouthing the president. In fact, there are considerable safeguards built into both programs to ensure that doesn't happen. The phone-monitoring program does not allow the NSA to listen in on conversations without a court order. All that it can do is to collect information on the time, date and destination of phone calls. It should go without saying that it would be pretty useful to know if someone in the U.S. is calling a number in Pakistan or Yemen that is used by a terrorist organizer. As for the Internet-monitoring program, reportedly known as PRISM, it is apparently limited to "non-U.S. persons" who are abroad and

thereby enjoy no constitutional protections. These are hardly rogue operations. Both programs were initiated by President George W. Bush and continued by President Obama with the full knowledge and support of Congress and continuing oversight from the federal judiciary. That's why the leaders of both the House and Senate intelligence committees, Republicans and Democrats alike, have come to the defense of these activities. It's possible that, like all government programs, these could be abused — see, for example, the IRS making life tough on tea partiers. But there is no evidence of abuse so far and plenty of evidence — in the lack of successful terrorist attacks — that these programs have been effective in disrupting terrorist plots. Granted there is something inherently creepy about Uncle Sam scooping up so much information about us. But Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Citibank and other companies know at least as much about us, because they use very similar data-mining programs to track our online movements. They gather that information in order to sell us products, and no one seems to be overly alarmed. The NSA is gathering that information to keep us safe from terrorist attackers. Yet somehow its actions have become a "scandal," to use a term now loosely being tossed around. The real scandal here is that the Guardian and Washington Post are compromising our national security by telling our enemies about our intelligence-gathering capabilities. Their news stories reveal, for example, that only nine Internet companies share information with the NSA. This is a virtual invitation to terrorists to use other Internet outlets for searches, email, apps and all the rest. No intelligence effort can ever keep us 100% safe, but to stop or scale back the NSA's special intelligence efforts would amount to unilateral disarmament in a war against terrorism that is far from over.

Unwarranted domestic surveillance is the most significant anti-terror tool available- allows us to infiltrate terror groups and prevent weapons proliferation- has solved 53 of 54 suppressed terror attacks in recent yearsClarke et al 2013 [Report and Recommendations of the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Surveillance Technologies, “Liberty and Security in a Changing World”, https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2013-12-12_rg_final_report.pdf, Accessed 7/3/15, AX]According to NSA, section 702 “is the most significant tool in NSA collection arsenal for the detection, identification, and disruption of terrorist threats to the US and around the world.” To cite just one example, collection under section 702 “was critical to the discovery and disruption” of a planned bomb attack in 2009 against the New York City subway system and led to the arrest and conviction of Najibullah Zazi and several of his co-conspirators. According to the Department of Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in a 2012 report to Congress: Section 702 enables the Government to collect information effectively and efficiently about foreign targets overseas and in a manner that protects the privacy and civil liberties of Americans. Through rigorous oversight, the Government is able to evaluate whether changes are needed to the procedures or guidelines, and what other steps may be appropriate to safeguard the privacy of personal information. In addition, the Department of Justice provides the joint assessments and other reports to the FISC. The FISC has been actively involved in the review of section 702 collection. Together, all of these mechanisms ensure thorough and continuous oversight of section 702 activities. . . . Section 702 is vital to keeping the nation safe. It provides information about the plans and identities of terrorists allowing us to glimpse inside terrorist organizations and obtain information about how those groups function and receive support. In addition, it lets us collect information about the intentions and capabilities of weapons proliferators and other foreign adversaries who threaten the United States. In reauthorizing section 702 for an additional five years in 2012, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded: [T]he authorities provided [under section 702] have greatly increased the government’s ability to collect information and act quickly against important foreign intelligence targets. The Committee has also found that

[section 702] has been implemented with attention to protecting the privacy and civil liberties of US persons, and has been the subject of extensive oversight by the Executive branch, the FISC, as well as the Congress. . . . [The] failure to reauthorize [section 702] would “result in a loss of significant intelligence and impede the ability of the Intelligence Community to respond quickly to new threats and intelligence opportunities.”147Our own review is not inconsistent with this assessment. During the course of our analysis, NSA shared with the Review Group the details of 54 counterterrorism investigations since 2007 that resulted in the prevention of terrorist attacks in diverse nations and the United States. In all but one of these cases, information obtained under section 702 contributed in some degree to the success of the investigation. Although it is difficult to assess precisely how many of these investigations would have turned out differently without the information learned through section 702, we are persuaded that section 702 does in fact play an important role in the nation’s effort to prevent terrorist attacks across the globe.

Meta-data has stopped terror attacksSchwartz 15 [Mattathias Schwartz, 1-26-2015, staff writer for the New Yorker and won the 2011

Livingston Award for international reporting "How to Catch a Terrorist," New Yorker,

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/26/whole-haystack jf]

The N.S.A. asserts that it uses the metadata to learn whether anyone inside the U.S. is in contact with high-priority terrorism suspects, colloquially referred to as “known bad guys.” Michael Hayden, the former C.I.A. and N.S.A. director, has said, “We kill people based on metadata.” He then added, “But that’s not what we do with this metadata,” referring to Section 215.Soon after Snowden’s revelations, Alexander said that the N.S.A.’s surveillance programs have stopped “fifty-four different terrorist-related activities.” Most of these were “terrorist plots.” Thirteen involved the United States. Credit for foiling these plots, he continued, was partly due to the metadata program, intended to “find the terrorist that walks among us.”President Obama also quantified the benefits of the metadata program. That June, in a press conference with Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, Obama said, “We know of at least fifty threats that have been averted because of this information.” He continued, “Lives have been saved.”

Even if terror is unlikely meta-data surveillance is worth itLake 2014 [Eli Lake, 2-17-2014, senior national-security correspondent for the Daily Beast, "Spy Chief: We Should’ve Told You We Track Your Calls," Daily Beast, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/17/spy-chief-we-should-ve-told-you-we-track-your-calls.html jf ]

Clapper still defends the 215 program, too. The storage of the phone records allows NSA analysts to connect phone numbers of suspected terrorists overseas to a possible network inside the United States. Other U.S. intelligence officials say its real value is that it saves work for the FBI and the NSA in tracking down potential leads by ruling out suspicious numbers quickly.

In the interview Clapper said the 215 program was not a violation the rights of Americans. “For me it was not some massive assault on civil liberties and privacy because of what we actually do and the safeguards that are put on this,” he said. “To guard against perhaps these days low probability but a very (high) impact thing if it happens.” Clapper compared the 215 program to fire insurance. “I buy fire insurance ever since I retired, the wife and I

bought a house out here and we buy fire insurance every year. Never had a fire. But I am not gonna quit buying my fire insurance, same kind of thing.”

Meta Data is key to damage control after terrorist attacksLewis 14 [James Andrew Lewis, Director and Senior Fellow of the Technology and Public Policy Program at the CSIS, December 2014, "Underestimating Risk in the Surveillance Debate", Center for Strategic and International Studies, http://csis.org/files/publication/141209_Lewis_UnderestimatingRisk_Web.pdf pg 9 jf]The most controversial aspect of the surveillance program involved metadata. Metadata is information describing a telephone call, such as the number from which the call was placed, the number called, and the date, time, and length of the call. The content of the phone call (e.g., the conversation) is not collected. No locational data is collected, although commentators seem confused on this point. Metadata analysis gave NSA the ability to identify individuals in the United States or individuals outside the United States who are in contact with terrorist groups.10 In 2012, NSA looked at 288 primary telephone numbers and through “call chaining” analysis reviewed 6,000 other numbers connected to these primary numbers. The 288 people had some connection to terrorism and NSA looked at the 6,000 people with whom they talked to see if they were also involved. Metadata acquired and retained under Section 215 of the Patriot Act program could only be queried when there is “reasonable articulable suspicion” that a telephone number is associated with foreign terrorist organizations. If a query merits further investigation, which requires looking at either content of the individual unmaking the call, this requires a specific, individual court order based on probable cause. If there is one constitutional requirement that was not fully observed in the metadata program authorized under the Patriot Act, it was that search requires a warrant from a court rather than an internal approval by the executive branch agency itself.11 This was a significant error. The 215 program allows law enforcement and intelligence officials to determine if a terrorist event is an isolated incident or the first of a serious of attacks, and whether the attacker is a “lone wolf” or connected to a larger terrorist organization. The most important decision in the immediate aftermath of an attack is whether the incident is the first of a series. If it is the first of a series of attacks, additional steps must be taken without delay, such as closing airports and other transportation hubs, putting police forces around the country on high alert, and mobilizing law enforcement agencies to locate and arrest the other attackers. These steps are both disruptive and expensive and knowing that they are not necessary provides immediate benefit.

Borders LinksBorder surveillance is k2 preventing terrorism Smarick et al. 12 ,( Kathleen Smarick and Gary D. LaFree of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland. 11/12 “Border Crossings and Terrorist Attacks in the United States: Lessons for Protecting against Dangerous Entrants” START, http://www.start.umd.edu/sites/default/files/files/publications/START_BorderCrossingsTerroristAttacks.pdf CCC)An essential step in this project was determining the frequency and dynamics of border crossings by individuals who conducted or who wanted to conduct terrorism-related activities in the United States . Towards that goal, the project built upon the existing holdings of the American Terrorism Study (ATS) in this effort. The ATS, housed at the University of Arkansas, catalogs and systematically codes information on more than 300 Federal court cases involving Federal terrorist charges since 1980 and, following a review of other possible resources, proved to be the most useful starting point for compiling open-source, quantitative data on terrorist border crossings. Since 1989, the American Terrorism Study (ATS) has received lists of court cases and associated indictees that resulted from an official FBI terrorism investigation spanning 1980 through 2004. Housed at the University of Arkansas’ Terrorism Research Center in Fulbright College (TRC), the ATS now includes almost 400 cases from the FBI lists. Of these, approximately 75% of cases have complete court documentation, and almost all of those collected have been coded into the ATS database, while the ATS team continues to track new cases by collecting, reviewing, and coding new and additional court documentation. The ATS includes terrorism incidents and attacks, thwarted or planned terrorism incidents sometimes referred to as preventions, material support cases for terrorism, general terrorism conspiracies, and in some cases, immigration fraud; the common denominator among all ATS events is that the FBI investigated these events as terrorism-related incidents. During preliminary research for this project, court records from 378 terrorism cases found in the ATS dataset were reviewed for information on potential border crossing events related to terrorism cases. The documents for each court case were manually reviewed by researchers to determine whether the collected records reported that one of the defendants or accomplices in a case crossed a U.S. border at some point. Thirty-eight percent of the reviewed cases—145 cases—from 1980 through 2004 were found to either have: • direct mention of a border crossing in the court documents, or • a link to a terrorism incident that involved a known border crossing, either before or after an incident. After compiling this list of court cases for inclusion, each

identified court case was then linked to a criminal incident involving terrorism charges. Initial reviews revealed a connection to a border-crossing event in a total of 58 successful terrorist attacks, 51 prevented or thwarted attacks, 26 material support cases, 33 immigration fraud incidents, and 4 general terrorism conspiracies . Additional reviews of relevant information on indictees and their activities resulted in a reduction in the number of successful terrorist attacks associated with these individuals to a total of 43. Appendix 2 provides more details on the data collection process and how a reliable collection methodology was established to create the U.S. Terrorist Border Crossing Dataset (USTBC), using the ATS as a starting point. National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism A Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Center of Excellence Border Crossings and Terrorist Attacks in the United States 12 Systematic evaluation by the research team revealed that the American Terrorism Study is a reliable and useful resource for identifying individuals associated with terrorist attacks or terrorist criminal cases (such as conspiracies) and for determining which of these individuals crossed U.S. borders in advance of or in the wake of their terrorism-related behavior. This is largely because the ATS is based on court documents, which among sources of data on terrorism are the most likely to reference relevant border crossing activity. The Global Terrorism Database, which is based primarily on media sources, can serve a supporting role in this research, but the ATS is the primary source allowing for construction of a new, relational database on U.S. Terrorist Border Crossings (USTBCs). That being said, it is important to recognize that the ATS is not a perfect data source. As noted above, its contents are limited to individuals and information related to court cases in which one or more defendant was charged with Federal terrorism charges. As such, the contents of ATS clearly represent a subset of all terrorists or attempted terrorists in the United States, as it systematically omits those who: were never arrested or faced any charges, were charged with offenses not directly related to terrorism, were charged at the non-Federal level, or were engaged in dangerous activity that does not meet the FBI’s definition of a terrorism case. Throughout this project, the research team was careful to respect the limitations of this data collection and to draw conclusions that recognize that the border crossing events included in this project likely represent a non-representative subset of all border crossing attempts by terrorists or intended terrorists. Despite these limitations, though, the data that was built upon the baseline of ATS provides important insights into the nexus between border crossings and terrorism. The U.S. Terrorism Border Crossing Dataset The final versions of the codebooks used to develop the U.S. Terrorist Border Crossing (USTBC) data collection are presented in Appendix 3. Based upon knowledge gained from pilot efforts (as discussed above and in Appendix 2), the project resulted in two codebooks—one focused on dynamics of a bordercrossing event involving someone associated with a Federal terrorism court case, and another focused on the characteristics of the individuals associated with Federal charges who were involved in the bordercrossing event. Data collection for the USTBC lasted

for approximately one year and was primarily conducted by research assistants at the Terrorism Research Center at the University of Arkansas.3 The resultant data that comprise the USTBC are available in Appendix 4. Table 4 provides a snapshot summary of these data, which include detailed information on the location of an attempted crossing, the timing of a crossing relative to attempted or actual terrorist activity, the origin or destination of an attempted crossing, and more. The data also include specific information on border crossers, including their citizenship status, their criminal history, and key demographics (including level of education, marital status, etc.) Appendix 5 provides descriptive statistics from the border-crossing and border-crosser data. 3 Special thanks to Kim Murray and Summer Jackson of the Terrorism Research Center for their efforts in combing through the courtcase material and assembling these data for the USTBC. National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism A Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Center of Excellence Border Crossings and Terrorist Attacks in the United States 13 Border Crossings Identified in USTBC Attempts to Enter the United States Of the 221 border crossings identified in this project as involving individuals who were indicted by the U.S. government in terrorism-related cases, the majority (129 crossings) involved an individual attempting to enter the United States, while the remainder (92 crossings) involved an individual attempting to exit the United States. Eighty-seven percent of the attempted border crossings were successful, rather than being thwarted by law enforcement or foiled by some other events or developments. Additional discussion on the nature of successful crossings versus those who were apprehended at the border is presented below. Among those attempts to enter the United States, the most frequent origin for these crossing efforts was Canada.4 But, as Figure 2 illustrates, such attempted entries originated from all corners of the world.

US Border Patrol proves that surveillance is key to anti-terror effortsStamey 14 (Barcley; DOMESTIC AERIAL SURVEILLANCE AND HOMELAND SECURITY: SHOULD AMERICANS FEAR THE EYE IN THE SKY; March 2014)The leading national agency currently using drones to combat a wide range of domestic threats is U.S. Customs and Border Protection. With its fleet of seven MQ-1 Predators and three MQ-1 Guardians—Predators modified for marine surveillance—CBP 26 is at the forefront of large-scale drone operations. With an annual budget exceeding $11 billion, CBP is well equipped for protecting our national security while combating potential terrorist threats.55 But how efficiently are those funds being used, and what is meant by effectiveness? According to Merriam-Webster, effectiveness is “producing a decided, decisive, or desired effect or result.”56 Ultimately, that desired result is safe international borders. Accomplishing this result involves the apprehension of illegal immigrants, interdiction of illicit drugs, and prevention of terrorist infiltration, which CBP does quite well, but with respect to UAS, effectiveness must be viewed on a much broader scale. This section takes into account the size of CBP, its operational budget, and

couples it with published results. According to CBP, the primary mission of drone use is “anti-terrorism by helping to identify and intercept potential terrorists and illegal cross-border activity.”57 CBP uses its Predators and Reapers to accomplish this goal through human detection and tracking, surface asset coordination, and threat detection through IR sensors in multiple scenarios. Previously mentioned sensor suites allow the Predator to detect movement along the border, identify actual personnel numbers, and track the location of threats all while being unobserved to the individuals on the ground. With their long loiter times, Predators allow officials to monitor gaps along the border while maximizing the efforts of ground personnel in actual interdiction missions. After witnessing the functionality of actual Predator operations in Afghanistan, this author realizes the value in having high definition video sensors overhead during dangerous operations. This type of technology certainly has a place in homeland security missions, and future capabilities will provide a clear advantage to U.S. personnel in combating border security. This force multiplier mindset is one CBP has adopted and publicizes regularly to justify the success of its drone program. Long loiter times, remote area access, and flexibility during National Special Security Events are common claims.

Unmanned Ariel Vehicles fill current surveillance gap on the borderHaddal 10 ( CC; Homeland Security: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Border Surveillance CRS Report RS21698. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, July 8, 2010.)One potential benefit of UAVs is that they could fill a gap in current border surveillance by improving coverage along remote sections of the U.S. borders. Electro-Optical (EO) sensors (cameras) can identify an object the size of a milk carton from an altitude of 60,000 feet.14 UAVs also can provide precise and real-time imagery to a ground control operator, who would then disseminate that information so that informed decisions regarding the deployment of border patrol agents can be made quickly. Additionally, the Predator B used along the southern border can fly for more than 30 hours without having to refuel, compared with a helicopter’s average flight time of just over 2 hours. The ability of UAVs to loiter for prolonged periods of time has important operational advantages over manned aircraft. The longer flight times of UAVs means that sustained coverage over a previously exposed area may improve border security. The range of UAVs is a significant asset when compared to border agents on patrol or stationary surveillance equipment. If an illegal border entrant attempts to transit through dense woods or mountainous terrain, UAVs would have a greater chance of tracking the violator with thermal detection sensors than the stationary video equipment which is often used on the borders. It is important to note, however, that rough terrain and dense foliage can degrade the images produced by a UAV’s sensory equipment and thus limit their effectiveness at the borders. Nevertheless, the extended range and endurance of UAVs may lessen the burdens on human resources at the Homeland Security: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Border Surveillance Congressional Research Service 4 borders. Also, UAV accidents do not risk the lives of pilots, as do the helicopters that currently patrol U.S. borders

Border security stops terrorismZuckerman, Bucci, Carafano, no date(Jessica Zuckerman, Steven P. Bucci, Ph.D. Director, Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign and National Security Policyj and James Jay Carafano, Ph.D. Vice President for the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, and the E. W. Richardson Fellow, 13, 7-22-2013, "60 Terrorist Plots Since 9/11: Continued Lessons in Domestic Counterterrorism," Heritage Foundation, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/07/60-terrorist-plots-since-911-continued-lessons-in-domestic-counterterrorism CCC)Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser—April 2013.   Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser were arrested in April 2013 for attempting to carry out an attack on a Via Railway train travelling from Canada to the U.S. The attack, authorities claimed, was supported by an al-Qaeda element in Iran, although there is currently no evidence that it was state-sponsored. [205]   The exact route of the targeted train has not been identified, and Iranian authorities vehemently deny that al-Qaeda is operating within Iranian borders.Esseghaier and Jaser have been charged in Canada with conspiracy to commit murder for the benefit of a terrorist group, participating in a terrorist group, and conspiring to interfere with transportation facilities for the benefit of a terrorist group. Esseghaier has also been charged with participating in a terrorist group, and both men face up to life in prison. [206]   The two men are awaiting trial. Chiheb Esseghaier wants to represent himself, basing his defense on the Quran instead of on the Canadian criminal code, which has caused delays in the proceedings. [207]

Continued use of border surveillance technology is crucial to the detection of and response to threats on the borderHaddal, Specialist in Immigration Policy, 8/11/10 (Chad C. Haddal, Congressional Research Service report, August 11, 2010, “Border Security: The Role of the U.S. Border Patrol” https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RL32562.pdf, accessed 7/15/15 JH @ DDI)Perhaps the most important technology used by the Border Patrol are the surveillance assets currently in place at the border. The program has gone through several iterations and name changes. Originally known as the Integrated Surveillance Information System (ISIS), the program’s name was changed to the America’s Shield Initiative (ASI) in FY2005. DHS subsequently folded ASI into the Secure Border Initative (SBI) and renamed the program SBInet Technology (SBInet). Once it is beyond the pilot phase, SBInet will, according to DHS, develop and install “new integrated technology solutions to provide enhanced detection, tracking, response, and situational awareness capabilities.”19 The other program under SBI is the SBI Tactical Infrastructure program, which, according to DHS, “develops and installs physical components designed to consistently slow, delay, and be an obstacle to illegal cross-border activity.”20 In the late 1990s, the Border Patrol began deploying a network of Remote Video Surveillance (RVS) systems (i.e., camera systems), underground sensors, and the Integrated Computer Assisted Detection (ICAD) database into a multi-faceted network designed to detect

illegal entries in a wide range of climate conditions. This Integrated Surveillance Intelligence System (ISIS) attempted to ensure seamless coverage of the border by combining the feeds from multiple color, thermal, and infrared cameras mounted on different structures into one remote-controlled system with information generated by sensors (including seismic, magnetic, and thermal detectors). When a sensor is tripped, an alarm is sent to a central communications control room at a USBP station or sector headquarters. USBP personnel monitoring the control room screens use the ICAD system to re-position RVS cameras towards the location where the sensor alarm was tripped (although some camera positions are fixed and cannot be panned). Control room personnel then alert field agents to the intrusion and coordinate the response.

Information gathered from surveillance activities is key to any effective response to terrorist threats along the borderFisher, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Border Patrol Chief, 5/8/12 (Michael, Department of Homeland Security, “Written testimony of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Border Patrol Chief Michael Fisher for a House Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security hearing titled “Measuring Border Security: U.S. Border Patrol’s New Strategic Plan and the Path Forward.”” http://www.dhs.gov/news/2012/05/08/written-testimony-us-customs-and-border-protection-house-homeland-security; accessed 7/15/15 JH@ DDI)Information gathered from reconnaissance, community engagement, sign-cutting and technology together provide situational awareness and intelligence and helps us to best understand and assess the threats we face along our borders. Information and intelligence will empower Border Patrol leadership and front line agents to get ahead of the threat, be predictive and proactive. Integration denotes CBP corporate planning and execution of border security operations, while leveraging partnerships with other federal, state, local, tribal, and international organizations. Integration of effort with these organizations will ensure we bring all available capabilities and tools to bear in addressing threats. Lastly, through rapid response, we will deploy capabilities efficiently and effectively to meet and mitigate the risks we confront. Put simply, rapid response means the Border Patrol and its partners can quickly and appropriately respond to changing threats. Goal 1: Secure America’s Borders The 2012 Strategic Plan has two interrelated and interdependent goals. In the first goal, the Border Patrol will work with its federal, state, local, tribal, and international partners to secure America’s borders using information, integration and rapid response in a risk-based manner. There are five objectives within this goal: Prevent Terrorists and Terrorist Weapons from Entering the United States Manage Risk Disrupt and Degrade Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) Whole-of-Government Approach Increase Community Engagement I. Prevent Terrorists and Terrorist Weapons from Entering the United States The current risk environment is characterized by constantly evolving threats that are both complex and varying, and the Border Patrol must strategically apply intelligence to ensure that operations are focused and targeted against the greatest threats. The Border Patrol’s ability to prevent and disrupt such threats is enhanced through increased information sharing and operational integration, planning, and execution with our domestic and foreign law enforcement partners. Integration with our federal, state, local, tribal, and international partners’ intelligence and enforcement capabilities into the planning and execution of CBP operations is critical to our ability to secure our nation’s borders.

The use of necessary surveillance technology is key to the identification and prevention of terrorist threats on the borderOffice of Border Patrol, September 2004 (THE OFFICE OF BORDER PATROL AND THE OFFICE OF POLICY AND PLANNING, US CUSTOMS & BORDER PROTECTION, “National Border Patrol Strategy”

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/dhs/national_bp_strategy.pdf, accessed 7/15/15 JH @ DDI)The Border Patrol currently uses a mix of agents, information, and technology to control the border. The Border Patrol’s ability to establish situational awareness, monitor, detect, respond to, and identify potential terrorists, instruments of terrorism, and criminals relies heavily on interdiction and deterrence-based technology. Having the necessary technology to support the Border Patrol priority and traditional missions cannot be overstated. In the future, there must be continued assessment, development, and deployment of the appropriate mix of personnel, technology, and information to gain, maintain, and expand coverage of the border and ensure that resources are deployed in a cost-effective, efficient fashion. Technology which enhances operational awareness and effectiveness includes camera systems for day/ night/infrared work, biometric systems such as IDENT/IAFIS, processing systems like ENFORCE, sensoring platforms, large-scale gamma X-rays, and aerial platforms, and other systems. Technologies requiring modernization include wireless and tactical communications and computer processing capabilities. Coordination between Border Patrol and inspectional personnel at the ports of entry ensures the most efficient use of trained personnel and technology. In the future, the Border Patrol will take advantage of the targeting and selectivity tools made available in the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) and the National Targeting Center. The continued testing, evaluation, acquisition, and deployment of appropriate border enforcement technologies will be pursued vigorously so that the maximum force-multiplier effect is achieved in support of both the priority and traditional missions.

Any gap in security on the border allows international terror groups to come into the United StatesWilson 15 [Reid Wilson, 2/26/15, covers national politics for the Washington Post, "Texas officials warn of immigrants with terrorist ties crossing southern border," Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2015/02/26/texas-officials-warn-of-immigrants-with-terrorist-ties-crossing-southern-border/ jf]

A top Texas law enforcement agency says border security organizations have apprehended several members of known Islamist terrorist organizations crossing the southern border in recent years, and while a surge of officers to the border has slowed the flow of drugs and undocumented immigrants, it’s costing the state tens of millions of dollars. In a report to Texas elected officials, the state Department of Public Safety says border security agencies have arrested several Somali immigrants crossing the southern border who are known members of al-Shabab, the terrorist group that launched a deadly attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya,

and Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, another Somalia-based group once funded by Osama bin Laden. Another undocumented immigrant arrested crossing the border was on multiple U.S. terrorism watch lists, the report says.

According to the report, one member of al-Shabab, apprehended in June 2014, told authorities he had been trained for an April 2014 suicide attack in Mogadishu. He said he escaped and reported the planned attack to African Union troops, who were able to stop the attack. The FBI believed another undocumented immigrant was an al-Shabab member who helped smuggle several potentially dangerous terrorists into the U.S. Authorities also apprehended immigrants who said they were members of terrorist organizations in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The Department of Public Safety said the report, first published by the Houston Chronicle, was not meant for public distribution. “[T]hat report was inappropriately obtained and [the Chronicle was] not authorized to possess or post the law enforcement sensitive document,” department press secretary Tom Vinger said in an e-mail. U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not respond to requests for comment. The department said it had come into contact in recent years with “special interest aliens,” who come from countries with known ties to terrorists or where terrorist groups thrive. Those arrested include Afghans, Iranians, Iraqis, Syrians, Libyans and Pakistanis. In all, immigrants from 35 countries in Asia and the Middle East have been arrested over the past few years in the Rio Grande Valley. The department says there is no known intelligence that specifically links undocumented

immigrants to terrorism plots, but the authors warn it’s almost certain that foreign terrorist organizations know of the porous border between the U.S. and Mexico. “It is important to note that an unsecure border is a vulnerability that can be exploited by criminals of all kinds,” Vinger said. “And it would be naive to rule out the possibility that any criminal organizations around the world, including terrorists, would not look for opportunities to take advantage of security gaps along our country’s international border.”

Maximized surveillance on the border is key to stopping terrorismWillis et al 10 [Henry H. Willis, 2010, director of the RAND Homeland Security and Defense Center, with Joel B. Predd, Paul K. Davis and Wayne P. Brown, RAND.org, “Measuring the Effectiveness of Border Security Between Ports-of-Entry”, http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/technical_reports/2010/RAND_TR837.pdf, jf]

One of the unexpected results of our study was recognition of the importance of networked intelligence in elaborating objectives for and measuring effectiveness of border security.11 This came about for many reasons. First, all of the focus missions are best understood in national terms: Border security contributes significantly to several high-level national objectives, but results depend sensitively on interactions with and the performance of other federal and local agencies, as well as economic and demographic conditions outside of DHS’s control. Second, national-level effectiveness depends not just on individual component or agency effectiveness but also on components’ ability to share information and work collaboratively, i.e., to network. This is perhaps most obvious with respect to preventing terrorism, in that individuals might enter the country who are vaguely suspicious but who cannot reasonably be arrested at the border. Responsibility for follow-up then transfers to, e.g., the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). However, the FBI’s ability to follow up—either immediately or when further information emerges—might depend critically on information collected and effectively transferred by border agencies to the FBI. The word “effectively” is key because all agencies are deluged with data. The 9/11 Commission’s report dramatized the consequences of ineffectiveness: It is not that information for apprehending the perpetrators did not exist, but rather that the dots were not connected and the relevant agencies did not cooperate well (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, 2004). Third, national-level law enforcement also depends on the effectiveness of the justice system, including the ability to convict and punish. That, in turn, often depends on authorities being able to construct an extensive, fact-based story of criminal behavior from which, cumulatively, guilt can reasonably be inferred by a jury. Fourth, the nature and quality of information collected by border-security components, the consistency with which it is collected, and the effectiveness with which the data are both transferred to national databases and—where appropriate—highlighted in cross-agency actions, are leverage points for improved national-level effectiveness, especially in relation to terrorism- or drug-related functions. Border-security eff orts sometimes will query detected travelers against data sets of known or suspected terrorists or criminals. This is especially relevant at ports of entry, ports of egress in some modes, and in cases in which border enforcement detains an illegal crosser. In other settings, border-enforcement agencies collect as much information as possible on individuals, their conveyances, license plates, accounts, and other records of persons detained for crossing illegally but for whom no prior records exist. The same is true in the maritime regions when individuals are arrested for illegal drug smuggling or illegal migrant smuggling. The collected information can become future tactical intelligence (and used in prosecutions) if the detained person becomes involved in criminal or terrorist functions at a later

date. Discussions with component agencies indicate that this is an important capability to measure. Technologically, it is even possible to tag individuals so that subsequent surveillance within the United States (or another country) is possible.12

Border surveillance prevents terrorist groups from attempting attacksWillis et al 10 [Henry H. Willis, 2010, director of the RAND Homeland Security and Defense Center, with Joel B. Predd, Paul K. Davis and Wayne P. Brown, RAND.org, “Measuring the Effectiveness of Border Security Between Ports-of-Entry”, http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/technical_reports/2010/RAND_TR837.pdf, pg 19, jf]

The principal contributions that border security makes to counterterrorism relate to preventing certain kinds of terrorist attacks dependent on flows into the country of people or materials. These contributions can be illustrated by considering what opportunities exist to disrupt terrorist attacks while they are being planned and orchestrated. Through a number of planning efforts, DHS and its components have developed detailed planning scenarios of terrorist events (DHS, 2006). Each of these scenarios has been deconstructed into attack trees that are useful for considering how DHS border-security programs contribute to terrorism security efforts. In their most generic form, these attack trees specify dimensions of attack scenarios with respect to building the terrorist team, identifying a target, and acquiring a weapon (see Figure 4.1). This decomposition of attack planning provides a structure around which to consider how interdiction, deterrence, and networked intelligence contribute to preventing terrorist attacks and, thus, why it is relevant to measure these functions. DHS border-security eff orts focus on interdiction of terrorist team members and weapons or weapon components when they cross U.S. borders. Examples of initiatives that are intended to enhance these capabilities include the Secure Border Initiative, the acquisition of Advanced Spectroscopic Portals for nuclear detection, the Secure Communities Initiative, and US-VISIT. In addition, it is often pointed out that, when border-security measures are perceived to be effective, terrorists groups may be deterred from attacking in particular ways, or possibly from attacking at all. This could result from awareness of what type of surveillance is occurring or the capability of interdiction systems. In either case, deterrence refers to the judgment of terrorists that they will not be successful, leading them to choose another course of action. Finally, many border-security initiatives also contribute information to the national networked-intelligence picture. For example, the Secure Communities Initiative has implemented new capabilities to allow a single submission of fingerprints as part of the normal criminal arrest and booking process to be queried against both the FBI and DHS immigration and terrorism databases. This effort makes it

easier for federal and local law enforcement to share actionable intelligence and makes it more difficult for terrorists to evade border-security efforts.

Drones LinksDomestic drones k2 solve for terrorism Bauer 13 (Max Bauer, of ACLU of Massachusetts 9-11-2013, "Domestic Drone Surveillance Usage: Threats and Opportunities for Regulation," https://privacysos.org/domestic_drones CCC)Unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones, are an emerging and rapidly-expanding development in domestic surveillance technology. [4] On Valentine’s Day 2012, President Barack Obama signed the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, legislation authorizing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to develop regulations to facilitate the growing usage of drones in domestic airspace. [5] Drones are best known for their use in military operations [6] including the use of weaponized drones for targeted killing. But drones have been used for domestic surveillance purposes for years [7] and their usage is expected to grow exponentially. [8] The FAA has issued 1,428 drone operator permits since 2007 (as of mid-February) and predicts there will be 10,000 drones deployed within the next five years. [9] A public information request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation showed that numerous universities and law enforcement agencies have been approved to use drones by the FAA. [10] Of course, the widespread use of drones for domestic surveillance raises serious privacy concerns. [11] Drones can be outfitted with high definition [12] and infrared cameras, [13] and even license plate readers. [14] Drones “present unique threats to privacy,” in the words of one privacy advocate. [15] Why? They are smaller – potentially insect-sized, [16] can fly longer – perhaps soon in perpetuity, [17] and are not bound by the historical, practical check on law enforcement excesses we've had as a result of limited police resources. [18] In a seminal 1890 law review article aptly-titled The Right to Privacy, future Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis recognized that “instantaneous photographs… have invaded the secret precincts of private and domestic life…Of the desirability – indeed of the necessity – of some such protection there can, it is believed, be no doubt.” [19] Brandeis and his co-author Samuel Warren were ahead of their time when they wrote that article but even they couldn’t foresee anything like the domestic surveillance schemes that have arisen over a century later. Drones Used in Massachusetts and Response to Boston Marathon Bombings. Late in 2012, the Boston Globe reported that a SWAT team in Massachusetts had filed an application with the FAA for a drone. [20] As of April 2013, there were no police drones yet in Massachusetts but Waltham-based defense contractor Raytheon was flying many of them in testing capacities. [21] Surveillance and war contracting companies hope to expand their market from military to domestic law enforcement. [22] Following the explosion of two bombs at the 2013 Boston Marathon, parts of the city shut down as the search for a suspect continued, prompting Ron Paul to write: “This unprecedented move should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself.” [23] Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis told the public shortly afterward that he seeks more surveillance cameras (there are already hundreds) in

downtown Boston. [24] And further, he said, he wants to have drone surveillance for next year’s marathon. [25]

Drones K2 stop terrorism (foreign)

Byman, 13 (Daniel L. Byman, Director of research at Center for Middle East Policy, 8/2013, http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2013/06/17-drones-obama-weapon-choice-us-counterterrorism-byman CCC)The Obama administration relies on drones for one simple reason: they work. According to data compiled by the New America Foundation, since Obama has been in the White House, U.S. drones have killed an estimated 3,300 al Qaeda, Taliban, and other jihadist operatives in Pakistan and Yemen. That number includes over 50 senior leaders of al Qaeda and the Taliban—top figures who are not easily replaced. In 2010, Osama bin Laden warned his chief aide, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, who was later killed by a drone strike in the Waziristan region of Pakistan in 2011, that when experienced leaders are eliminated, the result is “the rise of lower leaders who are not as experienced as the former leaders” and who are prone to errors and miscalculations. And drones also hurt terrorist organizations when they eliminate operatives who are lower down on the food chain but who boast special skills: passport forgers, bomb makers, recruiters, and fundraisers. Drones have also undercut terrorists’ ability to communicate and to train new recruits. In order to avoid attracting drones, al Qaeda and Taliban operatives try to avoid using electronic devices or gathering in large numbers. A tip sheet found among jihadists in Mali advised militants to “maintain complete silence of all wireless contacts” and “avoid gathering in open areas.” Leaders, however, cannot give orders when they are incommunicado, and training on a large scale is nearly impossible when a drone strike could wipe out an entire group of new recruits. Drones have turned al Qaeda’s command and training structures into a liability, forcing the group to choose between having no leaders and risking dead leaders

Drones take out terrorist leaders (foreign) Al-Haj, 15 (Ahmed Al-Haj, writer for the Stars & Stripes and AP the big story, 7/10/2015, http://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/us-drone-strike-kills-4-al-qaida-fighters-in-yemen-1.357473 CCC)Yemeni security and military officials say a suspected U.S. drone strike killed four al-Qaida members travelling by car in the coastal city of Mukalla. The officials say the airstrike took place on Friday night in Mukalla, the capital of Yemen's sprawling eastern Hadramawt province. The explosion was heard in some parts of the city. Al-Qaida's Yemen branch, considered to be the most dangerous offshoot of the terror network, has made gains in the province and captured Mukalla earlier this year. The officials say at least five other militants were wounded in the airstrike. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to reporters. Al-Qaida has profited from the turmoil that has engulfed Yemen, and U.S. drones have continued to target top al-Qaida leaders there.

Prisons LinksCurrent prisons k2 stopping terrorism Kaplan 09 (Fred Kaplan 9, 5-29-2009, "There are already 355 terrorists in American prisons.," Slate Magazine, http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2009/05/there_are_already_355_terrorists_in_american_prisons.html CCC)President Obama's remark that some Guantanamo detainees might be transferred to American prisons has prompted an extraordinary, and intellectually feeble, storm of protest. Former Vice President Dick Cheney kicked off the campaign when he said, during his May 21 speech at the American Enterprise Institute, that "to bring the worst terrorists inside the United States would be a cause for great danger and regret in the years to come." Sitting lawmakers—especially those from states such as Kansas and Colorado where federal prisons are based—raised the same specter and shouted the ancient cry of principled rebellion: "Not In My Back Yard!" It makes one wonder: Do any of these legislators know who's in their backyards already, with no apparent detriment to their constituents' daily lives, much less the nation's security? According to data provided by Traci L. Billingsley, spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, federal facilities on American soil currently house 216 international terrorists and 139 domestic terrorists . Some of these miscreants have been locked up here since the early 1990s. None of them has escaped. At the most secure prisons, nobody has ever escaped, period . As recited in Congress and on cable-news talk shows, the fears of moving Gitmo prisoners here seem to be these: that the terrorist prisoners might escape (statistics to the contrary be damned), that they might convert their fellow inmates with jihadist propaganda, that other members of al-Qaida might infiltrate the surrounding communities (to do what—spring them?), or that their presence might sow panic in those communities. Maybe these people don't understand what life is like in these "supermax" prisons. Take ADX Florence, the supermax in Colorado—"the Alcatraz of the Rockies"—that serves as the home to Omar Abdel-Rahman, the "blind sheikh" who organized the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; Zacarias Moussaoui, one of the Sept. 11 plotters; Richard Reid, the shoe-bomber; Theodore Kaczynski, the "Unabomber"; and Terry Nichols, who helped plan the Oklahoma City bombing, to name a few. These are all truly dangerous people, but it's not as if they run into one another in the lunch line or the yard. There is no lunch line; there is no yard. Most of the prisoners are kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. For one hour, they're taken to another concrete room, indoors, to exercise, by themselves. Their only windows face the sky, so they have no way of knowing even where they are within the prison. Phone calls to the outside world are banned. Finally, the prison is crammed with cameras and motion detectors. Compartments are separated by 1,400 remote-controlled steel doors; the place is surrounded by 12-foot-high razor-wire fences; the area between the wire and the walls is further secured by laser beams and attack dogs. The Bureau of Prisons

operates similar facilities—also full of terrorists and murderers—in Terre Haute, Ind.; Marion, Ill.; and elsewhere. And the Defense Department operates a few dozen military prisons scattered around the country, some of which would be suitable for housing the exiles from Guantanamo.

Bullrun LinksThe Bullrun program is key to decrypting internet communications and data relevant to international terrorism Larson, Perlroth, and Shane, 9/5/13 (Jeff, Data Editor at ProPublica; Nicole, The New York Times; Scott, The New York Times; ProPublica, the organization that Snowden gave his leaks, ” Revealed: The NSA’s Secret Campaign to Crack, Undermine Internet Security” http://www.propublica.org/article/the-nsas-secret-campaign-to-crack-undermine-internet-encryption, accessed 7/14/15) Many users assume — or have been assured by Internet companies — that their data is safe from prying eyes, including those of the government, and the N.S.A. wants to keep it that way. The agency treats its recent successes in deciphering protected information as among its most closely guarded secrets, restricted to those cleared for a highly classified program code-named Bullrun, according to the documents, provided by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor. Beginning in 2000, as encryption tools were gradually blanketing the Web, the N.S.A. invested billions of dollars in a clandestine campaign to preserve its ability to eavesdrop. Having lost a public battle in the 1990s to insert its own “back door” in all encryption, it set out to accomplish the same goal by stealth. The agency, according to the documents and interviews with industry officials, deployed custom-built, superfast computers to break codes, and began collaborating with technology companies in the United States and abroad to build entry points into their products. The documents do not identify which companies have participated. The N.S.A. hacked into target computers to snare messages before they were encrypted. And the agency used its influence as the world’s most experienced code maker to covertly introduce weaknesses into the encryption standards followed by hardware and software developers around the world. “For the past decade, N.S.A. has led an aggressive, multipronged effort to break widely used Internet encryption technologies,” said a 2010 memo describing a briefing about N.S.A. accomplishments for employees of its British counterpart, Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. “Cryptanalytic capabilities are now coming online. Vast amounts of encrypted Internet data which have up till now been discarded are now exploitable.” When the British analysts, who often work side by side with N.S.A. officers, were first told about the program, another memo said, “those not already briefed were gobsmacked!” An intelligence budget document makes clear that the effort is still going strong. “We are investing in groundbreaking cryptanalytic capabilities to defeat adversarial cryptography and exploit Internet traffic,” the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., wrote in his budget request for the current year. In recent months, the documents disclosed by Mr. Snowden have described the N.S.A.’s broad reach in scooping up vast amounts of communications around the world. The encryption documents now show, in striking detail, how the agency works to ensure that it is actually able to read the information it collects. The agency’s success in defeating many of the privacy protections offered by encryption does not change the rules that prohibit the deliberate targeting of Americans’ e-mails or phone calls without a warrant. But it shows that the agency, which was sharply rebuked by a federal judge in 2011 for violating the rules and misleading the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, cannot necessarily be restrained by privacy technology. N.S.A. rules permit the agency to store any encrypted communication, domestic or foreign, for as long as the agency is trying to decrypt it or analyze its technical features. The N.S.A., which has specialized in code-breaking since its creation in 1952, sees that task as essential to its mission. If it cannot decipher the messages of terrorists, foreign spies and other adversaries, the United States will be at serious risk, agency officials say. Just in recent weeks, the Obama administration has called on the intelligence agencies for details of communications by Qaeda leaders about a terrorist plot and of Syrian officials’ messages about the chemical weapons attack outside Damascus. If such communications can be hidden by unbreakable encryption, N.S.A. officials say, the agency cannot do its work.

PRISM linksThe PRISM program is necessary to prevent terrorist attacks globally – empirics proveKelly, reporter for CNN, 8/1/13 – (Heather, CNN, August 1, 2013, “NSA chief: Snooping is crucial to fighting terrorism” http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/31/tech/web/nsa-alexander-black-hat/, accessed 7/15/15 JH @ DDI)The National Security Agency's controversial intelligence-gathering programs have prevented 54 terrorist attacks around the world, including 13 in the United States, according to Gen. Keith Alexander, NSA director. Speaking before a capacity crowd of hackers and security experts Wednesday at the Black Hat computer-security conference, Alexander defended the NSA's embattled programs, which collect phone metadata and online communications in an effort to root out potential terrorists. The secret programs have come under fire since their existence was revealed in June by former CIA contractor Edward Snowden, who leaked details about them to several newspapers. "I promise you the truth -- what we know, what we're doing, and what I cannot tell you because we don't want to jeopardize our future defense," Alexander told the audience, which included a few hecklers who shouted profanities and accused him of lying. He then gave a partial recap, using PowerPoint slides, of how the two intelligence programs work. Alexander said the NSA can collect metadata on phone calls in the United States, including the date and time of the call, the numbers involved and the length of the conversations. He made a special point of saying the NSA does not have access to the content of citizens' calls or text messages. Alexander said the NSA's PRISM surveillance program, which probes digital activity such as e-mail, instant messaging and Web searches, focuses on foreign actors and does not apply to people in the United States. He said the phone and Internet data is necessary to "connect the dots" and identify potential terrorists before they act. Alexander attempted to reassure the audience that NSA officials are not abusing access to the databases to intrude on Americans' privacy. "The assumption is that people are out there just wheeling and dealing (users' information), and nothing could be further from the truth," he said. "We have tremendous oversight and compliance in these programs." Congress and courts make sure the programs operate within the bounds of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and internal auditing systems are in place to prevent any abuse by employees, Alexander said. He added that only 35 analysts are authorized to run queries on the phone metadata.

Data gathered by PRISM is some of the most useful foreign intelligence gathered and is essential to prevent terror attacksThompson, contributor to Forbes on National Security and Business, 6/7/13 – (Loren, Forbes, June 7, 2013, “Why NSA's PRISM Program Makes Sense” http://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2013/06/07/why-nsas-prism-program-makes-sense/, accessed 7/15/15 JH @ DDI)President Obama’s firm defense of the National Security Agency’s “domestic” surveillance program on Friday should calm some of the more extravagant fears provoked by public disclosure of its existence. I put the word “domestic” in quotes because the effort to monitor Internet and other communications traffic isn’t really about listening in on Americans, or even foreign nationals living here, but rather intercepting suspicious transmissions originating overseas that just happen to be passing through the United States. That is an eminently sensible way of keeping up with terrorists, because it is so much easier than tapping into network conduits in other countries or under the seas (not that we don’t do that). In order to grasp the logic of the NSA program, which is code-named PRISM, you have to understand how the Internet evolved. It was a purely American innovation at its inception, with most of the infrastructure concentrated in a few places like Northern Virginia. I live a few miles from where the Internet’s first big East Coast access point was located in the parking garage of an office building near the intersection of Virginia’s Routes 7 and 123, an area that some people refer to as Internet Alley. Because the Worldwide Web grew so haphazardly in its early days, it was common until recently for Internet traffic between two European countries to pass through my neighborhood. There were only a few major nodes in the system, and packet-switching sends messages through whatever pathway is available. The Washington Post story on PRISM today has a graphic illustrating my point about how

bandwidth tends to be allocated globally. Like a modern version of ancient Rome’s Appian Way, all digital roads lead to America. It isn’t hard to see why Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper could say on Thursday that “information collected under this program is among the most important and valuable foreign intelligence information we collect.” No kidding: PRISM generated an average of four items per day for the President’s daily intelligence briefing in 2012. The key point to recognize, though, is that this really is foreign intelligence. The architecture of the Internet enables NSA to collect it within U.S. borders, but there is no intention to spy on U.S. citizens. A few elementary algorithms used in narrowing the analysis of traffic should be sufficient to assure that the privacy of American citizens is seldom compromised. President Obama stressed in his comments today that safeguards have been put in place to prevent the scope of NSA surveillance from expanding beyond its original purpose.

FISA linksProhibiting NSA data collection under FISA prevents extensive analysis if data, k2 prevent terrorism

Bradbury 15 ( Steven. G, “BALANCING PRIVACY AND SECURITY”, HARVARD JOURNAL OF LAW AND PUBLIC POLICY, https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2011&q=FISA+approvals&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5)Responding to public opposition to the NSA’s telephone¶ metadata program, Congress is currently considering legislation¶ that would prohibit the collection of bulk metadata under¶ FISA. In my view, such a restriction is a bad idea. Under this¶ legislation, the NSA would be unable to collect data from multiple¶ companies where necessary to assemble a single, efficiently¶ searchable database.31 This restriction would also mean that¶ the NSA would be prevented from collecting and storing data¶ in bulk where doing so is the only way to preserve important¶ business records that may be useful for a counterterrorism investigation.32¶ Without the ability for U.S. intelligence agencies¶ to acquire the data in bulk under FISA, these important business¶ records would only exist for as long as the private companies¶ happen to retain the data for their own business purposes¶ or as required by regulatory agencies for reasons unrelated to¶ national security.33 For example, telephone companies typically¶ retain their metadata calling records for only 18 months, as¶ specified by the Federal Communications Commission for¶ purposes of resolving customer billing disputes.34 Under its¶ metadata program, on the other hand, the NSA was storing the¶ data for five years, so that it could conduct more extensive historical¶ analyses of calling connections involving suspected terrorist¶ numbers—historical analyses that can often provide very¶ important new leads for FBI investigations.

FISA is an archaic mechanism that doesn’t allow law enforcement to respond to modern threats, Status quo allows for sufficient NSA capabilitiesCFR 13 (Council on Foreign Relations, “U.S. Domestic Surveillance” CFR, http://www.cfr.org/intelligence/us-domestic-surveillance/p9763)After 9/11, the Bush administration opted not to seek approval from the FISC before intercepting "international communications into and out of the United States of persons linked to al-Qaeda (PDF) or related terrorist organizations." The special secret court, set up in 1978 following previous administrations' domestic spying abuses, was designed to act as a neutral overseer in granting government agencies surveillance authorization.¶ After the NSA program was revealed by the New York Times in late 2005, former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales argued (PDF) that President Bush had the legal authority under the constitution and congressional statute to conduct warrantless surveillance on U.S. persons "reasonably believed to be linked to al-Qaeda." The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), without specifically mentioning wiretapping, grants the president broad authority to use all necessary force "against those nations,

organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the [9/11] terrorist attacks." This includes, administration officials say, the powers to secretly gather domestic intelligence on al-Qaeda and associated groups. ¶ The Bush administration maintained that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was an outdated law-enforcement mechanism that was too time-consuming given the highly fluid, modern threat environment. Administration officials portrayed the NSA program as an "early warning system" (PDF) with "a military nature that requires speed and agility." Moreover, the White House stressed that the program was one not of domestic surveillance but of monitoring terrorists abroad, and publicly referred to the operation as the "Terrorist Surveillance Program." Opponents of the program referred to it as "domestic spying."¶ Under congressional pressure, Gonzales announced in January 2007 plans to disband the warrantless surveillance program and cede oversight to FISC, but questions about the legality of the program lingered in Congress and Gonzales resigned months later.¶ But Washington's vow to seek FISA approval for domestic surveillance was short-lived. In July 2007--weeks before Gonzales stepped down--intelligence officials pressed lawmakers for emergency legislation to broaden their wiretapping authority following a ruling by the court overseeing FISA that impacted the government's ability to intercept foreign communications passing through telecommunications "switches" on U.S. soil.

Backdoors LinksWithout access to backdoors, law enforcement won’t have the capacity to collect intelligence data because of increasingly complex encryptionAP 7/8 (Eric Tucker, “FBI, JUSTICE DEPT. TAKE ENCRYPTION CONCERNS TO CONGRESS” Associated Press, http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FBI_ENCRYPTION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-07-08-06-22-03)WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal law enforcement officials warned Wednesday that data encryption is making it harder to hunt for pedophiles and terror suspects, telling senators that consumers' right to privacy is not absolute and must be weighed against public-safety interests.¶ The testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee marked the latest front in a high-stakes dispute between the Obama administration and some of the world's most influential tech companies, placing squarely before Congress an ongoing discussion that shows no signs of an easy resolution. Senators, too, offered divided opinions.¶ FBI and Justice Department officials have repeatedly asserted that encryption technology built into smartphones makes it harder for them to monitor and intercept messages from criminal suspects, such as Islamic State sympathizers who communicate online and child predators who conceal pornographic images. They say it's critical that they be able to access encrypted communications during investigations, with companies maintaining the key to unlock such data.¶ But they face fierce opposition from Silicon Valley companies who say encryption safeguards customers' privacy rights and offers protections from hackers, corporate spies and other breaches. The companies in recent months have written to the Obama administration and used public speeches to argue for the value of strong encryption.¶ FBI Director James Comey, who has pressed his case repeatedly over the last year before think tanks and in other settings, sought Wednesday to defuse some of the tension surrounding the dispute. He told senators that he believed technology companies were fundamentally on the same page as law enforcement, adding, "I am not here to fight a war."¶

"Encryption is a great thing. It keeps us all safe. It protects innovation," Comey said. "It protects my children. It protects my health care. It is a great thing."¶ But he warned that criminals were using encryption to create a safe zone from law enforcement. He said that concern was especially acute at a time when the Islamic State has been recruiting sympathizers through social media and then directing them to encrypted platforms that federal agents cannot access.¶ "Our job is to look at a haystack the size of this country for needles that are increasingly invisible to us because of end-to-end encryption," he said.¶

TSA LinksTSA is key to protect against dangerous weapons, explosives, and innovate in security technologies.John S. Pistole, 3-5-2012, "Counterterrorism, Risk-Based Security and TSA’s Vision for the Future of Aviation Security," Transportation Security Administration, https://www.tsa.gov/press/speeches/counterterrorism-risk-based-security-and-tsa%E2%80%99s-vision-future-aviation-securityRemember that before September 11, 2001, there was:¶ No cohesive system in place to check passenger names against terrorist watch lists in advance of flying;¶ Only limited technologies in place for uncovering a wide array of threats to passengers or aircraft;¶ No comprehensive federal requirements to screen checked or carry-on baggage;¶ Minimal in-flight security on most flights; and,¶ From a coordination standpoint, before 9/11 there was a lack of timely intelligence-sharing, in both directions — from the federal level down to the individual airports, as well as from an individual airport up to the national level.¶ I came to TSA more than a year and a half ago, having worked the previous 26 years in a variety of positions within the FBI. That experience with a range of partners inside the law enforcement and intelligence communities helped shape my approach to solidifying TSA’s place within the national counterterrorism continuum.¶ Every day, we strive to ensure our operational planning and decision making process is timely, efficient and as coordinated as possible — and critically, based on intelligence. We work to share critical information with key industry stakeholders whenever appropriate, and we are constantly communicating with our frontline officers through shift briefings held several times a day.¶

Thanks to the effective partnerships we’ve forged with industry stakeholders, with our airline and airport partners, and with law enforcement colleagues at every level, TSA has achieved a number of significant milestones during its first 10 years of service.¶ These include matching 100 percent of all passengers flying into, out of, and within the United States against government watch lists through the Secure Flight program.¶ It includes screening all air cargo transported on passenger planes domestically and, as you know, we work closely with our international partners every day to screen 100% of high-risk inbound cargo on passenger planes. We’re also working hard with these same partners to screen 100% of allinternational inbound cargo on passenger planes by the end of this year.¶ And it also includes improving aviation security through innovative technology that provides advanced baggage screening for explosives.¶ Since their inception in 2005 through February 2012, we have also conducted more than 26,000 Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response or VIPR operations. We have 25 multi-modal VIPR teams working in transportation sectors across the country to prevent or disrupt potential terrorist planning activities.¶ Additionally, since 2006, TSA has completed more than 190 Baseline Assessments for Security Enhancement for transit, which provides a comprehensive assessment of security programs in critical transit systems.¶ We are seeing the benefits of how these important steps — combined with our multiple layers of security including cutting-edge technology — keep America safe every day.¶ Since our standup in 2002, we

have screened nearly six billion passengers. Our front line officers have detected thousands of firearms and countless other prohibited items and we have prevented those weapons from entering the cabin of an aircraft.¶ In fact, more than 10 years after 9/11, TSA officers still detect, on-average, between three and four firearms every day in carry-on bags at security checkpoints around the country.¶ Deploying advanced, state-of-the-art technologies continue to factor significantly into our multi-layered approach to transportation security. In particular, we continue to see the efficacy of Advanced Imaging Technology, or AIT, machines at hundreds of passenger security checkpoints around the United States.¶ From February 2011 to June 2011, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) assessed the manner in which TSA inspects, maintains and operates backscatter units used in passenger screening.¶ The OIG found that TSA was in compliance with standards regarding radiation exposure limits and safety requirements. As a result of intensive research, analysis, and testing, TSA concludes that potential health risks from screening with backscatter X-ray security systems are minuscule.¶ While there is still no perfect technology, AIT gives our officers the best opportunity to detect both metallic and non-metallic threats including improvised explosive devices such as the device Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to detonate on Christmas Day, 2009.¶ As manufacturers continue enhancing the detection capability and strengthening the privacy features of their machines, we maintain the ability to upgrade the software used on them to stay ahead of the rapidly shifting threat landscape. Maintaining a high level of adaptability enables us to keep an important technological advantage.¶ Throughout 2011, this and other technologies helped our officers detect hundreds of prohibited, dangerous, or illegal items on passengers.¶ These “good catches” as we call them, illustrate how effective our people, process and technology are at finding concealed metallic and non-metallic items concealed on a passenger or in their bags.¶ In an ongoing effort to help educate the traveling public, we highlight many of these good catches every week in blog posts uploaded to TSA.gov. I hope some of you have seen these. They have included incidents of items concealed in shoes, to weapons hidden in a hollowed out book, to ceramic knives, to exotic snakes strapped to a passenger’s leg. As strange as some of these tales may be, they are a stark reminder that now — more than 10 years after the September 11, 2001, attacks — people are still trying to bring deadly weapons onto aircraft. And our officers are detecting numerous weapons every day and keeping them off of planes.¶ Less than one month ago in fact, over Presidents Day weekend in February, our officers detected 19 guns in carry-on bags at various checkpoints around the country. In total, 1,306 guns were detected at airport checkpoints in 2011.

Threat to national security greater than ever, TSA is key to solveFox News 12-17-2014, ("TSA head: Threat from terrorism worse now but US better able to combat it," http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/12/17/tsa-head-threat-from-terrorism-worse-now-but-us-better-able-to-combat-it/)

The outgoing and longest-serving head of the Transportation Security Administration says the threat from terrorism is worse now than when he took the job four years ago, but the U.S. is better positioned to combat foreign plots.¶ "The threat today is unfortunately more expansive than what it was four-and-a-half years ago," John Pistole told Fox News during an interview before he leaves at the end of the month, concluding 31 years of government service -- including 27 at the FBI, where he rose to the rank of deputy director.¶ "With that being said, we also have better insights into who the potential bombers are," he added.¶ From Pistole’s unique position at the TSA and FBI, he watched Al Qaeda's strategy evolve from the 9/11 attacks that murdered nearly 3,000 Americans, to the failed underwear bomb plot to bring down a jet on Christmas Day 2009 and the non-metallic explosive devices buried in cargo a year later.¶ Although Al Qaeda experimented in 2012 with surgically implanted bombs before apparently abandoning the idea as impractical, Pistole suggested they are now focused on devices held close or strapped to the body.¶ "That is one of things that concerns us, how well do they design, construct and then conceal," he said.¶ Pistole will become president of his alma mater, Anderson University in Anderson, Ind., this spring.¶ Fox News asked Pistole whether the threat to American aviation had diminished since August, when the U.S. launched a bombing campaign against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, and the Al Qaeda-led "Khorasan" group. ¶

Khorasan contains long-time associates of Usama bin Laden, including Sanafi al-Nasr and Muhsin al-Fadhli, as well as a handful of operatives trained by the Yemeni bomb maker Ibrahim al-Asiri, who specializes in non-metallic bombs that traditional airport screening can miss.¶ "Without going into details about what that may look like from a classified intelligence perspective, we do remain concerned that there is active plotting going on," Pistole said.¶ And with new information that the French bomb maker David Drugeon likely survived a U.S. air strike last month, Pistole added, "there is concern that there are still individuals out there who have not only the ability to do that, but also the intent to use that on a flight to Europe or the US."¶ The TSA administrator also described classified procedures that track foreign fighters, based on their travel history, before they check in at overseas airports for U.S.-bound flights.¶ "There are individuals we are concerned about and we are again looking at if they make travel reservations, then they of course receive proper scrutiny," Pistole said.¶ The continued threat from groups like Khorasan explains why procedures, implemented in July, requiring passengers to turn on their phone and computers at some airports, remain in place. As the holiday travel season begins, TSA officials say they are not expecting big changes at the checkpoints, but if there are changes, they will be driven by new and specific intelligence.¶ Pistole said the transition from a one-size-fits-all approach after 9/11 to a risk-based strategy -- driven by intelligence -- is one of the TSA workforce's accomplishments.¶ "I think that's been one of the biggest changes. ...We're more efficient. Complaints are down. Wait times are down," he said.¶ Data provided by the TSA showed that over Thanksgiving, more than 12.5 million passengers were screened, a 1.3 percent increase from 2013, with nearly 50 percent of these passengers getting expedited screening.¶ Nationwide, TSA said 99.6 percent of passengers waited in a line for less than 20 minutes.¶ Pistole was in Australia

days before the hostage situation unfolded in Sydney last weekend, telling Fox it fit the profile of a classic lone wolf attack. "I am not aware of any intelligence about it as of last week, there was no talk about something like that," he said.¶ But it’s not that kind of attack that keeps Pistole up at night.¶

"My greater concern, rather than just a lone wolf, is simultaneous attacks such as you saw on 9/11 ... with that being said, we also have better insights into who the potential bombers are," he said.

Financial Surveillance Links Financial surveillance is key to stopping terrorist organizationsAtlas 15 [Terry Atlas, 2-6-2015, Senior Writer in Foreign Policy/National Security Team for Bloomberg News, "Follow the money new game plan in thwarting terrorism," Seattle Times, http://www.seattletimes.com/news/follow-the-money-new-game-plan-in-thwarting-terrorism/]

Economic and financial intelligence is critical to targeting and enforcing

sanctions against Iran, North Korea and Russia; strangling the flow of money to terrorist organizations, drug cartels and weapons traffickers; tracking nuclear proliferation; and assessing the strength of nations such as Russia and China that are now

part of the global economy. Treasury personnel in Washington, D.C. — and in Afghanistan, Pakistan

and the Persian Gulf — have worked with intelligence and military colleagues to attack the finances of the Taliban, al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

The department has provided expertise and actionable intelligence to civilian and military leaders

through “threat finance cells” for Afghanistan and Iraq, and worked elsewhere with the U.S. Special

Operations Command. How much the intelligence mission has changed is highlighted by the move

this month by David Cohen, the Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence to

become deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Cohen, 51, whose Treasury

responsibilities included sanctions policy, replaces Avril Haines, a lawyer who’s now President

Obama’s deputy national security adviser. It’s the first time a Treasury official has moved into such

a senior CIA post. That has been noticed in the intelligence community, where the Treasury has

become a recognized power, and among the specialized legal and financial community affected by

the nation’s increasing use of economic coercion against adversaries. “Financial intelligence is incredibly important, and it’s much more important than it used to be,” said attorney Christopher Swift, a former Treasury

official who investigated financing of terrorist groups and weapons proliferators. “Cohen’s move to

CIA underscores that.” Financial intelligence has come into its own as the U.S. increasingly turns to sanctions, asset freezes and other financial actions to thwart adversaries from al-Qaida operatives to

Russian President Vladimir Putin. It’s a tactic that Ian Bremmer, the president of New York-based

Eurasia Group, recently called the “weaponization of finance.” The U.S. strategy is “premised on

the simple reality that all of our adversaries, to one degree or another, need money to operate, and

that by cutting off their financial lifelines, we can significantly impair their ability to function,”

Cohen said at a conference in London in June. Financial intelligence exposes vulnerabilities of adversaries — whether nations or individuals — who need access to

the global financial system. Concealing financial flows can be harder than avoiding surveillance of emails and phone calls, which terrorists have tried to do in the aftermath of Edward Snowden’s disclosures about U.S. communications intercepts. “When people think

about intelligence, they think about James Bond and running operations against the Russians or the

Chinese, and that still goes on and we shouldn’t diminish the importance of it,” said Swift, an

adjunct professor of national security studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. “But if

you’re looking at the other types of organizations in the global community that are causing

problems for the United States and its allies, a lot of them are non-state actors, they’re criminal

syndicates, they’re narcotics syndicates, they’re transnational terrorist syndicates, and the best way to figure out how those organizations work, who’s part of those organizations, and the best way to degrade those organizations is follow the money,” he said. The U.S. government has vastly

expanded its collection and use of financial intelligence, bolstered by a series of post-9/11 laws and

executive orders that have given the Treasury Department a leading role in financial intelligence

and sanctions. The Treasury Department has more than 700 personnel dealing with terrorist and

financial intelligence. The Treasury’s Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, which

has access to the Swift international banking transaction network, participated in investigations into the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, threats to the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games and the 2011 plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador in D.C., which U.S. officials

said originated with senior members of the Quds force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards

Corps. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a part of the Treasury’s intelligence operation

that regulates the financial industry to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing, receives

more than a million reports a year on potentially suspect cash movements from financial institutions, Cohen said in a speech in January.

FinCen’s information, combined with data from other sources, assists investigators in

“connecting the dots” involving sometimes previously unknown individuals and businesses, according to the Treasury.

2NC A2 link turns** A2 false positives (hay stack/puzzle)

False positives are wrong – meta-data eliminates scenarios and increases efficiencyLewis 14 [James Andrew Lewis, Director and Senior Fellow of the Technology and Public Policy Program at the CSIS, December 2014, "Underestimating Risk in the Surveillance Debate", Center for Strategic and International Studies, http://csis.org/files/publication/141209_Lewis_UnderestimatingRisk_Web.pdf, pg 2 jf]NSA carried out two kinds of signals intelligence programs: bulk surveillance to support counterterrorism and collection to support U.S. national security interests. The debate over surveillance unhelpfully conflated the two programs. Domestic bulk collection for counterterrorism is politically problematic, but assertions that a collection program is useless because it has not by itself prevented an attack reflect unfamiliarity with intelligence. Intelligence does not work as it is portrayed in films—solitary agents do not make startling discoveries that lead to dramatic, last-minute success. Success is the product of the efforts of teams of dedicated individuals from many agencies, using many tools and techniques, working together to assemble fragments of data from many sources into a coherent picture. In practice,

analysts must simultaneously explore many possible scenarios. A collection program contributes by not only what it reveals, but also what it lets us reject as false. The Patriot Act Section 215 domestic bulk telephony

metadata program provided information that allowed analysts to rule out some scenarios and suspects. The consensus view from interviews with current and former intelligence officials is that while metadata collection is useful, it is the least useful of the collection programs available to the intelligence community. If there was one surveillance program they had to give up, it would be 215, but this would not come without an increase in risk. Restricting metadata collection will make it harder to identify attacks and increase the time it takes to do this. Spying on Allies NSA’s mass surveillance programs for counterterrorism were carried out in cooperation with more than 30 countries. Unilateral U.S. collection programs focused on national security problems: nonproliferation, counterintelligence (including Russian covert influence operations in Europe), and arms sales to China. The United States failed to exercise sufficient oversight over intelligence collection, but the objectives set for NSA reflect real security problems for the United States and its allies. The notion that “friends don’t spy on friends” is naive. The United States has friends that routinely spy on it and yet are strong security partners. Relations among powerful states are complex and not explained by simple bromides drawn from personal life. The most startling thing about U.S. espionage against Germany was the absence of a strategic calculation of risk and benefit. There are grounds for espionage (what other major power has a former leader on Russia’s payroll?), but the benefits were outweighed by the risk to the relationship. The case for spying on Brazil is even weaker. While Brazil is often antagonistic, it poses no risk to national security. If economic intelligence on Brazil is needed, the private sector has powerful incentives and legitimate means to obtain information and usually has the best data. Risk Is Not Going Away Broad surveillance of communications is the least intrusive and most effective method for discovering terrorist and espionage activity. Many countries have expanded surveillance programs since the 9/11 attacks to detect and prevent terrorist activity, often in cooperation with other countries, including the United States. Precise metrics on risk and effectiveness do not exist for surveillance, and we are left with conflicting opinions from intelligence officials and civil libertarians as to what makes counterterrorism successful. Given resurgent authoritarianism and continuing jihad, the new context for the surveillance debate is that the likelihood of attack is increasing. Any legislative change should be viewed through this lens.

** A2 Zero sum

Funding divided between 15+ agencies, not a funding tradeoff Sahadi 13 (Jeanne Sahadi 13, 6-7-2013, "What the NSA costs taxpayers," CNNMoney, http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/07/news/economy/nsa-surveillance-cost/ CCC)

As a result, it's impossible to say exactly how much money the NSA is given to conduct its surveillance efforts -- which Americans learned this week has recently included collecting phone call data and monitoring online activities. That's because the NSA, a Defense Department agency created in 1952, falls under the category of a "black" program in the federal budget, a term applied to classified efforts. The NSA is one of at least 15 intelligence agencies, and combined the total U.S. intelligence budget in 2012 was $75 billion, said Steve Aftergood, director of the government secrecy program at the Federation of American Scientists, a nonpartisan think tank that analyzes national and international security issues. The intelligence budget includes funding for both classified and unclassified activities. Funding for classified programs has tracked the upward trend in defense spending over the past decade, according to an analysis of fiscal year 2012 Defense Department budget request by Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Aftergood estimates about 14% of the country's total intelligence budget -- or about $10 billion -- goes to the NSA.

** A2 Recruitment

NSA recruiting is going extremely wellLibicki et al 14 [Libicki, Martin C., 2014, "Hackers Wanted: An Examination of the Cybersecurity Labor Market," RAND, http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR430.html jf]The NSA is the country’s largest and leading employer of cybersecurity professionals. In the face of the current stresses in the market for such professionals, officials there believe they are doing quite well—fewer than 1 percent of their positions are vacant for any significant length of time, and supervisors, queried after their new hires have been working for six months, report being very happy with the personnel they get. NSA also has a very low turnover rate (losing no more to voluntary quits than to retirements). One reason is that it pays attention to senior technical development programs to ensure that employees stay current and engaged. Yet, to get to that point, our interview indicates that NSA must and does pay a great deal of attention to workforce issues. If not its primary focus, then it is still very high up on the list. Although only 80 people have recruitment as their full-time occupation, another 300 have recruitment as an additional duty, and another 1,500 beyond that are involved in the whole recruitment and employment process. All told, that is a great deal of effort—suggesting, from our perspective, that the difficulties of finding enough cybersecurity professionals can be largely met if sufficient energy is devoted to the task. NSA has outreach into many universities, not simply those designated its Centers of Academic Excellence (CAE),2 although it pays attention to supporting cybersecurity curricula development in the CAE schools, as noted. In some cases it has people teaching in schools to encourage potential cybersecurity professionals at the pre-college levels, particularly, for obvious reasons, in the state of Maryland.For the most part, our interview suggests that the NSA makes rather than buys cybersecurity professionals, although its recruitment process is very sensitive to the importance of determining those qualities that predispose people to make good employees. Recruiters also look hard at schools that have a reputation for educating people that go into the military. Fully 80 percent of their hires are entry level, the vast majority of whom have bachelor’s degrees. They could conceivably draw deeper by finding particularly talented junior college graduates, but the latter would have to undergo a much longer training program as a result. Furthermore, they are not inclined to look for the brilliant non-degreed hacker.3NSA has a very intensive internal schooling system, lasting as long as three years for some. This too, would be difficult for other institutions to duplicate. NSA can take advantage not only of its size, but also of its low turnover rate. The latter means that it reaps the benefits of its investments in people rather than seeing the benefits accrue to other organizations after NSA has paid the costs of the training (not least of which is the time that such students spend off the job to be trained).

Employers with more turnover may logically deem it not worthwhile investing that much to educate their employees.In all fairness, only one organization can be the most prestigious place to work, and for this line of work (and for this size of organization), NSA is hard to beat. It consistently absorbs a third of all Scholarship for Service graduates, as shown in Figure 3.1,4 in part because it has the most job openings but also because it has a reputation for hiring the best hackers.

Silicon valley jobs are comparatively a much bigger challenge for NSA recruitment -- the NSA has already had to deal with recruitment issues in the past Brumfiel, science correspondent for NPR, 3/31/15 (Geoff Brumfiel, NPR, MARCH 31, 2015, “After Snowden, The NSA Faces Recruitment Challenge”, http://www.npr.org/2015/03/31/395829446/after-snowden-the-nsa-faces-recruitment-challenge, accessed 7/17/15 JH @ DDI)But Ziring says there's a much bigger problem: "I was at a Dartmouth career fair a few months ago," he says, "and our table was right across from Facebook. And we are looking for some of the same things that they are." Ever since the Snowden leaks, cybersecurity has been hot in Silicon Valley. In part that's because the industry no longer trusts the government as much as it once did. Companies want to develop their own security, and they're willing to pay top dollar to get the same people the NSA is trying to recruit. Students like Swann. Last summer Microsoft paid him $7,000 a month to work as an intern. The company even rented him a car. "It was actually really nice," Swann says. "It was a Subaru Legacy." Ziring says the agency can't compete on money, so he tries to sell it in other ways: "You know we have good health benefits, and we're government, right? So we have a huge scope of insurance to choose from," he says.

Other neg cards

Impact – Cyber attacks bring down grid and banking system, causing economic upheavel Jonathan Fisher, 5-19-2015, "A former CIA chief says other governments could launch crippling computer attacks on the US," Business Insider, http://www.businessinsider.com/former-cia-chief-cyberterrorism-on-mind-2015-5A former Director of Counterintelligence for the CIA — Barry Royden — believes that cyber terrorism is the next big threat to America. ¶ Royden, who spent 40 years in the CIA — 35 years as an operative and 5 years as head of counterintelligence — knows what he's talking about. Though he's been retired for more than a decade, he isn't blind to what he believes is a new type of threat that has emerged in an increasingly connected world:¶ "The trouble is, it’s extremely difficult, in fact, it’s impossible — everyone is connected to everyone, and as long as you’re connected you’re vulnerable. And there are firewalls, but every firewall is potentially defeatable, so it’s a nightmare in my mind. You have to think that other governments have the capability to bring down the main computer systems in this country, power grids, hospitals, or banking systems — things that could cause great economic upheaval and paralyze the country."¶ He adds:¶ "Now, if they were to do it to us and we were to do it to them, it would almost be like a nuclear standoff. They could do it but if they did it what would the cost be? Because they know we have the same capabilities and that we presumably attack their computer systems the same way and we could destroy their economy. So you hope that no one is going to do that but you’re vulnerable. These days, I think the cyber world is the big threat."

Impact- Cyberattacks attacking the grid collapse global military operations and cause extinction Andres and Breetz 11 Richard Andres, Professor of National Security Strategy at the National War College and a Senior Fellow and Energy and Environmental Security and Policy Chair in the Center for Strategic Research, Institute for National Strategic Studies, at the National Defense University, and Hanna Breetz, doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Small Nuclear Reactorsfor Military Installations:Capabilities, Costs, andTechnological Implications, www.ndu.edu/press/lib/pdf/StrForum/SF-262.pdfMore recently, awareness has been growing that the grid is also vulnerable to purposive attacks. A report sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security suggests that a coordinated cyberattack on the grid could result in a third of the country losing power for a period of weeks or months.9 Cyberattacks on critical infrastructure are not well understood. It is not clear, for instance, whether existing terrorist groups might be able to develop the capability to conduct this type of attack. It is likely, however, that some nation-states either have or are working on developing the ability to take down the U.S. grid . In the event of a war with one of these states, it is possible, if not likely, that parts of the civilian grid would cease to function , taking with them military bases located in affected regions . Government and private organizations are currently working to secure the grid against attacks; however, it is not clear that they will be successful. Most military bases currently have backup power that allows them to function for a period of hours or, at most, a few days on their own. If power were not restored after this amount of time, the results could be disastrous. First, military assets taken offline by the crisis would not be available to help with disaster relief. Second, during

an extended blackout, global military operations could be seriously compromised ; this disruption would be particularly serious if the blackout was induced during major combat operations. During the Cold War, this type of event was far less likely because the United States and Soviet Union shared the common understanding that blinding an opponent with a grid blackout could escalate to nuclear war . America’s current opponents, however, may not share this fear or be deterred by this possibility.

***Neg- Impacts***

Cyberterrorism

Cyberterror Causes Nuke WarCyberterrorists could break into computers and launch an attack on a nuclear state—triggers global nuclear warFritz 09

(Jason, May 2009, International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, “Hacking Nuclear Command and Control,” Jason is a defense researcher, served as a cavalry officer in the US Army for 6 years, masters in IR @ Bond University, icnnd.org/documents/jason_fritz_hacking_nc2.doc, 7/15/15, SM)

In order to see how cyber terrorists could detonate a nuclear weapon it is important to identify the structures which they would be attempting to penetrate. Nuclear command and control (NC2), sometimes referred to as nuclear command and control and communications (NC3) includes the personnel, equipment, communications, facilities, organisation, procedures, and chain of command involved with maintaining a nuclear weapon capability. A Command and Control Centre is typically a secure room, bunker, or building in a government or military facility that operates as the agency's dispatch centre, surveillance monitoring centre, coordination office and alarm monitoring centre all in one. A state may have multiple command and control centres within the government and military branches which can act independently or, more commonly, be used in the event a higher node is incapable of performing its function. A minimum of eight states possess a nuclear arsenal, providing eight varying nuclear command and control structures for cyber terrorist to target. The eight states which possess nuclear weapons are, in order of acquisition, the US, Russia (former Soviet Union), the UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. South Africa formerly possessed nuclear weapons, but has since

dismantled its arsenal. Israel is also widely believed to have nuclear weapons, but has not officially confirmed their status as a nuclear state. There are approximately 20,000 active nuclear weapons in the world. The vast majority of these belong to the US and Russia, stemming from the Cold War. ∂ Nuclear command and control has inherent weaknesses in relation to cyber warfare. The concept of mutually assured destruction means a state must have the capability to launch nuclear weapons in the event of a decapitating strike. This requires having nuclear weapons spread out in multiple locations (mobility and redundancy), so an enemy could not destroy all of their capabilities. Examples of this include land based mobile launch platforms and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM). This provides terrorists with multiple locations for attaining access to these weapons. Further, under NATO nuclear weapons sharing, the US has supplied nuclear

weapons to Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey for storage and possible deployment. This further increases the number of access points for terrorists, allowing them to assess not only installations and procedures, but also which borders and state specific laws may be easier to circumvent . The weapons themselves may all be under the complete control of the US, but the operational plans of terrorists may include items such as reconnaissance, social engineering, and crossing borders which remain unique between states. The potential collapse of a state also presents a challenge. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine were in possession of nuclear weapons. These have since been transferred to Russia, but there was, and still is, considerable concern over the security and integrity of those weapons, especially in the face of a destabilized government and

civilian hardship. Mutually assured destruction also promotes a hair trigger launch posture and the need for launch orders to be decided on quickly. The advent of SLBMs increased this high pressure tension, as the ability of

a submarine to sneak up close to a state’s border before launch significantly reduced response time. These short decision times make it easier for terrorists to provoke a launch as little time, and little discussion, is given to assess a situation in full. The desire to reduce the time it takes to disseminate plans to nuclear forces may expand the use of computers in nuclear command and control, or lead to the introduction of fail-deadly and autonomous systems.∂ This chapter is by no means comprehensive, However it sheds some light on the operations of nuclear command and control and the difficulties in defending those systems from cyber terrorism. Many of the details of nuclear command and control are classified, so the information provided below may be outdated. However it points towards a pattern, and there is no certainty these systems and procedures have been updated since entering open source knowledge. Further, terrorists do not have to restrict themselves to unclassified data, and therefore may be able to obtain up to date information.∂ The United States∂ The US employs a nuclear deterrence triad consisted of nuclear-capable long range bombers, SLBMs, and land based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), as well as an arsenal of nonstrategic (tactical) nuclear weapons. US nuclear command and control covers a geographically dispersed force with the US President, as Commander in Chief, being the highest authority in the decision to make a nuclear launch. There is a hierarchy of succession in the event the President cannot perform this duty, such as if the President were killed in an attack. Additionally, once the order to launch is given, it travels down a chain of command; the President does not press the button, so to speak, nor is the President physically present at the launch location. These locations would be targets in a nuclear war, so it is imperative that the leader not be there. Additionally, multiple independent launch locations make this impossible (except for cases in which multiple missiles are tied together in a Single Integrated Operational Plan). So it is theoretically possible to subvert this control by falsifying the order at any number of locations down that chain of command. The infrastructure that supports the President in his decision to launch nuclear weapons is the Nuclear Command and Control System (NCCS). “The NCCS must support situation monitoring, tactical warning and attack assessment of missile launches, senior leader decision making, dissemination of Presidential force-direction orders, and

management of geographically dispersed forces” (Critchlow 2006).∂ Key US nuclear command centres include fixed locations, such as the National Military Command Center (NMCC) and the Raven Rock Mountain Complex (Site R), and mobile platforms, such as the E-4B National Airborne Operations Center (NAOC) and the Mobile Consolidated Command Center (MCCC). The US seeks to integrate its nuclear forces into its vision of command, control, computers, communications, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) hinting towards a greater reliance on computer technology in maintaining and upgrading its nuclear force, not only to combat against Cold War style nuclear war, but also against perceived emerging threats from China, Iran and North Korea. In particular the US recognises these states’ potential to use nuclear weapons detonated at high altitude to create an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). The threat of EMP was known during the Cold War, and a considerable amount of attention has been paid to hardening nuclear systems (Critchlow 2006).∂ The Minimum Essential Emergency Communications Network (MEECN) links to the ICBMs, bombers, and submarine forces. Information widely available on the internet shows the US is seeking to upgrade the MEECN’s satellite communications capability through Advanced Extremely High Frequency and the Transformational Communications Satellite programs. Cyber terrorists may use this knowledge to research these new forms, or to expose weaknesses in the old system before upgrades are completed. Early warning systems and communications are essential to assessing whether a nuclear launch has been made and communicating the orders to launch a retaliatory strike. Falsifying the data provided by either of these systems would be of prime interest to terrorists. Commands emanating from the NAOC for example, include Extremely High Frequency and Very Low Frequency/Low Frequency links, and its activation during a traditional terrorist attack, as happened on 9/11, could provide additional clues as to its vulnerabilities. Blogging communities have also revealed that the 9/11 terrorist attacks revealed insights into the US continuity of operations plan as high level officials were noted heading to specific installations (Critchlow 2006).∂ One tool designed by the US for initiating a nuclear launch is the ‘nuclear football’. It is a specially outfitted briefcase which can be used by the President to authorize a nuclear strike when away from fixed command centres. The President is accompanied by an aide carrying the nuclear football at all times. This aide, who is armed and possibly physically attached to the football, is part of a rotating crew of Presidential aides (one from each of the five service branches). The football contains a secure satellite communication link and any other material the President may need to refer to in the event of its use, sometimes referred to as the ‘playbook’. The attack options provided in the football include single ICBM launches and large scale pre-determined scenarios as part of the Single Integrated Operational Plan. Before initiating a launch the President must be positively identified using a special code on a plastic card, sometimes referred to as ‘the gold codes’ or ‘the biscuit’. The order must also be approved by a second member of the government as per the two-man rule (Pike 2006). ∂ In terms of detecting and analysing a potential attack, that is, distinguishing a missile attack from the launch of a satellite or a computer glitch, the US employs dual phenomenology. This means two different systems must be used to confirm an attack, such as radar and satellite. Terrorists trying to engage a launch by falsifying this data would need to determine which two systems were being used in coordination at the target location and spoof both systems. Attempting to falsify commands from the President would also be difficult. Even if the chain of command is identified, there are multiple checks and balances. For example, doctrine recommends that the President confer with senior commanders. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the primary military advisor to the President. However, the President may choose to consult other advisors as well. Trying to identify who would be consulted in this system is difficult, and falsification may be exposed at any number of steps. The 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review emphasizes that new systems of command and control must be survivable in the event of cyber warfare attacks. On the one hand, this shows that the US is aware of the potential danger posed by computer network operations and are taking action to prevent it. On the other hand, this shows that they themselves see computer network operations as a weakness in their system. And the US continues to research new ways to integrate computer systems into their nuclear command and control, such as IP-based communications, which they admit, “has not yet been proven to provide the high degree of assurance

of rapid message transmission needed for nuclear command and control” (Critchlow 2006).∂ The US nuclear arsenal remains designed for the Cold War. This means its paramount feature is to survive a decapitating strike. In order to do so it must maintain hair-trigger posture on early warning and decision-making for approximately one-third of its 10,000 nuclear weapons. According to Bruce G. Blair, President of the Center for Defense

Information, and a former Minuteman launch officer:∂ Warning crews in Cheyenne Mountain, Colo., are allowed only three minutes to judge whether initial attack indications from satellite and ground sensors are valid or false. Judgments of this sort are rendered daily, as a result of events as diverse as missiles being tested, or fired — for example, Russia’s firing of Scud missiles into Chechnya — peaceful satellites being lofted into space, or wildfires and solar reflections off oceans and clouds. If an incoming missile strike is anticipated, the president and his top nuclear advisors would quickly convene an emergency telephone conference to hear urgent briefings. For example, the war room commander in Omaha would brief the president on his retaliatory options and their consequences, a briefing that is limited to 30 seconds. All of the large-scale responses comprising that briefing are designed for destroying Russian targets by the thousands, and the president would have only a few minutes to pick one if he wished to ensure its effective implementation. The order would then be sent immediately to the

underground and undersea launch crews, whose own mindless firing drill would last only a few minutes (Blair 2003). ∂ These rapid response times don’t leave room for error. Cyber terrorists would not need deception that could stand up over time; they would only need to be believable for the first 15 minutes or so. The amount of firepower that could be unleashed in these 15 minutes, combined with the equally swift Russian response, would be equivalent to approximately 100,000 Hiroshima bombs ( Blair 2008).

Cyberterrorists could directly activate nuclear weapons—triggers nuclear warFritz 09

(Jason, May 2009, International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, “Hacking Nuclear Command and Control,” Jason is a defense researcher, served as a cavalry

officer in the US Army for 6 years, masters in IR @ Bond University, icnnd.org/documents/jason_fritz_hacking_nc2.doc, 7/15/15, SM)

Direct control of launch ∂ The US uses the two-man rule to achieve a higher level of security in nuclear affairs. Under this rule two authorized personnel must be present and in agreement during critical stages of nuclear command and control. The President must jointly issue a launch order with the Secretary of Defense; Minuteman missile operators must agree that the launch order is valid; and on a submarine, both the commanding officer and executive officer must agree that the order to launch is valid. In the US, in order to execute a nuclear launch, an Emergency Action Message (EAM) is needed. This is a preformatted message that directs nuclear forces to execute a specific attack. The contents of an EAM change daily and consist of a complex code read by a human voice. Regular monitoring by shortwave listeners and videos posted to YouTube provide insight into how these work. These are issued from the NMCC, or in the event of destruction, from the designated hierarchy of command and control centres. Once a command centre has confirmed the EAM, using the two-man rule, the Permissive Action Link (PAL) codes are entered to arm the weapons and the message is sent out. These messages are sent in digital format via the secure Automatic Digital Network and then relayed to aircraft via single-sideband radio transmitters of the High Frequency Global Communications System, and, at least in the past, sent to nuclear capable submarines via Very Low Frequency (Greenemeier 2008, Hardisty 1985). ∂ The technical details of VLF submarine communication methods can be found online, including PC-based VLF reception. Some reports have noted a Pentagon

review, which showed a potential “electronic back door into the US Navy’s system for broadcasting nuclear launch orders to Trident submarines” (Peterson 2004). The investigation showed that cyber terrorists could potentially infiltrate this network and insert false orders for launch . The investigation led to

“elaborate new instructions for validating launch orders” (Blair 2003). Adding further to the concern of cyber terrorists seizing control over submarine launched nuclear missiles; The Royal Navy announced in 2008 that it would be installing a Microsoft Windows operating system on its nuclear submarines (Page 2008). The choice of operating system, apparently based on Windows XP, is not as alarming as the advertising of such a system is. This may attract hackers and narrow the necessary reconnaissance to learning its details and potential exploits. It is unlikely that the operating system would play a direct role in the signal to launch, although this is far from certain. Knowledge of the operating system may lead to the insertion of malicious code, which could be used to gain accelerating privileges, tracking, valuable information, and deception that could subsequently be used to initiate a launch. Remember from Chapter 2 that the UK’s nuclear submarines have the authority to launch

if they believe the central command has been destroyed. ∂ Attempts by cyber terrorists to create the illusion of a decapitating strike could also be used to engage fail-deadly systems. Open source knowledge is scarce as to whether Russia continues to operate such a system. However evidence suggests that they have in the past. Perimetr, also known as Dead Hand, was an automated system set to launch a mass scale nuclear attack in the event of a decapitation strike against Soviet leadership and military. ∂ In a crisis, military officials would send a coded message to the bunkers, switching on the dead hand. If nearby ground-level sensors detected a nuclear attack on Moscow, and if a break was detected in communications links with top military commanders, the system would send low-frequency signals over underground antennas to special rockets. Flying high over missile fields and other military sites, these rockets in turn would broadcast attack orders to missiles, bombers and, via radio relays, submarines at sea. Contrary to some Western beliefs, Dr. Blair says, many of Russia's nuclear-armed missiles in

underground silos and on mobile launchers can be fired automatically. (Broad 1993)∂ Assuming such a system is still active, cyber terrorists would need to create a crisis situation in order to activate Perimetr, and then fool it into believing a decapitating strike had taken place. While this is not an easy task, the information age makes it easier. Cyber reconnaissance could help locate the machine and learn its inner workings. This could be done by targeting the computers high of level official’s—anyone who has reportedly worked on such a project, or individuals involved in military operations at underground facilities, such as those reported to be located at Yamantau and Kosvinksy mountains in the central southern Urals (Rosenbaum 2007, Blair 2008)

Cyberterrorists could unleash a nonnuclear missile to fool detection systems and trigger a nuclear war–Black Brant provesFritz 09

(Jason, May 2009, International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, “Hacking Nuclear Command and Control,” Jason is a defense researcher, served as a cavalry officer in the US Army for 6 years, masters in IR @ Bond University, icnnd.org/documents/jason_fritz_hacking_nc2.doc, 7/15/15, SM)

Indirect Control of Launch∂ Cyber terrorists could cause incorrect information to be transmitted, received, or displayed at nuclear command and control centres, or shut down these centres’ computer networks completely. In 1995, a Norwegian scientific sounding rocket was mistaken by Russian early warning systems as a nuclear missile launched from a US submarine . A radar

operator used Krokus to notify a general on duty who decided to alert the highest levels. Kavkaz was implemented, all three chegets activated, and the countdown for a nuclear decision began. It took eight minutes before the missile was properly identified—a considerable amount of time considering the speed with which a nuclear response must be decided upon (Aftergood 2000).∂ Creating a false signal in these early warning systems would be relatively easy using computer network operations. The real difficulty would be gaining access to these systems as they are most likely on a closed network. However, if they are transmitting wirelessly, that may provide an entry point, and information gained through the internet may reveal the details, such as

passwords and software, for gaining entrance to the closed network. If access was obtained, a false alarm could be followed by something like a DDoS attack, so the operators believe an attack may be imminent, yet they can no longer verify it. This could add pressure to the decision making process, and if coordinated precisely,

could appear as a first round EMP burst. Terrorist groups could also attempt to launch a non-nuclear missile, such as the one used by Norway, in an attempt to fool the system. The number of states who possess such technology is far greater than the number of states who possess nuclear weapons . Obtaining them would be considerably easier, especially when enhancing operations through computer network operations.

Combining traditional terrorist methods with cyber techniques opens opportunities neither could accomplish on their own. For example, radar stations might be more vulnerable to a computer attack, while satellites are more vulnerable to jamming from a laser beam, thus together they deny dual phenomenology. Mapping communications networks through cyber reconnaissance may expose weaknesses, and automated scanning devices created by more experienced hackers can be readily found on the internet. ∂ Intercepting or spoofing communications is a highly complex science. These systems are designed to protect against the world’s most powerful and well funded militaries. Yet, there are recurring gaffes, and the very nature of asymmetric warfare is to bypass complexities by finding simple loopholes. For example, commercially available software for voice-morphing could be used to capture voice commands within the command and control structure, cut these sound bytes into phonemes, and splice it back together in order to issue false voice commands (Andersen 2001, Chapter 16).

Spoofing could also be used to escalate a volatile situation in the hopes of starting a nuclear war . “In June 1998, a group of international hackers calling themselves Milw0rm hacked the web site of India’s Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) and put up a spoofed web page showing a mushroom cloud and the text “If a nuclear war does start, you will be the first to scream” (Denning 1999). Hacker web-page defacements like these are often derided by critics of cyber terrorism as simply being a nuisance which causes no significant harm. However, web-page defacements are becoming more common, and they point towards alarming possibilities in subversion. During the 2007 cyber attacks against Estonia, a counterfeit letter of apology from Prime Minister Andrus Ansip was planted on his political party website (Grant 2007). This took place amid the confusion of mass DDoS attacks, real world protests, and accusations between governments. ∂ The 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai illustrate several points. First, terrorists are using computer technology to enhance their capabilities. To navigate to Mumbai by sea and to aid in reconnaissance of targets, they used the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite system and Google Earth (Bedi 2008, Kahn and Worth 2008). They also used mobile phone SIM cards, purchased in foreign countries, VoIP phone calls, and online money transfers (Part of 26/11 plot hatched on our soil, admits Pakistan 2009). Falsified identification and stolen credit cards may have also been aided by online capabilities. Second, a false claim of responsibility was issued through an e-mail to media outlets. Initial tracking of the IP address showed the e-mail to have been sent from a computer in Russia. It was later revealed that the e-mail was sent from Pakistan and routed through Russia (Shashthi 2008). Voice-recognition software was used to allow “dictated text to be typed in the Devnagari font” (Swami 2008). Lastly, the Mumbai attacks showed an increasing reliance on information technology by the intended victims of terrorism. This included Twitter messages, Flickr photos, a map of attack locations on Google Maps, and live text and video

coverage of the attacks (Beaumont 2008). Terrorists could insert disinformation into these systems in order to enhance destruction, evade capture, or increase hostility between groups. Terrorist could even clandestinely enlist the aid of their enemy to enhance destruction . For example, at the height of a terror attack they could claim to have exclusive video footage of the attack, which requires a codec to be downloaded in order to be viewed. This codec could contain a Trojan which uses the now infected computer to silently launch DDoS attacks against their desired targets , such as communications networks. Building an infidel botnet prior to an attack could take on a wide range of symbolism, from a pdf file about anti-terrorism to an unreleased Hollywood film.

Cyber Terror- Econ/Grid

Cyberterrorism targets vulnerable power grids and has large economic impactsNBC 13

(2/19/13, NBC, “Successful hacker attack could cripple U.S. infrastructure, experts say,” http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/19/17019005-successful-hacker-attack-could-cripple-us-infrastructure-experts-say?lite, 7/14/15, SM)

Kevin Mandia, the founder and chief executive of Mandiant, discusses cyber-attacks on US companies and organizations.∂ A report tying the Chinese military to computer attacks against American interests has sent a chill through cyber-security experts, who worry that the very lifelines of the United States — its energy pipelines, its water supply, its banks — are increasingly at risk.∂ The experts

say that a successful hacker attack taking out just a part of the nation’s electrical grid, or crippling financial institutions for several days, could sow panic or even lead to loss of life .∂ “I call it

cyberterrorism that makes 9/11 pale in comparison,” Rep. Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican and chair of the House Intelligence Committee, told NBC News on Tuesday.∂ An American computer security company, Mandiant, reported with near certainty that members of a sophisticated Chinese hacking group work out of the headquarters of a unit of the Chinese army outside Shanghai.∂ The report was first detailed in The New York Times, which said that the hacking group’s focus was increasingly on companies that work with American infrastructure, including the power grid, gas lines and waterworks.∂ The Chinese embassy in Washington told The Times that its government does not engage in computer hacking.∂ As reported, the Chinese attacks constitute a sort of asymmetrical cyberwarfare, analysts said, because they bring the force of the Chinese government and military against private companies.∂ “To us that’s crossing a line into a class of victim that’s not prepared to withstand that type of attack,” Grady Summers, a Mandiant vice president, said on the MSNBC program “Andrea Mitchell Reports.”∂ The report comes as government officials and outside security experts alike are sounding ever-louder alarms about the vulnerability of the systems that make everyday life in the United States possible.∂ A new report confirmed by U.S. intelligence officials has pinpointed a building in Shanghai where those working for the Chinese military launched cyberattacks against 141 US companies spanning 20 industries.

NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.∂ Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned in October that the United States was facing a threat that amounted to “cyber Pearl Harbor” and raised the specter of intentionally derailed trains, contaminated water and widespread blackouts.∂ “This is a pre-9/11 moment,”

Panetta told business executives in New York. “The attackers are plotting.”∂ RELATED: Report: Chinese army tied to widespread U.S. hacking∂ The Times report described an attack on Telvent, a company that keeps blueprints on more than half the oil and gas pipelines in North and South America and has access to their systems.∂ A Canadian arm of the company told customers last fall that hackers had broken in, but it immediately cut off the access so that the hackers could not take control of the pipelines themselves, The Times reported.∂ Dale Peterson, founder and CEO of Digital Bond, a security company that specializes in infrastructure, told NBC News that these attacks, known as vendor remote access, are particularly worrisome.∂ “If you are a bad guy

and you want to attack a lot of different control systems, you want to be able to take out a lot,” he said. “The dirty little secret in these control systems is once you get through the perimeter, they have no security at all . They don’t even have a four-digit pin like your ATM card.”∂ Carlos Barria / Reuters∂ Locals walks in front of 'Unit 61398', a secretive Chinese military unit, in the outskirts of Shanghai. The unit is believed to be behind a series of hacking attacks, a U.S. computer security company said.∂ The 34-minute blackout at the Super Bowl earlier this month highlighted weak spots in the nation’s power

system. A National Research Council report declassified by the government last fall warned that a coordinated strike on the grid could devastate the country.∂ That report considered blackouts lasting weeks or even months across large parts of the country, and suggested they could lead to public fear, social turmoil and a body blow to the economy.∂ Vital systems do not have to be taken down for very long or across a particularly widespread area, the experts noted, to cause social disorder and to spread fear and anxiety among the population.∂ Last fall, after Hurricane Sandy battered the Northeast, it took barely two days for reports of gasoline shortages to cause hours-long lines at the pumps and violent fights among drivers.∂ Peterson described being in Phoenix, Ariz., during a three-day gas pipeline disruption “when people were waiting in line six hours and not going to work. You can imagine someone does these things maliciously, with a little more smarts, something that takes three months to replace.”∂ Similarly, hacking attacks last fall against major American banks — believed by some security experts and government officials to be the work of Iran — amounted to mostly limited frustration for customers, but foreshadowed much bigger

trouble if future attacks are more sophisticated.∂ What worries Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of the computer security company

CrowdStrike, is a coordinated attack against banks that modifies, rather than destroys, financial data, making it impossible to reconcile transactions.∂ “You could wreak absolute havoc on the world’s financial system for years,” he said. “It would be impossible to roll that back.”

A cyberattack on our electrical grid will have devastating impacts—blackouts, starvation, EMP nuclear threatLandsbaum 14

(Mark, 9/5/2014, OC Register, “Mark Landsbaum: Attack on power grid could bring dark days,” http://www.ocregister.com/articles/emp-633883-power-attack.html, 7/15/15, SM)

It could be worse. Terrorists pose an “imminent” threat to the U.S. electrical grid , which could leave the good

ol’ USA looking like 19th century USA for a lot longer than three days.∂ Don’t take my word for it. Ask Peter Pry, former CIA officer and one-time House Armed Services Committee staffer, who served on a congressional commission investigating such

eventualities.∂ “There is an imminent threat from ISIS to the national electric grid and not just to a single U.S. city,” Pry warns. He points to a leaked U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission report in March that said a coordinated terrorist attack on just nine of the nation’s 55,000 electrical power substations could cause coast-to-coast blackouts for up to 18 months.∂ Consider what you’ll have to worry about then. If you were uncomfortable watching looting and riots on TV last month in Ferguson, Mo., as police stood by, project such unseemly behavior nationwide. For 18 months.∂ It’s likely phones won’t be reliable, so you won’t have to watch police stand idly by. Chances are, police won’t show up. Worse, your odds of needing them will be excruciatingly more likely if terrorists attack the power grid using an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) burst of energy to knock out electronic devices.∂ “The Congressional EMP Commission, on

which I served, did an extensive study of this,” Pry says. “We discovered to our own revulsion that critical systems in this country are distressingly unprotected. We calculated that, based on current realities, in the first year after a full-scale EMP event, we could expect about two-thirds of the national population – 200 million Americans – to perish from starvation and disease, as well as anarchy in the streets .”∂

Skeptical? Consider who is capable of engineering such measures before dismissing the likelihood.∂ In his 2013 book, “A Nation

Forsaken,” Michael Maloof reported that the 2008 EMP Commission considered whether a hostile nation or terrorist group could attack with a high-altitude EMP weapon and determined, “any number of adversaries possess both the ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons capabilities,” and could attack

within 15 years.∂ That was six years ago. “North Korea, Pakistan, India, China and Russia are all in the position to launch an EMP attack against the United States now,” Maloof wrote last year.∂ Maybe you’ll rest more comfortably knowing the House intelligence authorization bill passed in May told the intelligence community to report to Congress within six months, “on the threat posed by man-made electromagnetic pulse weapons to United States interests through 2025, including threats from foreign countries and foreign nonstate actors.”∂ Or, maybe that’s not so comforting. In 2004 and again in 2008, separate congressional commissions gave detailed, horrific reports on such threats. Now, Congress wants another report.∂ In his book, Maloof quotes Clay Wilson of the Congressional Research Service, who said, “Several nations, including reported sponsors of terrorism, may currently have a capability to use EMP as a weapon for cyberwarfare or cyberterrorism to disrupt communications and other parts of the U.S. critical infrastructure.”∂ What would an EMP attack look like? “Within an instant,” Maloof writes, “we will have no idea what’s happening all around us, because we will have no news. There will be no radio, no TV, no cell signal. No newspaper delivered.∂ “Products won’t flow into the nearby Wal-Mart. The big trucks will be stuck on the interstates. Gas stations won’t be able to pump the fuel they do have. Some police officers and firefighters will show up for work, but most will stay home to protect their own families. Power lines will get knocked down in windstorms, but nobody will care. They’ll all be fried anyway. Crops will wither in the fields until scavenged – since the big picking machines will all be idled, and there

will be no way to get the crop to market anyway.∂ “Nothing that’s been invented in the last 50 years – based on computer chips, microelectronics or digital technology – will work. And it will get worse .”

A cyberattack would destroy our critical infrastructure which is key to national security, the economy, and public healthChance 12

(Michael, 6/1/12, Forensic Focus, “The Role of Cyber Terrorism in the Future,” http://articles.forensicfocus.com/2012/06/01/the-role-of-cyber-terrorism-in-the-future/, 7/15/15, SM)

INTRODUCTION∂ To understand cyberterrorism, one must first be familiar with terrorism. According to the Code of Federal Regulations terrorism is “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.” (Code of Federal Regulations Title 28 Section 0.85 Set. (2007). Government Inst.) This concept is fairly easy to grasp and most American’s have an understanding of what terrorism is. But when talking about cyberterrorism there seems to be some confusion as to its components. In February of 2002

Executive Assistant Director of the FBI Dale Watson gave testimony before congress stating that “cyberterrorism-–meaning the use of cyber tools to shut down critical national infrastructures (such as energy, transportation, or government operations) for the purpose of coercing or intimidating a government or civilian population–-is clearly an emerging threat.” (http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress02/watson020602.htm) While still a form of terrorism it is a different approach than conventional terrorism. Dorothy Denning, a well-known information security researcher, provides a more comprehensive definition:∂ “Cyberterrorism is the convergence of terrorism and cyberspace. It is generally understood to mean unlawful attacks and threats of attack against computers, networks, and the information stored therein when done to intimidate or coerce a government

or its people in furtherance of political or social objectives. Further, to qualify as cyberterrorism, an attack should result in

violence against persons or property, or at least cause enough harm to generate fear. Attacks that lead to death or bodily injury, explosions, plane crashes, water contamination, or severe economic loss would be examples. Serious attacks against critical infrastructures could be acts of cyberterrorism, depending on their impact. Attacks that disrupt nonessential services or that are mainly a costly nuisance would not.”

(http://www.cs.georgetown.edu/~denning/infosec/cybert:rror.html)∂ Richard Clarke, a counterterrorism expert and special advisor to President Bush on cyberspace security, described our vulnerability to a cyber terrorist attack as a digital Pearl Harbor. One where you would never see it coming and would have devastating effects. We can no longer turn a blind eye to these possibilities. In moving forward “it is imperative to imagine the ways

terrorists could disrupt the nation’s information infrastructure and the computer networks that control telecommunications, the electric grid, water supplies and air traffic.”∂ (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9804E1D7123BF934A25752C1A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1) ∂ METHODOLOGY∂ This research was conducted using open source documents that are open to the public. All documents are unclassified and openly available for viewing. References used for the analysis of the topic were found via the Internet. Examples of works cited are unclassified government documents found on government websites using search terms related to the topic. Internationally distributed newspapers were also used to support the construction of the paper. Other valid and reliable sources used in collecting data were government websites for agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Additional research was pursued utilizing college and university websites that posted studies of similar matters. Furthermore, books written by experts were examined and relevant information was extracted to reinforce the views within this text. ∂ In reviewing the literature it was important to disseminate that which was reputable and worthy of noting. Information that was not corroborated or from a source that was not credible was examined and excluded from use based on its merit. Data from respectable scholars and universities were studied and surveyed. Ideas were compared and contrasted and then used to support my thesis. Inquiries into this particular field produced numerous results. A logical analysis of the material was conducted and presented in this paper.∂ REVIEW OF THE

LITERATURE∂ Critical Infrastructure∂ Critical infrastructure is defined by the USA Patriot Act as “systems and assets, whether

physical or virtual, so vital to the United States that the incapacity or destruction of such systems and assets would have a debilitating impact on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination of those matters.” (United State, 2001)∂ It can be said that this infrastructure represents the backbone of the United States. Minimizing our vulnerabilities to terrorist threats is a shared responsibility that falls on federal, state, and local government as well as private industry. ∂ According to the National Strategy for the Physical Protection of Critical Infrastructure and Key Assets, we must commit to “secure(ing) the infrastructure and assets vital to our national security, governance, public health and safety, economy, and public confidence.” (United States, 2003. Pg

vii). This network is made up of the institutions that our country relies on to function as a society. It is comprised of “agriculture, food, water, public health, emergency services, government, defense industrial base, information and telecommunications, energy, transportation, banking and finance, chemical industry and hazardous material, and postal and shipping.” (United States,

2003. Pg 6). These represent the staples of our nation and its economy. Even though they are separate entities that are self-governing they are interdependent upon one another. The relationship is complex and the disruption of one could adversely affect the other. Each sector plays a key role in our daily lives providing services that are invaluable.∂ This infrastructure is so essential that in 1996 President Clinton devised Executive Order 13010, Critical Infrastructure Protection, which addresses “threats of electronic, radio-frequency, or computer-based attacks on the information or communications components that control

critical infrastructures (‘‘cyber threats’’)” (http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo13010.htm) ∂ The components of agriculture and food and water represent the most basic needs of the people of the United States. All citizens require a reliable food supply and clean drinking water. Without these necessities people would go hungry or even starve. Even something as simple as washing your hands or brushing your teeth would be impossible. Any threat to these sectors could spread panic or fear amongst the people.

AT No CyberattackYes cyberattack—threat is higher than conventional terrorism because of vulnerable critical infrastructure Hua 13

(Jian, June 13, The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, “The economic impact of cyber terrorism,” Hua is an associate professor in the Department of Marketing, legal Studies, and Information Systems @ the School of Business and Public Adinistration, the University of the District of Columbia, http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jian_Hua3/publication/261860155_The_economic_impact_of_cyber_terrorism/links/5435603c0cf2bf1f1f29f2e0.pdf, 7/14/15, SM)

Modern economies are heavily dependent upon Information Technology (IT) based information systems for survival.∂ Increased reliance on information systems (ISs) leads to increased vulnerabilities and risks. IS security has thus become a∂ critical issue in the IT world (Sonnenreich et al., 2006).∂ Investing optimally in the security of information systems can yield comparative strategic advantages (LeVeque, 2006)∂ through trustworthiness and positive image as perceived by partners, customers and suppliers; trust is difficult for competitors∂ to duplicate. Investing optimally implies avoiding inappropriate

investment.∂ Information systems are vulnerable and it is possible for terrorists to utilize the vulnerabilities of information systems to∂ attack their adversaries (Jormakka and Molsa, 2005; Embar-

Seddon, 2002). This has given rise to a new term, cyber terrorism.∂ Parks and Duggan (2001) have defined cyber terrorism as an extension of traditional terrorism and a new approach∂ adopted by terrorists to attack cyberspace. The FBI director,

Robert S. Mueller, has warned that cyber terrorists will either∂ train their own recruits or hire outsiders, with an eye toward combining physical attacks with cyber attacks. Mueller also∂ stressed that the cyber threat cannot be fought by government alone (Nakashima, 2010).∂ Organizations that comprise the critical infrastructure of the

national economy should be aware of the potential for terrorist∂ attack (Nickolov, 2005). Critical infrastructure refers to the

essential assets which make society or a country function∂ well and includes energy, transportation, telecommunication, water supply and waste management, agriculture and food∂ supply, finance, public health, and essential government services. Organizations which form the critical infrastructure of a∂ national economy must protect their information systems well.∂ Cyber terrorists

could feasibly target the information systems of critical infrastructure of countries. The threat of cyber∂ terrorism is more dangerous than that of common IS attacks (Verton, 2003) and is becoming a major concern for most countries∂ (Foltz, 2004). Cyber terrorists inherit not only the characteristics of terrorists, but also the characteristics of hackers. The only way to differentiate cyber terrorism from traditional hacking and other cyber crime is by ascertaining the motivation or∂ intention of the person or group launching the attack (Embar-Seddon, 2002).

Bioterrorism

Bioterror Causes ExtinctionBioweapons are easily accessible by terrorists and lead to mass deathsWilson 13

(Grant, 1/17/13, University of Virginia School of Law, “MINIMIZING GLOBAL CATASTROPHIC AND EXISTENTIAL RISKS FROM EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES THROUGH INTERNATIONAL LAW,” professor @ University of Virginia School of Law, http://lib.law.virginia.edu/lawjournals/sites/lawjournals/files/3.%20Wilson%20-%20Emerging%20Technologies.pdf, 7/15/15, SM)

ii. Risk of bioterrorism∂ The threat of the malicious release of bioengineered organisms (i.e.,∂ bioterrorism) poses a GCR/ER.75

Bioengineering enables a malicious∂ actor to create an organism that is more deadly to humans, animals, or∂ plants than anything that exists in the natural world.76 Experts contend∂ that the barriers for a terrorist to order a DNA sequence for a highly∂ pathogenic virus online or acquire a DNA synthesis machine online are∂

“surmountable.” 77 Alternatively, bioterrorists could break into∂ laboratories housing dangerous bioengineered organisms—like the∂ H5N1 virus, for example—and release them. Meanwhile, third world∂ countries with laxer standards and lower laboratory accountability are∂ rapidly discovering and using bioengineering, which may give∂ bioterrorists an easier pathway to obtain deadly bioengineered∂ organisms.78∂ There have already been several occasions in which groups attempted∂ to use or successfully used biological weapons. One unsophisticated∂ example of bioterrorism occurred when an individual contaminated∂

salads and dressing with salmonella in what apparently was an attempt∂ to decide a local election.79 Another example occurred in 2001, when∂ bioterrorists sent envelopes containing anthrax spores through the mail, infecting twenty-two people and killing five of them.∂ 80 While these∂ particular acts of bioterrorism did not cause

widespread death,∂ deploying extremely deadly bioengineered organisms over a large area∂ is a real possibility: tests by the United States in 1964 demonstrated that∂ a single aircraft can contaminate five thousand square kilometers of land∂ with a deadly bacterial aerosol.81∂ The recent engineering of an airborne H5N1 virus demonstrates∂ society’s concern over risks of bioterrorism arising from∂ bioengineering. Before scientists could publish their results of their∂ bioengineered airborne H5N1 virus in the widely read journals Nature∂ and Science, the NSABB determined that the danger of releasing the∂ sensitive information outweighed the benefits to society, advising that∂ the findings not be published in their entirety.82 The main risk is that∂ either a state or non-state actor could synthesize a “weaponized” version∂ of the H5N1 virus to create a disastrous pandemic.83 There is precedent∂ of outside groups recreating advanced bioengineering experiments, such∂ as when many scientists immediately synthesized hepatitis C replicons∂ upon publication of its genetic code. 84 However, the NSABB’s∂ recommendation was nonbinding, and there is nothing to stop other∂ scientists from releasing similar data in the future. Furthermore, while∂ the NSABB merely asserts that the “blueprints” of the virus should not∂ be printed, other biosecurity experts argue that the virus should never∂ have been created in the first place because of risks that the viruses∂ would escape or be stolen.85

Yes BioterrorTerrorists using bioweapons can achieve the same mortality rates as with WMD—bioweapons are cheaper, more effectiveSIU School of Medicine 14

(12/15/14, SIU School of Medicine, “Overview of Potential Agents of Biological Terrorism,” http://www.siumed.edu/medicine/id/bioterrorism.htm#threat, 7/15/15, SM)

Biological weapons are very attractive to the terrorist because of several characteristics. Aerosols of biological agents are

invisible, silent, odorless, tasteless, and are relatively easily dispersed. They are 600 - 2000 times cheaper than other weapons of mass destruction. It is estimated that the cost would be about 0.05% the cost of a conventional weapon to produce similar numbers of mass casualties per square kilometer . The production is relatively easy, using the common technology available for the production of some antibiotics, vaccines, foods, and

beverages. The delivery systems such as spray devices from an airplane, boat or car are commonly available. The natural lead time provided by the organism's incubation period (3 to 7 days for most potential organisms) would allow for the terrorists' escape before any investigation starts. In addition, the use of an endemic infectious agent may cause confusion because of the inability to differentiate a biological warfare attack from a natural epidemic. For some agents

potential exists for secondary or tertiary transmission by person-to-person transmission or natural vectors.∂ The consequences of biological weapons use are many. They can rapidly produce mass effect that overwhelms services and the health care system of the communities. Most of the civilian population is susceptible to infections caused by these agents. They are associated with high morbidity and mortality rates. The resulting illness is usually difficult to diagnose and treat early, particularly in areas

where the disease is rarely seen. One kilogram of anthrax powder has the capability to kill up to 100,000 people depending on the mechanism of delivery (33). The economic impact of a biological attack has been estimated to be from 478 million/100,000 persons exposed (brucellosis scenario) to 26.2 billion/100,000 persons exposed (anthrax scenario) (34).∂ ""Top∂ Types of Bioterrorism Attacks∂ A bioterrorist attack may occur in 2 scenarios - overt and covert. In the past emergency responses were prepared based on overt attacks like bombings and chemical agents that cause immediate and obvious effects. However, attacks with biological agents are more likely to

be covert. They pose different challenges and require emergency planning with the involvement of the public health infrastructure. The attack by a biological agent will not have an immediate impact because of the delay between exposure and onset of illness (i.e., the incubation period). Therefore, the first victims of a bioterrorism action will need to be identified by physicians or other primary health care providers. Based on the first wave of victims, pubic health officials will need to determine that an attack has occurred, identify the organism and prevent more casualties through prevention strategies (e.g. mass vaccination, prophylactic treatment) and infection control procedures (35). The clues to a potential bioterrorist attack include an outbreak of a rare or new disease, an outbreak of diseases in a non-endemic area, a seasonal disease during an off season time, a known pathogen with unusual resistance or unusual epidemiologic features, an unusual clinical presentation or age distribution, a genetically identical pathogen emerging rapidly in different geographical areas (36).

A bioterror attack would have catastrophic consequences—loss of $1 trillion, mass deathsInglesby 14

(Tom, 2/11/14, UPMC Center for Health Security of the University of Pittsburgh medical Center, “Bioterrorism: Assessing the Threat,” Tom is a director and CEO of the UPMC Center for Health Security and an Associate Professor of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh, http://www.upmchealthsecurity.org/our-work/testimony/bioterrorism-assessing-the-threat, 7/15/15, SM)

The Consequences of Biological Weapons∂ The anthrax events of 2001 were shocking for the country. Letters carrying anthrax spores were sent to a number of people in different cities. Hospitals, doctors, and nurses at the time were largely unfamiliar with the disease. Elements of all three branches of government were each affected and closed at some point. Buildings had to be evacuated for prolonged periods. Cases appeared over weeks in different places. A number of people were sickened and killed. The source of the anthrax could not be identified. The communication about it from our own government was often uncertain and changing. The media coverage was constant. People were afraid of their own mail. Nothing like this had happened before in our country or any country.∂ A great deal has been done to improve our ability to recognize and respond to biological weapons events

since that time. I will say more about that below. But it is important for this committee to know that a future biological weapons attack on the US could look quite different from the 2001 anthrax incident - in terms of size of attack, form, and the numbers affected.∂ The anthrax letters of 2001 came with a warning

in them, which allowed some people to begin taking protective antibiotics and initiate evacuation. Future events are unlikely to come with warnings like that. It is more likely that the first sign of a bioterror attack will be sick people appearing in clinics and emergency rooms. And while the anthrax letters of 2001 came through the mail, future bioterrorism attacks could come in many different kinds of form. There are many means of creating aerosols. And there are clearly other means of using

biological weapons against the public.∂ We also need to understand that the scope of future bioweapons events could be far, far greater that what we saw in 2001. In 2009, the US National Security Council said: "The effective dissemination of a lethal biological agent within an unprotected population could place at risk the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. The unmitigated consequences of such an event could overwhelm our public health capabilities, potentially causing an untold number of deaths. The economic cost could exceed $1 trillion for each such incident. " The use of such weapons could lead to substantial loss of life and great societal disruption. Even with a small or modest-sized attack, the social and economic impact would be significant.

Agro-Terrorism

Surveillance K2 Stop Agro-TerrorSurveillance is uniquely key to discovering plots of agro terrorism and determining the most effective way to stop them.Eli Rohn and Gil Erez, 4/12, “Fighting Agro-Terrorism in Cyberspace: A Framework for Intention Detection Using Overt Electronic Data Sources”, http://www.iscramlive.org/ISCRAM2012/proceedings/261.pdf

The Counter Agro Terrorism Research Center defines Agro Terrorism as "a hostile attack, towards an agricultural environment, including infrastructures and processes, in order to significantly damage national and international political interests" (CATRC 2010).

It can be achieved by introducing small quantities of lethal components to every day agricultural inputs, such as water, fertilizers, seeds, sprouts, chicken or livestock feed. It is also possible to easily transmit disease agents from one sick animal to an entire flock or herd, using simple means such as rags. However, while the technicalities are quite simple, they require intention, knowledge and guidance. The last two can be easily provided anonymously, while the first one requires motivation, which can be initiated and

enhanced by ideology and indoctrination, both deliverable electronically. Agro-terrorism related risks can be reduced by either means of prevention (intelligence gathering using data mining and chatter mining, for example) or means to respond to such an attack by early detection of exotic/foreign pathogenic agents, early prediction of disease dispersion patterns, implementation of biosecurity measures, and the development of future methodologies and techniques related to food defense and post-event response. Using open sources as for collecting intentions related data has a number of benefits. Obtaining the information is relatively inexpensive to obtain; it makes up the greatest volume of information accessible to collectors of such data. The activity of collecting materials from open sources is legal thus freeing collectors from risks of prosecution for espionage. Frequently, it is possible to derive sensitive information by aggregating and comparing data concerning a particular activity, individual, one or more groups or facilities. This paper concerns itself with the first means of prevention mentioned here – intentions evaluation by intelligence gathering from overt WWW sources using various techniques, such as data mining or chatter mining, analysis of the data, production of filtered memes and their dissemination to various clientele. Information seeking behavior has eight features in common, brought here with adaptation to agro- Rohn & Erez Intention Detection Using Overt Electronic Data Sources Proceedings of the 9th International ISCRAM Conference – Vancouver, Canada, April 2012 L. Rothkrantz, J. Ristvej and Z. Franco, eds. 2 terrorism: Starting activities such as the initial search for an overview of the overt resources landscape or locating key suspects in electronic communities; Chaining – following clues and links in known overt resources; Scanning primary and secondary resources; Differentiating among resources using filtering strategy; Extracting selectively from the resources filtered; Verifying the information; Monitoring the resources for relevant changes; Ending the information retrieval process (Ellis and Haugan 1997). Similarly, the United States intelligence community uses a five-step process to obtain, produce, and make deliverables available to users. The steps are: Planning and Direction, Data Acquisition, Processing and, Production, and Dissemination (Federation of American Scientists 1996). The paper’s sections follow the cycle described hitherto and provide an overview of the literature pertinent to each phase. PLANNING AND DIRECTION Planning and direction are done at the strategic level and the tactical level. Strategically, intention detection efforts need to sustain or extend the organization’s strategy and governance requirements whilst being transparent about benefits, costs and risks. This requires input from and coordination with key stake holders. Identification of stakeholders is by itself not a trivial task; several proven methods exist (Elias, Cavana et al. 2002; Freeman, Harrison et al. 2010). This phase also requires incorporating technologists and business management in the translation of intelligence requirements into service offerings, and the development of strategies at the tactical level to deliver these services in an effective manner. In this step specific collection capabilities are tasked, based on the type of information required, the susceptibility of the targeted activity to various types of collection activity, and the availability of collection assets. The tactical level of the planning and direction phase requires harnessing proven project management methodologies. A leading professional resource is the Project Management Book of Knowledge, also known as PMBOK (Indelicato 2009; Sanchez-Arias and Solarte-Pazos 2010). Further, intention detection efforts at the planning stage should be targeted at specific areas of agro-terror. Inflicting damage through the contamination of fertilizers, for example, requires different skills and opportunities compared to inflicting damages through sewage redirection, which is entirely different from spreading viruses that can infect large herds of livestock. Deciding on which area to focus the intention detection efforts should be based on sophisticated risk analysis techniques, offered by several researchers (Parnell,

Smith et al. 2010; Fellman, Parnel et al. 2011; Merrick and Parnell 2011). The risk analysis should be reviewed periodically and revised according to changing threat. To this mix, one should add "fashion traits" among terrorists. Blowing up buildings was fashionable in the 1980's and 1990's (US Embassy bombing in Tblisi, Georgia; Khobar Towers military complex bombing; simultaneous bombing of US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, etc.) Beheading became trendy in the beginning of the 21st century. Suffice to mention Daniel Pearl, Paul Johnson and Nick Burg as examples. The antibiotics-resistant salmonella found in Europe during the summer of 2011(The Independent 2011) along with analysis of current affairs by CATRC suggests that the next trend in Agro-Terrorism might as well be the disruption of a central hub in the food chain by agro-terror

means rather than brute force. COLLECTION The second step, collection, includes both the acquisition of information and its provisioning to organizational units that perform the processing and production. The collection process encompasses the management of various activities, including developing collection strategies that aim at optimized utilization of accessible intelligence resources. Requirements for collection of intelligence are developed to meet the needs of potential consumers. Collection activities are given specific tasks to collect information based on identified intelligence requirements. Collection operations depend on secure, rapid and reliable communications to allow for data exchange and to provide opportunities for cross-cueing of assets and tip-off exchanges between assets. Once collected, information is correlated and forwarded for processing and production. An example of a specific collection task is the ongoing monitoring of professional and scientific biomedical literature, with the aim of finding candidate viruses as potential agro-terrorism weapons. Such a surveillance mechanism serves for early warning which one can consider a preventive means. Geissler enumerated 13 traits a virus should have in order to be used as a potential weapon (Geissler 1986; Geissler and van Courtland Moon 1999). He then identified 21 viruses that meet these criteria. Hu et. al. proposed an "automated, semantic-based data mining system to identify viruses that can be used as weapons in bio-terrorism" by mining biomedical literature (Hu, Yoo

et al. 2005). A second example of a specific collection task is finding, in social networks, overlapping communities with interest in such viruses. Using an "algorithm for finding overlapping Rohn & Erez Intention Detection Using Overt Electronic Data Sources Proceedings of the 9th International ISCRAM

Conference – Vancouver, Canada, April 2012 L. Rothkrantz, J. Ristvej and Z. Franco, eds. 3 communities in social networks… can be helpful in discovering groups of actors that hide their communications, possibly for malicious reasons" (Baumes, Goldberg et al. 2005). A fast algorithm for the same purpose was proposed three years later (Gregory 2008)

Agro-Terror- Econ ImpactAmerica’s agriculture industry is vulnerable to an agro-terror attack—would cost billions and exacerbate terrorDean Olson, 2/12, "Agroterrorism: Threats to America’s Economy and Food Supply," FBI, https://leb.fbi.gov/2012/february/agroterrorism-threats-to-americas-economy-and-food-supply

The United States enjoys a safe, plentiful, and inexpensive food supply. Americans spend only 11 percent of their income on

food compared with the global average of 20 to 30 percent.1 The nation’s agricultural abundance helps drive its economic prosperity. As many as 1 of 6 jobs are linked to agriculture, a trillion-dollar industry.

Agriculture-related products comprise nearly 10 percent of all U.S. exports, amounting to nearly $68 billion in 2006.2 Terrorists consider America’s agriculture and food production tempting targets. They have noticed that its food supply is among the most vulnerable and least protected of all potential targets of attack. When American and allied forces overran al Qaeda sanctuaries in the caves of eastern Afghanistan in 2002, among the thousands of documents they discovered were U.S. agricultural documents and al Qaeda training manuals targeting agriculture. A subset of bioterrorism, agroterrorism is defined as “the deliberate introduction of an animal or plant disease

for the purpose of generating fear, causing economic losses, or undermining social stability.”3 It represents a tactic to attack the economic stability of the United States. Killing livestock and plants or contaminating food can help terrorists cause economic crises in the agriculture and food industries. Secondary goals include social unrest and loss of confidence in government. Serious Concern Agroterrorism is not new. The Assyrians poisoned enemy wells with rye ergot during the 6th century B.C. During World War I, German agents in the United States infected horses and cattle in transit across the Atlantic to France. In 1994, in The Dalles, Oregon, a religious cult intentionally contaminated 10 restaurant salad bars with salmonella, sickening more than 750 people in an attempt to influence the outcome of a local election. Since 1912, 12 documented cases have involved the substate use of pathogenic agents to infect livestock or contaminate food.4 Dean Olsen with Quote The agroterrorism threat emanates from four categories of

perpetrators. The foremost threat is posed by transnational groups, like al Qaeda—widely believed to present the most probable threat of inflicting economic harm on the United States. The second group is comprised of economic opportunists tempted to manipulate markets. They understand that a foot and mouth disease (FMD) outbreak, for example, would have a dramatic impact on markets. By introducing the virus, they could exploit the markets for personal economic gain. The third category includes domestic terrorists who may view the introduction of FMD as a blow against the federal government. As an outlier of this category, the unbalanced individual or disgruntled employee may perpetrate an attack for a variety of idiosyncratic or narcissistic motivations. Finally, militant animal rights or environmental activists pose a threat because they consider immoral the use of animals for food. Groups, such as the Animal Liberation Front and its sister organization, the Earth Liberation Front, could view an attack on the animal food industry a positive event.5 Threat Environment Because it lacks the drama and spectacle of more common terrorist violence, such as bombings and murders, agroterrorism has remained a

secondary consideration, and no documented attacks in the homeland have occurred since 9/11. Several recent factors may have made agroterrorism a more attractive tactic. First, the threat environment has changed dramatically.

America has had recent successes against al Qaeda’s leadership. These victories have forced the group to morph in both structure and tactics. The increasingly dangerous environment it now must operate in has prevented it from mounting catastrophic terrorist attacks on the scale of 9/11. Now, al Qaeda places its emphasis on smaller, independent attacks following a “death by a thousand cuts” strategy to exhaust, overwhelm, and distract U.S. Department of

Homeland Security forces. The group seeks to flood America’s already information overloaded intelligence systems with myriad threats and “background noise.”6 Agroterrorism also may serve as a way to magnify the social upheaval caused by smaller, independent attacks, like bombings. Second, Usama Bin Ladin consistently had argued that attacking the U.S. economy represented the best way to destroy America’s ability to project military power abroad. Underpinning this view is al Qaeda’s historical narrative that jihad against the Soviets following the invasion of Afghanistan led not only to the defeat of the Red Army but, ultimately, to the demise of the U.S.S.R.7 As divorced from reality as this view seems, economic harm remains one of the pillars of al Qaeda’s terror strategy against the United States. In a video broadcast before the 2004 U.S. presidential elections, Usama Bin Ladin bragged that his organization “…bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat…. We are continuing in the same policy to make America bleed profusely to the point of bankruptcy….” He boasted that the 9/11 attacks had cost al Qaeda $500,000 while inflicting a staggering $500 billion in economic losses to America.8 According to Bin Ladin, “every dollar of al Qaeda defeated a million dollars [of America]...besides the loss of a huge number of jobs.” Open Quotes on Blue Bar The same factors that yield inexpensive and plentiful food by promoting maximum production efficiency also make American agricultural systems inherently vulnerable. Close Quotes on Blue Bar Analysts believe that al Qaeda’s evolving tactics increasingly will “focus on targets that will yield the most economic damage.”9 Terrorist leaders realize that America’s strength stems largely from its economic vitality. They pursue an overarching strategy that all attacks should focus on weakening America’s economic strength, especially through protracted guerilla warfare. In their view, as the United States loses its standing in the Middle East, groups, like al Qaeda, can gain ground and remove from power regimes they view as corrupt and illegitimate.10 Terrorists know that a successful agroterrorism incident threatens America’s economic welfare and its standing as a leading exporter of agricultural products to the world. A significant disruption in agricultural exports caused by such an attack would have ripple effects in the United States’ and global economies. This economic disruption would occur on three levels. The first involves direct losses due to containment measures, such as stop-movement orders (SMOs) or quarantines of suspected stock. Additional costs would arise from the culling and destruction of disease-ridden livestock.11 Second, indirect multiplier effects, such as compensation to farmers for destruction of agricultural commodities and losses suffered by directly and indirectly related industries, would arise.12 And, third, international costs would result from protective trade embargoes. Less measurable consequences would include the undermining of confidence in and support of

government, creation of social panic, and threat to public health on the national and global levels. Given its ease of execution and low cost to high benefit ratio, agroterrorism fits the evolving strategy of al Qaeda that focuses on inexpensive but highly disruptive attacks in lieu of monumental ones. Agroterrorism could exacerbate the social upheaval caused by random bombings. The ability to employ cheap and unsophisticated means to undermine America’s economic base, combined with the added payoff to potentially overwhelm its counterterrorism resources, makes livestock- and food-related attacks increasingly attractive.13 Foot and Mouth Disease Attacks directed against the cattle, swine, or poultry industries or via the food chain pose the most serious danger for latent, ongoing effects and general socioeconomic and political disruption. Experts agree that FMD presents the most ominous threat.14 Eradicated in the United States in 1929, FMD remains endemic in South America, Africa, and Asia.15 An especially contagious virus 20 times more infectious than smallpox, FMD causes painful blisters on the tongues, hooves, and teats of cloven-hoofed animals, including cattle, hogs, sheep, goats, and deer, rendering them unable to walk, give milk, eat, or drink. Although people generally cannot contract the disease, they can carry the virus in their lungs for up to 48 hours and transmit it to animals. The animal-to-animal airborne transmission range is 50 miles.16 An infected animal can shred the virus in large quantities from its upper respiratory tract via drooling, coughing, and discharging mucus. Extremely stable, FMD can survive in straw or clothing for 1 month and spread up to 100 kilometers via the wind. Because herds exist as highly crowded populations bred and reared in extremely close proximity to one another, a significant risk exists that such pathogenic agents as FMD will spread well beyond the locus of a specific outbreak before health officials become aware of a problem. An FMD outbreak could spread to as many as 25 states in as little as 5 days simply through the regulated movement of animals from farm to market.17 Open Quotes on Blue Bar ...the food production and distribution chain offers a low-tech but effective mechanism for disseminating toxins and bacteria.... Close Quotes on Blue Bar From a tactical perspective, an FMD attack holds appeal for several reasons. First, unlike biological warfare directed against humans, no issue of weaponization exists. In an FMD attack, the animals themselves serve as the primary medium for pathogenic transmission, and countries as close as those in South America offer a ready source of the virus. As one analyst described it, the virus “can be spread by simply wiping the mucus from an infected animal on a handkerchief and then transferring the virus to healthy animals by wiping their noses…by stopping on a highway in rural America and releasing the virus among curious livestock an outbreak could be initiated.”18 Second, FMD is nonzoonotic, presenting no risk of accidental human infection. There exists no need for elaborate personal protective equipment or an advanced understanding of animal disease science. In a biowarfare attack targeting people, the deadly pathogen poses a threat to the perpetrators, as well as their intended victims. Preparing the pathogen so that terrorists can handle it safely yet disseminate it effectively to intended victims can prove difficult. For instance, the Aum Shinrikyo sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway in 1994 largely failed to kill the number of people intended due to the crude method of dissemination. Third, terrorists could introduce and subsequently disperse the virus throughout the American food production system through multiple carriers, including animals carrying and introducing it into susceptible herds; animals exposed to contraband materials, such as

contaminated food, hay, feedstuffs, hides, or biologics; people wearing clothing or using equipment, including tractors and trucks, to transmit the virus to uninfected animals; and contaminated facilities, such as feed yards, sale barns, and trucks that commonly hold or transport susceptible animals.19 The same factors that yield inexpensive and plentiful food by promoting maximum production efficiency also make American agricultural systems inherently vulnerable. The highly concentrated and intensive nature of livestock production encourages the rapid spread of contagious pathogens.20 Most dairies house at least 1,500 cows, with the largest facilities containing 10,000. Animals often are born on breeding farms and then transported to another state for slaughtering and processing. Otherwise isolated and widely dispersed farms often share equipment, vehicles, and veterinary instruments. Feedlots and auctions routinely intermingle animals from a wide geographic area. On average, a pound of meat travels 1,000 miles before it reaches the consumer’s table.21 The Food Process Chart: Seed to Plate The introduction of FMD would require the mass slaughter and disposal of infected animals. An outbreak could halt the domestic and international sale of meat and meat products for years. In

this regard, in 2001, FMD in the United Kingdom affected 9,000 farms and required the destruction of more than 4,000,000 animals. Researchers believe that a similar outbreak in the United States would cost taxpayers up to $60 billion.22 An FMD attack could result in massive herd culling, the need to destroy processed goods, and extensive decontamination efforts of production and livestock-containment facilities. Most Americans have not witnessed the intense media coverage of high-volume culling operations involving the destruction and disposal of tens of thousands of animals. Large-scale eradication and disposal of livestock likely would be especially controversial as it affects farmers and ranchers and offends the sensibilities of animal rights activists and environmental organizations.

Agricultural terrorism is easy, difficult to prevent, and can cause billions in losses for farmers and ancillary services.Dennis L. Taylor, 9-15-2014, "Agroterrorism: A looming threat to food supply," Salinas Californian, http://www.thecalifornian.com/story/news/local/2014/09/12/agroterrorism-looming-threat-food-supply/15541125/

Unfortunately, many people think of Middle-East terror groups as the masterminds behind such unthinkable acts. But that is only one of many threats, said David Goldenberg, program manager and coordinator for field training at the Western Center for Food Safety and Security at the University of California, Davis. Sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security, Goldenberg is teaching a special series of classes at Hartnell College in Salinas designed for first responders, government officials and operations staff working at the scores of produce processing plants dotting the southern Salinas. Though the attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001 were plotted and carried out by extremists from the Middle East, consider other historical attacks on U.S. soil. The 1995 Oklahoma City bombing killed 168 people, injured more than 680 others and caused $652 million in damage. Then there were the shootings at Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Columbine, Fort Hood – the list is long and heartbreaking. All were carried out by

American citizens. There is a finite amount of carnage that can be inflicted by conventional weapons, but weaponized bio-agents or toxins , particularly if introduced simultaneously at myriad locations nationwide, are open-ended in the catastrophe they would cause . Because threats can come from such a diverse cast of characters bent on disrupting the food supply or instilling fear, Goldenberg has received input from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S.

Department of Agriculture. His courses are funded through the Rural Domestic Preparedness Consortium. "We have agroterrorism prevention efforts in place with our WMD (weapons of mass destruction) directorate," said Chris Allen, a spokesperson in FBI headquarters in Washington D.C. "The focus of these efforts is on outreach, building relationships and prevention." The directorate has many parts, including an annual agroterrorism symposium that dates began in 2006. The week-long summit gathers law enforcement with agriculture officials who are on the front lines of preventing, detecting and investigating intentional attacks on the U.S. food supply. Under the directorate, the FBI focuses on the criminal investigation while the FDA and USDA center their attention on public health. Why Salinas could be targeted In the Salinas Valley, $4 billion annually of lettuce, strawberries and commodity vegetables such as broccoli, spinach and cauliflower are harvested, trucked to coolers, and then trucked again to local processing plants. From there they are washed, bagged and loaded onto more trucks destined for Canada, Mexico and throughout the United States, or to commercial ports in Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland where they are loaded onto container ships bound for Asia. The entire process can be measured in hours, which means that if any toxin or pathogen were introduced at any point along the process, it could be on a plate at a diner in Des Moines or restaurant in

Hong Kong long before anyone suspected a problem. All it would take is the combination of intent and capability – all points along the supply chain would be vulnerable to attack. Farmers live year to

year on the viability of their crops. If a crop were rendered unusable , and consumers turned away from the affected product, growers easily could be ruined . And not just growers. It is estimated that the agriculture industry in the Salinas Valley supports an additional $4 billion in ancillary services, everything from banks and tractor sales to trucking companies and fertilizer sales. That would mean an $8 billion hit to a county with fewer than 500,000 people. Dennis Donohue, a former mayor of Salinas and a lettuce grower, acknowledges that because their livelihoods are planted outdoors, and having only limited activity at night, there is vulnerability. "There's an old saying that it's not hard to meet a grower in the daytime in the Salinas Valley, just go stand in his crop uninvited," Donohue said. "Unfortunately, farmers have to sleep." Today when a human pathogen like E. coli, listeria or salmonella contaminate a food product, often the first sign of a problem is sickness after someone, somewhere consumes the product. Both U.S. and Canadian health officials test produce and meat, but their primary task is to manage outbreaks, not prevent them. Prevention begins on the farm. The major concern of growers here is water, as a parched California lumbers through its third consecutive dry season and is trying to come to terms with a nearly unprecedented drought. More than 98 percent of California land is now considered to be in an "exceptional drought," the highest level recorded by the U.S. Drought Monitor. Still, as demonstrated by the turnout at Goldenberg's agroterrorism series, farmers are increasingly aware of the dangers from terrorism. "While it's not a high priority – water has eclipsed everything else – there is concern about contamination of well heads," said Norm Groot, executive

director of the Monterey County Farm Bureau. "There are so many possible points where someone could insert something into the food chain. It's not a very difficult thing to do." Economic carnage In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, commerce was deeply affected. It took years for airlines to recover. Huge losses in the stock markets were sustained. Consumer confidence was shaken. History has already foreshadowed what could happen if an attack of that

magnitude were leveled on agriculture. In 2006, an outbreak of Escherichia coli, commonly called E. coli , sickened 199 people and killed three . Months later, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration traced the pathogen to an

Angus cattle ranch in neighboring San Benito County that had leased land to an organic spinach grower. The FDA called for bagged fresh spinach to be removed from shelves and warned people not to eat any kind of fresh spinach. California is where three-quarters of all domestically harvested spinach is grown. Farmers suffered an estimated loss of $74 million, much of that in the Salinas Valley, which now grows more than $122.6 million worth of spinach annually. But it took years of aggressive marketing and the implementation of new safety systems to restore consumer confidence. Susan Pheasant, director of the Agricultural Business & Technology Institute at Hartnell College, said the courses have dual impacts – preparing individuals for both intentional and unintentional outbreaks. "The Salinas Valley has always been proactive when it comes to food safety," she said. "Whether the act is intentional or unintentional, the idea of the courses are to encourage the ag community to work not only with local first responders, but with state and federal crisis teams as well." Even pathogens that

don't affect human health can wreak economic catastrophes. In 2001, England experienced its most devastating agricultural pathogen outbreak in its history, and not a single human got sick . Foot-and-mouth disease broke out on farms in Buckinghamshire and the Isle of Wigh, resulting in the worst animal slaughter in Great Britain's history – some 3.7 million cows, pigs, sheep and lambs had to be shot and cremated. Five months after the crisis, stockyards were still empty. British consumers lost faith in the industry and in their government. In the end, it cost England's agricultural industry $16 billion – four years worth of Salinas Valley's gross crop revenue. Dairymen lost their farms and many took their own lives. "It was no different than the stock brokers who jumped off buildings in New York in the crash of 1929," Goldenberg said. Similar outbreaks of FMD have occurred in Korea, Japan and Taiwan, with horrendous economic effects that lasted years. Similar outbreaks of FMD have occurred in Korea, Japan and Taiwan, with horrendous economic effects that lasted years. Attacks on food nothing new Recorded modern-era attacks on food supplies date back to World War I when German troops introduced a glanders virus – an infectious disease that occurs primarily in horses, mules, and donkeys – into the ranks of allied troops. Before mechanized troop and supply transports, the military relied on mules and horses to carry supplies. The attack debilitated or killed the mules and effectively brought allied advances to a halt. In 1984, the word "agroterror" was not a part of anyone's vernacular. But the Rajneeshee cult living in The Dalles,

Ore., carried out a near flawless attack on the town's food supply. A group of followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh had hoped to incapacitate the voting population of the city so that their own candidates would win the 1984 Wasco County elections. They began spraying salad bars in 10 local restaurants with salmonella, causing the poisoning of 751 people. The incident was the first and single largest bioterrorist attack in United States history, according to Scripps-Howard News Service. It

wasn't until years later that a confession uncovered the plot. Up until then, the cause was listed as unknown. Disturbing was the ease in which the cult manufactured the salmonella, Goldenberg said. Anyone with a degree in

microbiology and amateur beer brewing equipment can manufacture a host of human pathogens in their bathtubs . Yet these examples are amateurish compared to what British and American troops have unearthed in Afghanistan.

Agro-terror- Food InsecurityAgro-terrorism causes trade embargoes and spikes in food pricesJonathan Tucker, founding director of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program, 7/11, “The Threat of Agro-Terrorism”, http://fas.org/biosecurity/education/dualuse-agriculture/1.-agroterrorism-and-foodsafety/threat-agro-terrorism.html

Ever since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, western governments have become increasingly concerned that terrorists might launch attacks against agriculture or food-processing facilities, with the aim of causing economic damage, generating fear and panic, and undermining public trust in the food supply. The deliberate introduction of a plant or animal pathogen could result in crop failures or require the slaughter of millions of infected livestock, imposing serious hardships on farmers and downstream processors. Alternatively, toxic chemicals or radioactive isotopes might be used to contaminate food and beverages. Such incidents could result in increased food prices and trade embargoes, costing billions of dollars in lost revenue.

These spikes have major impacts on food security—hunger levels increase, especially in impoverished populations and developing countries.Stephen C. Smith, George Washington University, 2012, "Triple Threat of Unstable Food Prices," Heifer International, http://www.heifer.org/join-the-conversation/magazine/2012/spring-2012/triple-threat-of-unstable-food-prices.html

The scourge of hunger today is worse than it was a decade ago. In the aftermath of the first food price spike and the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, for the first time more than one billion people were significantly malnourished. Conditions improved slightly in 2010, but food prices spiked again in 2011, pushing the United

Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's food price index to a record high. About 925 million are currently hungry, not far from the all-time record. A family living in poverty in a low-income country may spend almost three-quarters of their income on food. Although prices have fallen somewhat from their peak earlier in 2011, "high food prices are likely to continue and volatility may increase in coming years, making farmers, consumers and countries more vulnerable to poverty and food insecurity," according to the FAQ's State of Food Insecurity in the World 2011

report. When food prices rise, so does hunger. In summer 2011, the United Nations declared a famine under way in parts of Somalia. Tens of thousands of people have died, a majority of them children, according to the U.N. Severe hunger caused by

drought, conflict and inequity is now found throughout the Horn of Africa. One problem is that some local food is exported out of the famine-struck area. The reason is simple: starving people don't have sufficient means to buy food, so traders sell it elsewhere, fetching a higher price. Looking closely at the links between food prices and malnutrition can help leaders, governments and organizations lay a foundation for building sound policies and programs to end hunger. Over the previous 40 years the world has learned to grow much more food, and prices fell substantially for a time. The Green Revolution brought improved crop varieties to Asia and productivity rose, increasing output and pushing prices down. Incomes of people living in poverty rose—not nearly enough, but many were able to afford more food than before. And in some parts of the world—China most prominently—incomes grew enough that many millions of people were able to add animal-based foods to their diet. The United Nations declared Oct. 31, 2011, the "Day of 7 Billion," a world population milestone. Within about 35 years, more than 9 billion people will need access to adequate food. Indeed, in May 2011 the U.N. raised its estimate of the peak population to 10 billion by the end of this century. But the number of people is the smaller part of the problem. The critical issue is what the people

do: how much do they consume, in what ways, and what environmental damage do they cause? Without some needed adjustments, a return of the world food problem is threatening. Extreme Poverty Graphic

courtesy of Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. By 2002, food prices started an unmistakable rising trend; in addition, prices became more variable and volatile; and finally, a third problem of upward spikes of food prices emerged. The Rising Food Price Trend

Clearly, rising food prices harm people living in poverty. But the effects are subtle. If the price of corn rises, as it did in 2007, smallholder corn producers, who sell a little of their corn on local markets and whose incomes are slightly below the absolute poverty line, may find that this price rise increases their incomes to pull them out of absolute poverty. On the other hand, for those with too little land to be able to sell corn and who are net buyers of corn on markets, this price increase can greatly worsen their poverty. Farm laborers can find that at least a little of the higher corn prices get passed on to them in the form of higher wages, and this can more than make up for higher food prices. But the urban poor— a growing faction of people living in poverty—are nearly always hurt by food price increases. Often the evidence suggests that many of the rural poor are hurt as well, sometimes substantially. Increasing Food Price Volatility Greater volatility also makes it hard to plan for sufficient food. Smallholder farmers, many of them living in poverty yet also selling some of their harvest on the market to pay for other essentials, now face greater risks. The good news is that some years they get a pleasant surprise and find higher prices for their goods at the market. But, in other years, unexpectedly low prices can be disastrous. When

they can do little more than pay for costs to farm, the family may face severe malnourishment. The New Scourge: Food Price Spikes Upward price spikes pose a third challenge for ending hunger. You can see two spikes in Figure 1. These sudden changes are about prices going up for a time, and far more than can be accounted for by any normal volatility (even

while volatility is also rising). These spikes particularly harm people living in poverty who are not in the agricultural sector, such as urban dwellers and people on the margins of rural society. Although

the poor often devise ingenious ways of saving even in the harshest of conditions, major food price spikes can overwhelm the ability of struggling families to cope. Rising Food Prices Graphic courtesy of Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Leading experts on food prices and their impact on people living in poverty convened at George Washington University on Sept. 30 for a daylong conference to better understand these three food price problems and consider action plans. More than 100 participants took part in the discussion.Why Is This Happening? Leading Experts Weigh In The Rising Food Price Trend Food prices are about 80 percent higher than they were in 2000, reversing a long declining trend of previous decades. Nora Lustig, a professor of Latin American Economics at Tulane University, said some of the price increases reflect longer-term forces that if left unchecked will lead to higher future food prices. These forces include diversion of food to biofuels production, increase in demand for grains through shifts to meat production due to higher incomes in China and elsewhere, a possible slowdown in the growth of output per acre of agricultural commodities, higher energy prices affecting agricultural input costs, and a decrease

in available land to convert to farming. Finally there is the negative impact of climate change on developing-country food production, with far worse effects likely ahead of us. Long-term forces cannot explain the volatility, let alone the spikes. But the spikes were exacerbated by a number of unfavorable policies that interfered with food prices, such as subsidies and mandates for biofuels. As Alain de Janvry, a professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California at Berkeley, pointed out, "the demand for energy is simply so big compared to the food market that it could completely overwhelm any price predictions" that do not take energy policy into account. Furthermore, there is not a large global market for food in relation to total demand. Most countries strive for food self-sufficiency, largely for national security reasons. Embargoes of food exports by such countries as Egypt, Vietnam and Russia reflect this reluctance to allow a freer global market when it comes to food. The World Bank reported in 2008 that growth in output per acre was leveling off and that prices would continue rising. In fact, prices increased far faster than even the World Bank predicted. Lustig explained that while "food is energy for human survival, food commodities have turned into industrial commodities, energy for machines." The result is less energy for people—at best, more expensive energy—when so many remain deprived of even a minimum of calories. "A majority of studies show that those who get hurt outnumber those who benefit" when food prices increase, she said. Unstable Food Prices In the 20th century, food prices fell close to 1 percent per year. Dr. Keith Fuglie, an economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said that in the early 1900s, falling shipping costs steered prices lower, with producers sending food from where it was grown cheaply and abundantly to where food prices were high. In the later decades of the 20th century, rising output per acre drove prices down. Today, that yield growth is slower, but Fuglie found we are still making gains despite smaller additions to inputs than before (especially the smaller number of workers in agriculture). This is a new and encouraging discovery. It should be putting downward pressure on food prices. Looking ahead, these forces may continue to slow the rate at which food prices increase. Findings like Fuglie's help reassure us that, while new problems complicate work toward a world free of hunger, with continued commitment the goal can still be attained. But Fuglie also found that these gains were not present in Africa, where most of the increase in population is expected. And although encouraging, his work is

retrospective: It does not take into account the projected worsening of environmental stresses not only from climate change but from localized deforestation, water scarcity, falling water tables, declining soil fertility, erosion, salination and other pollutants.

Increasing Food Price Volatility As climate change increasingly plays into agricultural productivity, output will be more volatile, said Maximo Torero, an economist and division chief at International Food Policy Research

Institute. Even if today's price volatility is a passing phase due to unregulated financial markets and other bad policies, volatility in some form will still be with us. So we have to take it seriously and plan to cushion people living in poverty from its harmful effects. Most of the factors pushing food prices up are also worsening the volatility of those prices, Torero said. For example, just a few countries account for the majority of exports of most staples. Government mandates to use ethanol, a corn-based biofuel, also increase volatility as well as price. And as volume in futures markets has increased, this also makes the price of food vulnerable to volatility: High volatility attracts more financial market participants, who learn that they can make money on trading, which can amplify instability. Finally, high futures market prices lead to high current market prices, a consequence of speculation. Food Prices Food Price Spikes Food price spikes are certainly not unprecedented. Remember the major shocks of the 1970s? But food price spikes returned with a vengeance in this century and conditions threaten more. Joachim von Braun, a professor at the University of Bonn and former director general of International Food Policy Research Institute, said the new spikes are driven by three factors: Energy markets: High oil prices are not just raising the costs of fertilizer but also giving farmers in rich countries incentive to use their crops for biofuel. Financial markets: There is a clear and growing link between food market volatility and financial crises. Speculation: The "speculation effect partly depends on the 'nervousness' of the market," von Braun explained. "What is called speculation actually stabilizes prices when the market is less nervous," because it can push markets to find prices consistent with supply and demand more quickly. But speculation is destabilizing "when the market becomes nervous as a result of changes in fundamentals, policies and structures." Shifts in sentiment can result in spikes.

Food shortages will collapse global civilization and cause a laundry list of impacts.Brown, 9—founder of both the WorldWatch Institute and the Earth Policy Institute (May 2009, Lester R., Scientific American, “Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization?” Ebsco)

The biggest threat to global stability is the potential for food crises in poor countries to cause government collapse. Those crises are brought on by ever worsening environmental degradation One of the toughest things for people to do is to anticipate sudden change. Typically we project the future by extrapolating from trends in the past. Much of the time this approach works well. But sometimes it fails spectacularly, and people are simply blindsided by events such as today's economic crisis. For most of us, the idea that civilization itself could disintegrate probably seems preposterous. Who would not find it hard to think seriously about such a complete departure from what we expect of ordinary life? What evidence could make us heed a warning so dire--and how would we go about responding to it? We are so inured to a long list of highly unlikely catastrophes that we are virtually programmed to dismiss them all with a wave of the hand: Sure, our civilization might devolve into chaos--and Earth

might collide with an asteroid, too! For many years I have studied global agricultural, population, environmental and economic trends and their interactions. The combined effects of those trends and the political tensions they generate point to the breakdown of governments and societies. Yet I, too, have resisted the idea that food shortages could bring down not only individual governments but

also our global civilization. I can no longer ignore that risk. Our continuing failure to deal with the environmental declines that are undermining the world food economy--most important, falling water tables, eroding soils and rising temperatures--forces

me to conclude that such a collapse is possible. The Problem of Failed States Even a cursory look at the vital signs of our current world order lends unwelcome support to my conclusion. And those of us in the environmental field are well into our third decade of charting trends of environmental decline without seeing any significant effort to reverse a

single one. In six of the past nine years world grain production has fallen short of consumption, forcing a steady drawdown in stocks. When the 2008 harvest began, world carryover stocks of grain (the amount in the bin when the new harvest begins) were at 62 days of consumption, a near record low. In response, world grain prices in the spring and summer of last year

climbed to the highest level ever. As demand for food rises faster than supplies are growing, the resulting food-price inflation puts severe stress on the governments of countries already teetering on the edge of chaos. Unable to buy grain or grow their own, hungry people take to the streets. Indeed, even before the steep climb in grain prices in 2008, the number of failing states was expanding [see sidebar at left]. Many of their

problem's stem from a failure to slow the growth of their populations. But if the food situation continues to

deteriorate, entire nations will break down at an ever increasing rate . We have entered a new era in

geopolitics. In the 20th century the main threat to international security was superpower conflict; today it is failing states. It is not the concentration of power but its absence that puts us at risk. States fail when national governments can no longer provide personal security, food security and basic social services such as education and health care. They often lose control of part or all of their territory. When governments lose their monopoly on power, law and order begin to disintegrate. After a point, countries can become so dangerous that food relief workers are no longer safe and their programs are halted; in Somalia and Afghanistan, deteriorating conditions have already put such programs in jeopardy.

Failing states are of international concern because they are a source of terrorists, drugs, weapons and refugees, threatening political stability everywhere. Somalia, number one on the 2008 list of failing states, has become a base for piracy. Iraq, number five, is a hotbed for terrorist training. Afghanistan, number seven, is the world's leading supplier of heroin. Following the massive genocide of 1994 in Rwanda, refugees from that troubled state, thousands

of armed soldiers among them, helped to destabilize neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (number six). Our global civilization depends on a functioning network of politically healthy nation-states to control the spread of infectious disease, to manage the international monetary system, to control international terrorism and to reach scores of other common goals. If the system for controlling infectious diseases--such as polio, SARS or avian flu--breaks down, humanity will be in trouble . Once states fail, no one assumes responsibility for their debt to outside lenders. If enough states disintegrate, their fall will threaten the stability of global civilization itself .

Conflict for food will escalate to global nuclear wars—empirics prove.FDI, Future Directions International, a Research institute providing strategic analysis of Australia’s global interests citing an enormous list of experts including Chris Baker, Research Analyst, Centre for International Security Studies, University of Sydney, Lindsay Falvery, PhD in Agricultural Science and former Professor at the University of Melbourne’s Institute of Land and Environment and John Noonan, Senior Lecturer, Leader, Farm Business Resilience and Safe Quality Food Programmes, School of Management, Curtin Business School, May 25th 2012, “International Conflict Triggers and Potential Conflict Points Resulting from Food and Water Insecurity,” http://www.futuredirections.org.au/files/Workshop_Report_-_Intl_Conflict_Triggers_-_May_25.pdf

There is a growing appreciation that the conflicts in the next century will most likely be fought over a lack of resources. Yet, in a sense, this is not new. Researchers point to the French and Russian revolutions as conflicts induced by a lack of food. More recently, Germany’s World War Two efforts are said to have been inspired, at least in part, by its perceived need to gain access to more food. Yet the

general sense among those that attended FDI’s recent workshops, was that the scale of the problem in the future could be significantly greater as a result of population pressures, changing weather, urbanisation, migration, loss of arable land and other farm

inputs, and increased affluence in the developing world. In his book, Small Farmers Secure Food, Lindsay Falvey, a participant in FDI’s March

2012 workshop on the issue of food and conflict, clearly expresses the problem and why countries across the globe are starting to take

note. . He writes (p.36), “…if people are hungry, especially in cities, the state is not stable – riots, violence, breakdown of law

and order and migration result.” “Hunger feeds anarchy.” This view is also shared by Julian Cribb, who in his book, The Coming Famine, writes that if “large regions of the world run short of food, land or water in the decades that lie ahead, then wholesale, bloody wars are liable to follow.” He continues: “An increasingly credible scenario for World War 3 is

not so much a confrontation of super powers and their allies, as a festering , self-perpetuating chain of resource conflicts.” He also says: “The wars of the 21st Century are less likely to be global conflicts with sharply defined sides and huge armies, than a scrappy mass of failed states, rebellions, civil strife, insurgencies, terrorism and genocides, sparked by bloody competition over dwindling resources.” As another workshop participant put it, people do not go to war to kill; they go to war over resources, either to protect or to gain the resources for

themselves. Another observed that hunger results in passivity not conflict. Conflict is over resources, not because people are going hungry. A study by the I nternational P eace R esearch I nstitute indicates that where food security is an issue, it is

more likely to result in some form of conflict. Darfur, Rwanda, Eritrea and the Balkans experienced such wars. Governments, especially in developed countries, are increasingly aware of this phenomenon. The UK Ministry of Defence, the CIA, the US Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Oslo Peace Research Institute, all identify famine as a potential trigger for conflicts and possibly even nuclear war.

EconA terrorist attack would crush the economyBandyopadhyay et al 15 -- Subhayu Bandyopadhyay is Research Officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and Research Fellow at IZA, Bonn, Germany. Todd Sandler is Vibhooti Shukla Professor of Economics and Political Economy at the University of Texas at Dallas. Javed Younasis Associate Professor of Economics at the American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. “The Toll of Terrorism” http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2015/06/bandyopa.htm

*modified for ableist language*

New technology has lowered transportation costs and increased trade and capital flows across nations. But

the same technology that has fostered international economic growth has also allowed terrorism to spread easily among countries whose interests are tightly interwoven . Terrorism is no longer

solely a local issue. Terrorists can strike from thousands of miles away and cause vast destruction . The effects of terrorism can be terrifyingly direct. People are kidnapped or killed. Pipelines are sabotaged. Bombers strike markets, buses, and restaurants with devastating effect. But terrorism inflicts more than human casualties and material losses. It can also cause serious indirect harm to countries and economies by increasing the costs of economic transactions—for example, because of enhanced security measures to ensure the safety of employees and customers or higher insurance premiums. Terrorist attacks in Yemen on the USS Cole in 2000 and on the French tanker Limburg in 2002 seriously damaged that country’s shipping industry. These attacks contributed to a 300 percent rise in insurance premiums for

ships using that route and led ships to bypass Yemen entirely (Enders and Sandler, 2012). In this article we explore the economic burden of terrorism. It can take myriad forms, but we focus on three: national income losses and growth-[slowing]retarding effects, dampened foreign direct investment, and disparate effects on international trade.

Terrorism will destroy the US econ along with those of other countries(Dan Weil, 7-16-2015, “Celente: Terrorist Attack Would Crash World Economy,” Newsmax, http://www.newsmax.com/Finance/StreetTalk/terrorist-gold-silver-HomelandSecurity/2011/07/07/id/402861)

Another terrorist attack would create a global economic disaster, says economic and political guru Gerald Celente, director of The Trends Research Institute. The wise investment strategy in such a scenario would be to buy silver and gold while selling currencies, he tells King World News. “What will another major terror strike mean should an attack hit one of the major

NATO nations?” Celente says. “The effects this time will go global. Bank holidays will be called, the U.S. and other fragile economies will crumble, gold and silver will soar, and already troubled currencies will crash. Economic martial law will be declared, promised as a temporary measure. Once in place it will remain in place.” And don’t expect

your ATM card to be of much use. “With banks closed and economic martial law in place, restrictions will be set on the amounts, times and frequencies of withdrawals (of cash). It will be essential to have a stash of cash on hand,” Celente says.

Multiple shocks on econ after terror attacks—foreign direct investment, infrastructure, tradeSandler and Ender 10

(Todd Sandler, Professor of International Relations and Economics at the University of Southern California, Walter Enders, Bidgood Chair of Economics and Finance at the University of Alabama, July 2010, http://www.utdallas.edu/~tms063000/website/Econ_Consequences_ms.pdf)

Terrorism can impose costs on a targeted country through a number of avenues. Terrorist incidents have economic consequences by diverting foreign direct investment (FDI), destroying infrastructure, redirecting public investment funds to security, or limiting trade. If a developing

country loses enough FDI, which is an important source of savings, then it may also experience reduced economic growth. Just as capital may take flight from a country plagued by a civil war (see Collier et al., 2003), a sufficiently intense terrorist campaign may greatly reduce capital inflows (Enders and Sandler, 1996). Terrorism, like civil conflicts, may cause spillover costs 2 among neighboring countries as a terrorist campaign in a neighbor dissuades capital inflows, or a regional multiplier causes lost economic activity in the terrorism-ridden country to resonate throughout the region.1 In some instances, terrorism may impact specific industries as 9/11 did on airlines and tourism (Drakos, 2004; Ito and Lee, 2004). Another cost is the expensive security measures that must be instituted following large attacks – e.g., the massive homeland security outlays since 9/11 (Enders and Sandler, 2006, Chapter 10). Terrorism also raises the costs of doing business in terms of higher insurance premiums, expensive security precautions, and larger salaries to at-risk employees.

Domestic terrorism deters foreign direct investment – even small attacks crush investor confidence Bandyopadhyay et al 15 -- Subhayu Bandyopadhyay is Research Officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and Research Fellow at IZA, Bonn, Germany. Todd Sandler is Vibhooti Shukla Professor of Economics and Political Economy at the University of Texas at Dallas. Javed Younasis Associate Professor of Economics at the American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. “The Toll of Terrorism” http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2015/06/bandyopa.htm

Scaring off investors Increased terrorism in a particular area tends to depress the expected return on capital invested there, which shifts investment elsewhere. This reduces the stock of productive capital and the flow of productivity-enhancing technology to the affected nation. For example, from the mid-1970s through 1991, terrorist

incidents reduced net foreign direct investment in Spain by 13.5 percent and in Greece by 11.9 percent (Enders and Sandler, 1996). In fact, the initial loss of productive resources as a result of terrorism may increase manyfold because potential foreign investors shift their investments to other, presumably safer, destinations. Abadie and

Gardeazabal (2008) showed that a relatively small increase in the perceived risk of terrorism can cause an outsized reduction in a country’s net stock of foreign direct investment and inflict significant damage on its economy. We

analyzed 78 developing economies over the period 1984–2008 (Bandyopadhyay, Sandler, and Younas, 2014) and found that on average a relatively small increase in a country’s domestic terrorist incidents per 100,000 persons sharply reduced net foreign direct investment . There was a similarly large reduction in net investment if the terrorist incidents originated abroad or involved foreigners or foreign assets in the attacked country. We also found that greater official aid flows can substantially offset the damage to foreign direct investment—perhaps in part because the increased aid allows recipient nations to invest in more effective counterterrorism efforts. Most countries that experienced above-average domestic or transnational terrorist incidents during 1970–2011 received less foreign direct investment or foreign aid than the average among the 122 in the sample (see table). It is difficult to assess causation, but the table suggests a troubling association between terrorism and depressed aid and foreign direct investment, both of which are crucial for developing economies. It is generally believed that there are higher risks in trading with a nation afflicted by terrorism, which cause an increase in transaction costs and tend to reduce trade. For example, after the September 11 attacks on New York City and the Washington, D.C., area, the U.S. border was temporarily closed, holding up truck traffic between the United States and Canada for an extended time. Nitsch and Schumacher (2004) analyzed a sample of 200 countries over the period 1960–93 and found that when terrorism incidents in a pair of trading countries

double in one year, trade between them falls by about 4 percent that same year. They also found that when one of two trading partners suffers at least one terrorist attack, it reduces trade between them to 91 percent of what it would be in the absence of terrorism. Blomberg and Hess (2006) estimated that terrorism and other internal and external conflicts retard trade as much as a 30 percent tariff. More specifically, they found that any trading partner that experienced terrorism experienced close to a 4 percent reduction in bilateral trade. But Egger and Gassebner (2015) found more modest trade effects. Terrorism had few to no short-term effects; it was significant over the medium term, which they defined as “more than one and a half years after an attack/incident.” Abstracting from the impact of transaction costs from terrorism, Bandyopadhyay and Sandler (2014b) found that terrorism may not necessarily reduce trade, because resources can be reallocated. If terrorism disproportionately harmed one productive resource (say land) relative to another (say labor), then resources would flow to the labor-intensive sector. If a country exported labor-intensive goods, such as textiles, terrorism could actually lead to increased production and exportation. In other words, although terrorism may reduce trade in a particular product because it increases transaction costs, its ultimate impact may be either to raise or reduce overall trade. These apparently contradictory empirical and theoretical findings present rich prospects for future study. Of course terrorism has repercussions beyond human and material destruction and the economic effects discussed in this

article. Terrorism also influences immigration and immigration policy. The traditional gains and losses from the international movement of labor may be magnified by national security considerations rooted in a terrorism response. For example, a recent study by Bandyopadhyay and Sandler (2014a) focused on a terrorist organization based in a developing country. It showed that the immigration policy of the developed country targeted by the terrorist group can be critical to containing transnational terrorism. Transnational terrorism targeted at well-protected developed countries tends to be more skill intensive: it takes a relatively sophisticated terrorist to plan and successfully execute such an attack. Immigration policies that attract highly skilled people to developed countries can drain the pool of highly skilled terrorist recruits and may cut down on transnational terrorism.

FDI Key to the US EconForeign direct investment competitiveness is vital to sustained economic recovery Kornecki ’13 [L. PhD in Economics, Prof Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s College of Business. “Inward FDI in the United States and its policy context” Columbia FDI Profiles, 2/4/13 http://www.vcc.columbia.edu/files/vale/documents/US_IFDI_-_FINAL_-_REVISED_Feb_4_2013.pdf]

Inward foreign direct investment (IFDI) represents ¶ an integral part of the United States (U.S.)¶ economy, with its

stock growing from US$ 83 billion¶ in 1980 to US$ 3.5 trillion in 2011. The ¶ United States , which had earlier been primarily a h¶ ome for multinational enterprises (MNEs)¶ rather than a host for affiliates of foreign MNEs,¶ has become a preferred host

country for FDI¶ since the 1980s. Foreign MNEs have contributed robu ¶ st flows of FDI into diverse industries of¶ the U.S. economy, and total FDI inflows reached US$¶ 227 billion in 2011, equivalent to 15% of ¶ global inflows, the single largest share of any eco¶ nomy. Inflows of FDI, with a peak of US$ 314¶ billion in 2000 and another of US$ 306

billion in 2¶ 008, have been an important factor ¶ contributing to sustained economic growth in the Un¶ ited States. The recent financial and¶ economic crises negatively impacted FDI flows to th¶ e United States and opened a period of¶

major uncertainty. The effectiveness of government ¶ policy responses at both the national and ¶ international levels in addressing the financial cr ¶ isis and its economic consequences will play a ¶ crucial role for creating favorable conditions for¶ a rebound in FDI inflows. Inward foreign direct investment is an essential co ¶ mponent of the U.S. economy, contributing to ¶ production , exports and high- paying jobs for the co ¶ untry’s workers. As the world’s largest¶ economy, the United States is well positioned to pa ¶ rticipate in the increasingly competitive¶ international environment for FDI that has emerged¶ as both advanced and developing economies have recognized the value of such investment. The U ¶ .S. hosts the largest stock of IFDI among¶ the world’s economies and continues to be at the top as a destination for inward FDI flows .

Retaliation Terrorist retaliation causes nuclear war – draws in Russia and ChinaRobert Ayson, Professor of Strategic Studies and Director of the Centre for Strategic Studies: New Zealand at the Victoria University of Wellington, 2010 (“After a Terrorist Nuclear Attack: Envisaging Catalytic Effects,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Volume 33, Issue 7, July, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via InformaWorld)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 worlds—a non-state actor nuclear attack and a catastrophic interstate nuclear exchange—are 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. t 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, 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 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 perpetrator or encourager of the attack? 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.

Nuclear terrorism causes global nuclear escalation – national retaliation goes globalMorgan 9 (Dennis Ray, Professor of Foreign Studies at Hankuk University, “World on Fire: Two Scenarios of the Destruction of Human Civilization and Possible Extinction of the Human Race,” Futures, Vol. 41, Issue 10, p683-693, ScienceDirect)

In a remarkable website on nuclear war, Carol Moore asks the question "Is Nuclear War Inevitable??" [10].4 In Section 1, Moore points out what most terrorists obviously already know about the nuclear tensions between powerful countries. No doubt, they've figured out that the best way to escalate these tensions into nuclear war is to set off a nuclear exchange. As Moore points out, all that militant terrorists would have to do is get their hands on one small nuclear bomb and explode it on either Moscow or Israel. Because of the Russian "dead hand" system, "where regional nuclear commanders would be given full powers should Moscow be destroyed," it is likely that any attack would be blamed on the United States" [10]. Israeli leaders and Zionist supporters have, likewise, stated for years that if Israel were to suffer a nuclear attack, whether from terrorists or a nation state, it would retaliate with the suicidal "Samson option" against all major Muslim cities in the Middle East. Furthermore, the Israeli Samson option would also include attacks on Russia and even "anti-Semitic" European cities [10]. In that case, of course, Russia would retaliate, and the U.S. would then retaliate against Russia. China would probably be involved as well, as thousands, if not tens of thousands, of nuclear warheads, many of them much more powerful than those used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, would rain upon most of the major cities in the Northern Hemisphere. Afterwards, for years to come, massive radioactive clouds would drift throughout the Earth in the nuclear fallout, bringing death or else radiation disease that would be genetically transmitted to future generations in a nuclear winter that could last as long as a 100 years, taking a savage toll upon the environment and fragile ecosphere as well.

Retaliation increases terrorism—more violence, easier recruitmentJohn A. Nevin, Behavior and Social Issues, 12, 109-128 (2003). Behaviorists for Social Responsibilit

Retaliation may reduce terrorism in several ways. Arresting terrorists takes them out of action and trying them within the criminal justice system legitimizes authority. Targeted killings of the leaders of terrorist organizations disrupt their operations and buy time while the terrorists regroup. Finally, large-scale attacks on terrorist groups and their supporters, coupled with mass

arrests, reduce their numbers and may deter potential recruits to their cause. On the other hand, retaliation in any

form may increase terrorism in several ways. It may incite terrorists to escalate the level of violence, increase their support in the population, and make it easier to recruit new members to their cause.

Retaliation is risky—multitude of escalation scenariosMallow 97

(Brittain P., 1997, The Industrial College of the Armed Forces, “Terror vs. Terror: Effects of Military Retaliation on Terrorism,” http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/icaf/97-e-12.pdf)

Like terrorism, retaliation is a form of communication through violence. It can affect multiple audiences for many purposes: bolstering public opinion, destroying/disrupting terrorist infrastructure, and potentially deterring the choice of the terrorist tactic. Symmetry, proportionality, and discrimination in the targeting of retaliation all vary its effects on audiences. To deter terrorists and their supporters, retaliation must meet the requirements of deterrence theory: credibility, shared interest, and

rationality. Examples of retaliation for terrorism indicate there are significant problems with its effectiveness as a deterrent. Its viability is diminished by the transience and fragility of credibility, the moral and legal "baggage" of retaliation itself, and the differences in values and interests between terrorists/supporters and retaliating states. Retaliation also presents substantial risks beyond its failure to deter. Force protection, dangers of escalatory violence, and risks of condemnation by the world community accompany the use of retaliation. These risks, combined with its questionable viability as a deterrent, make retaliation a difficult policy choice.

Breakdown of relations between the US and Pakistan causes conflictStephen Tankel, professor at American University and a nonresident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, A Pakistan-Based Terrorist Attack on the U.S. Homeland, August 2011A successful terrorist attack of any proportion by a Pakistan-based group or groups would have significant domestic and foreign policy implications for the United States. Although the economic repercussions are unlikely to be as severe as those following 9/11,

even a small attack could trigger a short-term dip in already shaky global markets. An attack also would reintroduce a sense of domestic vulnerability, particularly if it claims hundreds as opposed to tens of lives and/or the target is an iconic

one. The origin of the attack—Pakistan—would cause a distraction from other pressing foreign policy concerns. All of these issues would be magnified by the forthcoming presidential campaign season. The immediate impact on U.S.-Pakistan relations would depend on several factors—the nature and scale of the harm committed; which group(s), if any, claimed responsibility; the immediate public response by the Pakistan civilian government and military; and the level of cooperation they subsequently offered. The number of people killed is likely to be among the largest determining factors in a

response, though an attack against a political or military target that causes few casualties could also have a major impact. Any indication that individuals or entities associated with the Pakistan army or ISI had foreknowledge of the strike or had in any way aided it would have severe consequences for the bilateral relationship. Even if there were no smoking gun, the involvement of a culprit with institutional ties to the state would be incredibly deleterious, as would Pakistan’s failure to cooperate with U.S. authorities in the wake of the attack. Much rests on the bilateral relationship. A complete rupture is unlikely because both sides have a lot to lose. A further deterioration in relations could seriously compromise counterterrorism and nonproliferation interests, not to mention regional

diplomatic initiatives, especially in Afghanistan. Pakistan’s security establishment also might enact a short-term

closure of corridors through which U.S. supplies pass into Afghanistan. Were a complete rupture to occur, this could lead to an indefinite closure of these corridors, an end to Pakistani support along the Durand Line, and an increased flow of insurgents across the border. The U.S. diplomatic mission to Pakistan could shrink significantly, Pakistani counterterrorism cooperation could cease, and in a worst-case scenario the threat to American

Anti-Black TerrorismTerrorists are destroying historically Black churches throughout the South in the wake of the mass murder in Charleston, South Carolina. This not only represents thousands of dollars in damages to the churches but also a resurfacing of decades of terror in the Jim Crow South.Emma Green, managing editor of TheAtlantic.com, 7-1-2015, "Black Churches Are Burning Again in America," Atlantic, http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/07/arson-churches-north-carolina-georgia/396881/

On Wednesday, July 1, a fire was reported at the Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church in Greeleyville, South Carolina. The AP reports that an anonymous federal official said the fire did not appear to be intentionally set, but Winfred Pressley, a division operations officer at the regional Alcohol, Firearms, and Tobacco division, said that the investigation is still ongoing, as did other local investigators. Shanna Daniels, a spokesperson for the FBI, declined to comment on the case, but said that church arson “has been a hot topic over the past few days.” “What's the church doing on fire?”

Jeanette Dudley, the associate pastor of God's Power Church of Christ in Macon, Georgia, got a call a little after 5 a.m. on Wednesday, June 24, she told a local TV news station. Her tiny church of about a dozen members had been burned, probably beyond repair. The Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, and

Tobacco got called in, which has been the standard procedure for church fires since the late 1960s. Investigators say they’ve ruled out possible causes like an electrical malfunction; most likely, this was arson. The very same night, many miles away in North Carolina, another church burned: Briar Creek Road Baptist Church, which was set on fire some time around 1 a.m. Investigators have ruled it an act of arson, the AP reports; according to The Charlotte Observer, they haven’t yet determined whether it might be a

hate crime. Two other predominantly black churches have been the target of possible arson in the past fornight: Glover Grove Missionary Baptist Church in Warrenville, South Carolina, which caught fire on Friday, and College Hill Seventh Day Adventist, which burned on Monday in Knoxville, Tennessee. Investigators in Knoxville told a local news station they believed it was an act of vandalism, although they aren’t investigating the incident as a hate crime. (There have also been at least four other cases of fires at churches in the past fortnight. At Fruitland Presbyterian Church in Gibson County, Tennessee, and the Greater Miracle Temple Apostolic Holiness Church in Tallahassee, Florida, officials suspect the blazes were caused by lightning and electrical wires, respectively, but investigations are still ongoing. A church that is not predominantly black—College Heights Baptist Church in Elyria, Ohio—was burned on Saturday morning. The fire appears to have been started in the sanctuary, and WKYC reports that the cause is still under investigation. The town’s fire and police departments did not immediately return calls for confirmation on Sunday.* And a Monday,

June 29, fire at Disciples of Christ Ministries in Jackson, Mississippi, was ruled accidental.) These fires join the murder of nine people at Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church as major acts of violence perpetrated against predominantly black churches in the last fortnight. Churches are burning again in the United States, and the symbolism of that is powerful. Even though many instances of arson have happened at white churches, the crime is often association with racial violence: a highly visible attack on a core institution of the black community, often done at night, and often motivated by hate. As my colleague David Graham noted last week, the history of American church burnings dates to before the Civil War, but there was a major uptick in incidents of arson at black churches in the middle and late 20th century. One of the most famous was the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, which killed four girls. Three decades later, cases of church arson rose sharply. In response, in 1995, President Bill Clinton also set up a church-arson investigative task force, and in 1996, Congress passed a law increasing the sentences for arsonists who target religious organizations, particularly for reasons of race or ethnicity. Between 1995 and 1999, Clinton’s task force reported that it opened 827 investigations into burnings and bombings at houses of worship; it was later disbanded. In recent years, it’s been harder to get a clear sense of the number of church fires across the country. The National Fire Protection Association reports that between 2007 and 2011, there were an average of 280 intentionally set fires at

houses of worship in America each year, although a small percentage of those took place at other religious organizations, like funeral homes. One of the organization’s staffers, Marty Ahrens, said that tracking church arson has become much more complicated since reporting standards changed in the late ‘90s. Sometimes, fires that are reported to the National Fire Incident Reporting System are considered “suspicious,” but they can’t be reported as arson until they’re definitively ruled “intentional.” Even then, it’s difficult to determine what motivated an act of arson. “To know that something is motivated by hate, you either have to know who did it or they have to leave you a message in some way that makes it very obvious,” she said. “There are an awful lot of [intentionally set

fires] that are not hate crimes—they’re run-of-the-mill kids doing stupid things.” The investigations in North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, Ohio, and Tennessee are still ongoing, and they may end up in that broad category of fires of suspicious, but ultimately unknowable, origin that Ahrens described. But no matter why they happened, these fires are a troubling reminder of the vulnerability of our sacred institutions in the days following one of the most violent attacks on a church in recent memory. It’s true that a stupid kid might stumble backward into one of the most symbolically terrifying crimes possible in the United States, but that doesn’t make the terror of churches burning any less powerful.

What has the government done in response to this rise in terrorism? Nothing. Now, the aff calls to decrease domestic surveillance, making any chance of involving federal authorities to investigate who these terrorists are impossible. The burning of Black churches in the south necessitates an increase of domestic surveillance in order to prevent future horrific attacks.Deirdre Griswold, 7-14-2015, "As Black churches burn, where are the feds?," Workers World, http://www.workers.org/articles/2015/06/29/as-black-churches-burn-where-are-the-feds/

As of June 29, six Black churches in the South have either been destroyed or suffered severe damage from fires since Charleston. At least three are confirmed to have been caused by arson, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The loss to the people of these communities comes to hundreds of

thousands of dollars. Worse, the torchings are a threat of further violence to a people whose painful history at the hands of white exploiters still resonates so strongly. The first burning deemed by fire marshals to be arson destroyed the College Hills Seventh Day Adventist Church in Knoxville, Tenn., on June 22. The Knoxville fire department said the arsonist set multiple fires on the church’s property. The church’s van was also burned. The very next day, a fire in the sanctuary of God’s Power Church of Christ in Macon, Ga., was also blamed on arson. And the day after that, a fire was deliberately set at the Briar Creek Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C., that destroyed an education wing meant to house a summer program for children. The gymnasium and sanctuary burned, causing an estimated $250,000 in damage. That same week, three other Southern Black churches — in Tennessee, Florida and South Carolina — also suffered fires, although two may have had natural

causes. Investigations are continuing. After what happened in Charleston, S.C., there can be little doubt that the arson fires were set by white supremacists, whose outpourings of hate in print and on the Internet call again and again for violence against people of color, using at best flimsily disguised language and at worst the vilest and most degrading terms. One might think that mass murder of the type that happened in Charleston would immediately lead to arrests of those advocating race war against Black people. We have seen many examples in recent years of elaborate sting operations set up by the FBI and local police authorities to ensnare Black militants on charges of plotting terrorist acts — which government agents had encouraged and facilitated. But just as with the murders of the three civil rights workers in 1964 — James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner — by members of the Ku Klux Klan, the authorities have not intervened to stop such attacks, even though it is logical to assume that, in this day and age of wide surveillance, they have knowledge of them.

Although before Charleston, the FBI and NSA were not doing enough to fight right-wing terrorism, after the recent increase in attacks, the focus has shifted to fight right-wing and white supremacist extremists.Jaeah Lee, 6-17-2015, "The Rise Of Violent Right-Wing Extremism, Explained," Mother Jones, http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/06/right-wing-extremism-explainer-charleston-mass-shooting-terrorism

The federal and local governments ramped up efforts to combat domestic terrorism of all kinds in the wake of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people. A few months following the 9/11 attacks, FBI official Dale Watson testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee that "right-wing groups continue to represent a serious terrorist threat." But Johnson, German, and others assert that federal counterterrorism programs since 9/11 have focused overwhelmingly on the perceived threat from Islamic extremism. That includes the Obama administration's "countering violent extremism" strategy, which "revolves around impeding the radicalization of violent jihadists," according to a 2014 Congressional Research Service report. The attack in Charleston underscored "the failure of the federal government to keep closer tabs" on right-wing extremists, argues Gerald Horne, a historian and civil rights activist at the University of Houston. But the focus may soon increase. In February, CNN reported that DHS circulated an intelligence assessment that focused on the domestic terror threat posed by right-wing extremists. Kurzman and Schanzer also point to a handout from a training program sponsored by the Department of Justice, cautioning that the threat from antigovernment extremism "is real."

As the aff calls for a decrease in surveillance of white terrorists, justifying the murder of black people and destruction of black religious sites, they ignore the unwarranted, unjust surveillance of Black and Brown people used by local police departments to further structural racism and criminalize people of color. Malkia Amala Cyril, 4-1-2015, "Black America's State of Surveillance," The Progressive Inc., http://www.progressive.org/news/2015/03/188074/black-americas-state-surveillance

Ten years ago, on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, my mother, a former Black Panther, died from complications of sickle cell anemia. Weeks before she died, the FBI came knocking at our door, demanding that my mother testify in a secret trial proceeding against other former Panthers or face arrest. My mother, unable to walk, refused. The detectives told my mother as they left that they would be watching her. They didn’t get to do that. My mother died just two weeks later. My mother was not the only black person to come under the watchful eye of American law enforcement for perceived and actual dissidence. Nor is dissidence always a requirement for being subject to spying. Files obtained during a break-in at an FBI office in 1971 revealed that African Americans, J. Edger Hoover’s largest target group, didn’t have to be perceived as dissident to warrant surveillance. They just had to be black. As I write this, the same philosophy is driving the increasing adoption and use of surveillance technologies by local law enforcement agencies across the United States. Today, media reporting on

government surveillance is laser-focused on the revelations by Edward Snowden that millions of Americans were being spied on by the NSA. Yet my mother’s visit from the FBI reminds me that, from the slave pass system to laws that deputized white civilians as enforcers of Jim Crow, black people and other people of color have lived for centuries with surveillance practices aimed at maintaining a racial hierarchy. It’s time for journalists to tell a new story that does not start the clock when privileged classes learn they are targets of surveillance. We need to understand that data has historically been overused to repress dissidence, monitor perceived criminality, and perpetually maintain an impoverished underclass. In an era of big data, the Internet has increased the speed and secrecy of data collection. Thanks to new surveillance technologies, law enforcement agencies are now able to collect massive amounts of indiscriminate data. Yet legal protections and policies have not caught up to this technological advance. Concerned advocates see mass surveillance as the problem and protecting privacy as the goal. Targeted surveillance is an obvious answer—it may be discriminatory, but it helps protect the privacy perceived as an earned privilege of the inherently innocent. The trouble is, targeted surveillance frequently includes the indiscriminate collection of the private data of people targeted by race but not involved in any crime. For targeted communities, there is little to no expectation of privacy from government or corporate surveillance. Instead, we are watched, either as criminals or as consumers. We do not expect policies to protect us. Instead, we’ve birthed a complex and coded culture—from jazz to spoken dialects—in order to navigate a world in which spying, from AT&T and Walmart to public benefits programs and beat cops on the block, is as much a part of our built environment as the streets covered in our blood. In a recent address, New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton made it clear: “2015 will be one of the most significant years in the history of this organization. It will be the year of technology, in which we literally will give to every member of this department technology that would’ve been unheard of even a few years ago.” Predictive policing, also known as “Total Information Awareness,” is described as using advanced technological tools and data analysis to “preempt” crime. It utilizes trends, patterns, sequences, and affinities found in data to make determinations about when and where crimes will occur. This model is deceptive, however, because it presumes data inputs to be neutral. They aren’t. In a racially discriminatory criminal justice system, surveillance technologies reproduce injustice. Instead of reducing discrimination, predictive policing is a face of what author Michelle Alexander calls the “New Jim Crow”—a de facto system of separate and unequal application of laws, police practices, conviction rates, sentencing terms, and conditions of confinement that operate more as a system of social control by racial hierarchy than as crime prevention or punishment. In New York City, the predictive policing approach in use is “Broken Windows.” This approach to policing places an undue focus on quality of life crimes—like selling loose cigarettes, the kind of offense for which Eric Garner was choked to death. Without oversight, accountability, transparency, or rights, predictive policing is just high-tech racial profiling—indiscriminate data collection that drives discriminatory policing practices. As local law enforcement agencies increasingly adopt surveillance technologies, they use them in three primary ways: to listen in on specific conversations on and offline; to observe daily movements of individuals and groups; and to observe data trends. Police departments like Bratton’s aim to use sophisticated technologies to do all three. They will use technologies like license plate readers, which the Electronic Frontier Foundation found to be disproportionately used in communities of color

and communities in the process of being gentrified. They will use facial recognition, biometric scanning software, which the FBI has now rolled out as a national system, to be adopted by local police departments for any criminal justice purpose. They intend to use body and dashboard cameras, which have been touted as an effective step toward accountability based on the results of one study, yet storage and archiving procedures, among many other issues, remain unclear. They will use Stingray cellphone interceptors. According to the ACLU, Stingray technology is an invasive cellphone surveillance device that mimics cellphone towers and sends out signals to trick cellphones in the area into transmitting their locations and identifying information. When used to track a suspect’s cellphone, they also gather information about the phones of countless bystanders who happen to be nearby. The same is true of domestic drones, which are in increasing use by U.S. law enforcement to conduct routine aerial surveillance. While drones are currently unarmed, drone manufacturers are considering arming these remote-controlled aircraft with weapons like rubber bullets, tasers, and tear gas. They will use fusion centers. Originally designed to increase interagency collaboration for the purposes of counterterrorism, these have instead become the local arm of the intelligence community. According to Electronic Frontier Foundation, there are currently seventy-eight on record. They are the clearinghouse for increasingly used “suspicious activity reports”—described as “official documentation of observed behavior reasonably indicative of pre-operational planning related to terrorism or other criminal activity.” These reports and other collected data are often stored in massive databases like e-Verify and Prism. As anybody who’s ever dealt with gang databases knows, it’s almost impossible to get off a federal or state database, even when the data collected is incorrect or no longer true. Predictive policing doesn’t just lead to racial and religious profiling—it relies on it. Just as stop and frisk legitimized an initial, unwarranted contact between police and people of color, almost 90 percent of whom turn out to be innocent of any crime, suspicious activities reporting and the dragnet approach of fusion centers target communities of color. One review of such reports collected in Los Angeles shows approximately 75 percent were of people of color. This is the future of policing in America, and it should terrify you as much as it terrifies me. Unfortunately, it probably doesn’t, because my life is at far greater risk than the lives of white Americans, especially those reporting on the issue in the media or advocating in the halls of power. One of the most terrifying aspects of high-tech surveillance is the invisibility of those it disproportionately impacts. The NSA and FBI have engaged local law enforcement agencies and electronic surveillance technologies to spy on Muslims living in the United States. According to FBI training materials uncovered by Wired in 2011, the bureau taught agents to treat “mainstream” Muslims as supporters of terrorism, to view charitable donations by Muslims as “a funding mechanism for combat,” and to view Islam itself as a “Death Star” that must be destroyed if terrorism is to be contained. From New York City to Chicago and beyond, local law enforcement agencies have expanded unlawful and covert racial and religious profiling against Muslims not suspected of any crime. There is no national security reason to profile all Muslims. At the same time, almost 450,000 migrants are in detention facilities throughout the United States, including survivors of torture, asylum seekers, families with small children, and the elderly. Undocumented migrant communities enjoy few legal protections, and are therefore subject to brutal policing practices, including illegal surveillance practices. According to the Sentencing Project, of the more than 2 million people incarcerated in the United States, more

than 60 percent are racial and ethnic minorities. But by far, the widest net is cast over black communities. Black people alone represent 40 percent of those incarcerated. More black men are incarcerated than were held in slavery in 1850, on the eve of the Civil War. Lest some misinterpret that statistic as evidence of greater criminality, a 2012 study confirms that black defendants are at least 30 percent more likely to be imprisoned than whites for the same crime. This is not a broken system, it is a system working perfectly as intended, to the detriment of all. The NSA could not have spied on millions of cellphones if it were not already spying on black people, Muslims, and migrants. As surveillance technologies are increasingly adopted and integrated by law enforcement agencies today, racial disparities are being made invisible by a media environment that has failed to tell the story of surveillance in the context of structural racism. Reporters love to tell the technology story. For some, it’s a sexier read. To me, freedom from repression and racism is far sexier than the newest gadget used to reinforce racial hierarchy. As civil rights protections catch up with the technological terrain, reporting needs to catch up, too. Many journalists still focus their reporting on the technological trends and not the racial hierarchies that these trends are enforcing. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Everything we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.” Journalists have an obligation to tell the stories that are hidden from view. We are living in an incredible time, when migrant activists have blocked deportation buses, and a movement for black lives has emerged, and when women, queer, and trans experiences have been placed right at the center. The decentralized power of the Internet makes that possible. But the Internet also makes possible the high-tech surveillance that threatens to drive structural racism in the twenty-first century. We can help black lives matter by ensuring that technology is not used to cement a racial hierarchy that leaves too many people like me dead or in jail. Our communities need partners, not gatekeepers. Together, we can change the cultural terrain that makes killing black people routine. We can counter inequality by ensuring that both the technology and the police departments that use it are democratized. We can change the story on surveillance to raise the voices of those who have been left out. There are no voiceless people, only those that ain’t been heard yet. Let’s birth a new norm in which the technological tools of the twenty-first century create equity and justice for all—so all bodies enjoy full and equal protection, and the Jim Crow surveillance state exists no more.

Anti-black terror at the hand of white supremacist groups is THE biggest threat to U.S. national security. It did not end with the Jim Crow South, but as we have seen in Charleston, is an ongoing concern.Julia Craven, 6-24-2015, "White Supremacists More Dangerous Than Foreign Terrorists: Study," Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/24/domestic-terrorism-charleston_n_7654720.html

Nine people were added to a long list of lives taken by domestic terrorism when Dylann Roof allegedly began shooting inside a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, on June 17. At least 48 people have been killed stateside by right-wing extremists in the 14 years since since the September 11 attacks -- almost twice as many as were killed by self-identified jihadists in that time, according to a study released Wednesday by the New America Foundation, a Washington, D.C., research center. The study found that radical anti-government groups or

white supremacists were responsible for most of the terror attacks. The data counters many conventional thoughts on what terrorism is and isn’t. Since Sept. 11, many Americans attribute terror attacks to Islamic extremists instead of those in the right wing. But the numbers don't back up this popular conception, said Charles Kurzman, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Kurzman is co-authoring a study with David Schanzer of Duke University, set to be published Thursday, that asks police departments to rank the three biggest threats from violent extremism in their jurisdiction. Law enforcement agencies reported they were more concerned about the activities of right-wing extremist groups than Islamic extremists in their jurisdictions (about 74 percent versus 39 percent) due to the "menacing" rhetoric used by some of these groups -- and that they were training officers to take caution when they saw signs of potentially violent individuals, Kurzman and Schanzer found. "Muslim extremism was taken seriously in many of these jurisdictions that we surveyed… but overall, they did not see as much of an issue with Muslim extremism as with right-wing extremism in their locations," Kurzman told The Huffington Post. He added that it's hard to get a definitive statistical picture of plots and acts of violent extremism since that definition tends to vary and data for incidents nationwide is hard to come by. The accused Charleston shooter is currently being investigated under domestic terrorism charges by the Department of Justice -- a move that acknowledges the long history of anti-black terrorist attacks. America’s first federal anti-terrorism law, known as the Third Force Act or the Ku Klux Klan Act, which was passed by Congress in 1871, caused nine counties in South Carolina to be placed under martial law and led to thousands of arrests. The Supreme Court ruled the law unconstitutional in 1882. David Pilgrim, the founder and director of the Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State University, told HuffPost in February that the actions of foreign extremist groups are no better or worse than the historic violence against African-Americans by domestic actors. "There's nothing you're going to see today that's not going to have already occurred in the U.S.," he said. "If you think of these groups that behead now -- first of all, beheading is barbaric but it's no more or less barbaric than some of the lynchings that occurred in the U.S." Pilgrim said he found it offensive that, after Sept. 11, some Americans bemoaned that terrorism had finally breached U.S. borders. "That is ignoring and trivializing -- if not just summarily dismissing -- all the people, especially the peoples of color in this country, who were lynched in this country; who had their homes bombed in this country; who were victims of race riots," he said evoking lynching victims who were often burned, castrated, shot, stabbed -- and in some cases beheaded. And while most officially acknowledged anti-black terrorism cases occurred during the eras of slavery, Reconstruction and Jim Crow, as recent news demonstrate, this type of terrorism is still an ongoing concern.

Turns CaseTerrorism is used as a justification for increased surveillance – empirics prove and turns caseHaggerty and Gazso 2005 (Kevin, Professor of Criminology and Sociology at the University of Alberta; Amber, Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at York University, The Canadian Journal of Sociology / Cahiers canadiens de sociologie, Vol. 30, No. 2 ( Spring, 2005), pp. 169-187 “Seeing beyond the Ruins: Surveillance as a Response to Terrorist Threats” JSTOR; accessed 7/17/15 JH @ DDI)

A climate of fear and anxiety helped ease the passage of such laws (Davis, 2001). However, a great deal of

organizational opportunism was also at work. Many of the surveillance proposals adopted in the days after the attack were recycled from earlier legislative efforts. In previous incarnations these proposals had often been

legitimated as essential for the international "war on drugs" or to address other crimes, such as money laundering. The September 11 th attacks gave the authorities a new and apparently unassailable legitimation for long-standing legislative ambitions. Before the dust had settled on Manhattan, the security establishment had mobilized to expand and intensify their surveillance capabilities, justifying existing proposals as necessary tools to fight the new war against terrorism . Ultimately, the police, military and security establishment reaped an unanticipated windfall of increased funding, new technology and loosened legislative constraints by strategically invoking fears of future attacks. There are several examples of such opportunism. Since at least 1999, when Congress initially turned down their request, the U.S. Justice Department has lobbied for the development of new "secret search" provisions. Likewise, prior to the attacks, the FBI and the National Telecommunications and Information Systems Security Committee had a lengthy shopping list of desired surveillance-related measures including legal enhancements to their wiretapping capabilities, legal constraints on the public use of cryptography, and provisions for governmental agents to compel Internet service

providers to provide information on their customers (Burnham, 1997). All of these proposals were recycled and implemented after the September 11th attacks now justified as integral tools in the "war on terrorism." New provisions requiring banks to exercise "due diligence" in relation to their large depositors were originally justified by the authorities as a means to counter the "war on drugs." The opportunism of many of these efforts was inadvertently revealed by an RCMP Sergeant when, during a discussion about new official antiterrorism powers to monitor financial transactions, he noted that: "We've been asking for something like this for four years. It's really our best weapon against biker gangs" [emphasis added] (Corcan, 2001). In Canada, the Federal Privacy Commissioner was particularly alarmed by the development of what he referred to as a "Big Brother database." This amounts to a detailed computerized record of information about Canadian travelers. Although justified as a means to counter terrorism, the data will be made available to other government departments for any

purpose they deem appropriate. Such provisions raise the specter of informational "fishing expeditions." Indeed, the Canadian government has already indicated that this ostensible anti-terrorist database will be used to help monitor tax evaders and catch domestic criminals. It will also be used to scrutinize an individual's travel history and destinations, in an effort to try and determine whether they might be a pedophile or money launderer (Radwanski, 2002). While these are laudable goals, they

also reveal how a host of other surveillance agendas have been furthered by capitalizing on the new anti-terrorism discourse.

Lone wolf terror attacks are used to justify disproportionate increases in surveillance and military operations abroadLennard, Senior News Analyst for Vice News, 10/27/14 (Natasha Lennard, Brooklyn-based Senior News Analyst for Vice News, VICE News, October 27, 2014, “'Lone Wolf' Terrorist Acts Will Be Used to Justify the Surveillance State” https://news.vice.com/article/lone-wolf-terrorist-acts-will-be-used-to-justify-the-surveillance-state, accessed 7/17/15 JH @ DDI)

The phenomenon of individuals committing violent and murderous acts in the name of an ideology is nothing new in the US. The FBI's Operation Lone Wolf investigated white supremacists encouraging autonomous violent acts in the 1990s. Why, then, are we seeing pundits and politicians newly focus on the "lone wolf" category? There's no simple answer, but we can at the very least see that the old binary, distinguishing terror as the act of networked groups versus lone madman mass killings — a distinction that has tacitly undergirded post-9/11 conceptions of terrorism — doesn't serve the latest iteration of the war on terror. California Senator Dianne Feinstein, speaking on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday, suggested that

"the Internet, as well as certain specific Muslim extremists, are really firing up this lone-wolf phenomenon." Whether intentionally or not, the Senate Intelligence Committee chair performed a lot of political work with that one comment. Crystallizing "lone wolves" as a key threat domestically helps legitimize the US's current military operation against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. With or without established connections, the Islamic State's far-reaching tentacles of online influence encouraging individuals worldwide cement the group as a threat to the homeland — which is always useful for politicians struggling to legally justify another protracted war. In this way, attributing attacks to homegrown "lone wolves" is more useful for current US

political interests than attributing them to madness alone. The assumption that terror acts were always borne of connected networks problematically buoyed domestic counter-terror efforts that saw entire communities profiled as potential threats. Which is not to say that "lone wolf terrorist" is a flawed designation for attacks by ideologically motivated individuals. In many ways it seems apt, and any challenge is welcome to the all too basic distinction that imbues group terror with motive while dismissing individual acts as madness. The "lone wolf" straddles the ill-conceived gap between madman and terrorist node. It's an intersection all too complicated for the inexpert punditry of Fox News: "They are terrorist acts, to be sure," Megyn Kelly said about Canadian gunman Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, adding "but this guy was also a nutcase." Furthermore, the assumption that terror acts were always borne of connected networks problematically buoyed domestic counter-terror efforts that saw entire communities profiled as potential threats. Under the premise that terror networks ran like arteries through US Muslim communities enabled an era of profile-driven preemptive policing that has been nothing short of racist. Entire mosques in New York were designated terrorist organizations to enable police surveillance. The NSA's meta-data collections claim justifiability on the premise that terror was locatable by tracing networks of communication. The "lone wolf" phenomenon should at least prompt the questioning of the sort of profile-based counter-terror efforts that assumed terror lurked in any network

of Muslims, and that the mass hoarding of communications data was vital to national security. However, the rhetoric surrounding this type of domestic threat already bodes ill for civil liberties. If the hunt for terrorist networks has been plagued by ethnic profiling and overreaching spycraft, an established threat of "lone wolf" attacks gives a defensive imprimatur for unbounded NSA-style surveillance — anyone can wield a hatchet with ideological ire. As Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee

Michael McCaul said on This Week, finding such lone actors in advance of attacks is like "finding a needle in a haystack." And as Feinstein said the same day, "You have to be able to watch it, and you have to be able to disrupt them."

As such, the era of the "lone wolf" terrorist does not only spell the end of the bunk distinction between motivated group

and deranged individual. It ushers in the dawn of a new era of justification for our totalized state of surveillance and national security paranoia.

Surveillance would increase after a terrorist attackFeaver 1/13/15

(Peter D., 1/13/15, Foreign Policy, “10 Lessons to Remember After a Terrorist Attack,” Peter is a professor of political science and public policy and Bass Fellow @ Duke University, and director of the Triangle Institute for Security Studies and the Duke Program in American Grand Strategy, http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/01/13/ten-lessons-to-remember-after-a-terrorist-attack/, 7/16/15, SM)

In particular, it is striking how some of the things that were “obvious” in the days and weeks after 9/11, but then were gradually forgotten, have become obvious again:∂ Terrorists succeed when they are abetted by intelligence failures. Or, put another way, terrorists only need to get lucky once to “succeed,” whereas counterterrorism has to be lucky all the time to “succeed.”∂ Even robust intelligence and law enforcement may not guarantee 100 percent safety and security. By global

standards — certainly by the standards of Western democracies — France has a particularly formidable counterterrorist structure.

But it failed in this instance.∂ When terrorists succeed in an attack, citizens demand that the government do more to protect them — even if they have already been doing a lot. And steps that would have seemed heavy handed before the attack, say aggressive surveillance of suspected terrorists or visible demonstrations of presence by the security forces, are deemed not just tolerable but necessary. Moreover, savvy political leaders will understand that one of the benefits of a stronger official response is that it is a hedge both against dangerously stronger vigilantism and also against additional pressure from some segments of the public to do more than is wise.

Terrorism leads to crackdownsHistory.com, Reaction to 9/11, http://www.history.com/topics/reaction-to-9-11, 2010

“Today,” the French newspaper Le Monde announced on September 12, 2001, “we are all Americans.” People around the world agreed: The terrorist attacks of the previous day had felt like attacks on everyone, everywhere. They provoked an unprecedented expression of shock, horror, solidarity and sympathy for the victims and their families. Citizens of 78 countries died in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania on September 11, and people around the world mourned lost friends and neighbors. They held candlelight vigils. They donated money and goods to the Red Cross and other rescue and relief organizations. Flowers piled up in front of American embassies. Cities and countries commemorated the attacks in a variety of ways: The Queen Mother sang the American national anthem at Buckingham Palace’s Changing of the Guard, while in Brazil, Rio de Janeiro put up huge billboards that showed the city’s famous Christ the Redeemer statue embracing the New York City skyline. Meanwhile, statesmen and women

rushed to condemn the attacks and to offer whatever aid they could to the United States. Russian president Vladimir Putin called the strikes “a blatant challenge to humanity,” while German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder declared that the events were “not only attacks on the people in the United States, our friends in America, but also against the entire civilized world, against our own freedom, against our own values, values which we share with the American people.” He added, “We will not let these values be destroyed.” Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien denounced the “cowardly and depraved assault.” He tightened security along the border and arranged for hundreds of grounded airplanes to land at Canadian airports. Even leaders of countries that did not tend to get along terribly well with the American government expressed their sorrow and dismay. The Cuban foreign minister offered airspace and airports to American planes. Chinese and Iranian officials sent their condolences. And the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, visibly dismayed, told reporters in Gaza that the attacks were “unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable.” “We completely condemn this very dangerous attack,” he said, “and I convey my condolences to the American people, to the American president and to the American administration.” But public reaction was mixed. The leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas announced that “no doubt this is a result of the injustice the U.S. practices against the weak in the world.” Likewise, people in many different countries believed that the attacks were a consequence of America’s cultural hegemony, political meddling in the Middle East and interventionism in world affairs. The Rio billboards hadn’t been up for long before someone defaced them with the slogan “The U.S. is the enemy of peace.” Some, especially in Arab countries, openly celebrated the attacks. But most people, even those who believed that the United States was partially or entirely responsible for its own misfortune, still

expressed sorrow and anger at the deaths of innocent people. On September 12, the 19 ambassadors of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) declared that the attack on the United States was an attack on all of the member nations. This statement of solidarity was mostly symbolic–NATO did not authorize any specific military action–but it was still unprecedented. It was the first time that the organization had ever invoked the mutual defense section of its charter (intended to protect vulnerable European nations from Soviet invasion during the Cold War). NATO eventually sent five airplanes to help keep an eye on American airspace. Likewise, on September 12 the United Nations Security Council called on all nations to “redouble their efforts” to thwart and prosecute terrorists. Two weeks later, it passed another resolution that urged states to “suppress the financing of terrorism” and to aid in any anti-terrorism campaigns. But these

declarations of support and solidarity didn’t mean that other countries gave the United States a free hand to retaliate however, and against whomever, it pleased. Allies and adversaries alike urged caution, warning that an indiscriminate or disproportionate reaction

could alienate Muslims around the world. In the end, almost 30 nations pledged military support to the United States, and many more offered other kinds of cooperation. Most agreed with George Bush that, after September 11, the fight against terrorism was “the world’s fight.”

***Aff***

***Aff Uniqueness***

No terrorism Terrorism isn’t an existential threat – Obama confirms, intelligence hasn’t found any terrorists Mueller and Stewart 15 (John Mueller and Mark Stewart, professor of political science at Ohio State University and engineer and risk analyst at the University of Newcastle in Australia, 2-24-2015, "Terrorism poses no existential threat to America. We must stop pretending otherwise," Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/24/terrorism-poses-no-existential-threat-to-america)//MJ

One of the most unchallenged, zany assertions during the war on terror has been that terrorists present an existential threat to the United States, the modern state and civilization itself. This is important because the overwrought expression, if accepted as valid, could close off evaluation of security efforts. For example, no defense of civil liberties is likely to be terribly effective if people believe the threat from terrorism to be existential. At long last, President Barack Obama and other top officials are beginning to back away from this absurd position. This much overdue development may not last, however. Extravagant alarmism about the pathological but self-destructive Islamic State (Isis) in areas of Syria and Iraq may cause us to backslide. The notion that international terrorism presents an existential threat was spawned by the traumatized in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Rudy Giuliani, mayor of New York at the time, recalls that all “security experts” expected “dozens and dozens and multiyears of attacks like this” and, in her book The Dark Side, Jane Mayer observed that “the only certainty shared by virtually the entire American intelligence community” was that “a second wave of even more devastating terrorist attacks on America was imminent”. Duly terrified, US intelligence services were soon imaginatively calculating the number of trained al-Qaida operatives in the United States to be between 2,000 and 5,000. Also compelling was the extrapolation that, because the 9/11 terrorists were successful with box-cutters, they might well be able to turn out nuclear weapons. Soon it was being authoritatively proclaimed that atomic terrorists could “destroy civilization as we know it” and that it was likely that a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States would transpire by 2014. No atomic terrorists have yet appeared (al-Qaida’s entire budget in 2001 for research on all weapons of mass destruction totaled less than $4,000), and intelligence has been far better at counting al-Qaida operatives in the country than at finding them. But the notion that terrorism presents an existential threat has played on. By 2008, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff declared it to be a “significant existential” one - carefully differentiating it, apparently, from all those insignificant existential threats Americans have faced in the past. The bizarre formulation survived into the Obama years. In October 2009, Bruce Riedel, an advisor to the new administration, publicly maintained the al-Qaida threat to the country to be existential. In 2014, however, things began to change. In a speech at Harvard in October, Vice President Joseph Biden offered the thought that “we face no existential threat – none – to our way of life or our ultimate security.” After a decent interval of three months, President Barack Obama reiterated this point at a press conference, and then expanded in an interview a few weeks later, adding that the US should not “provide a victory to these terrorist networks by over-inflating their importance and suggesting in some fashion that they are an existential threat to the United States or the world order.” Later, his national security advisor, Susan Rice, echoed the point in a formal speech. It is astounding that these utterances – “blindingly obvious” as security specialist Bruce Schneier puts it – appear to mark the first time any officials in the United States have had the notion and the courage to say so in public. Whether that development, at once remarkable and absurdly belated, will have some consequence, or even continue, remains to be seen. Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham have insisted for months that Isis presents an existential threat to the United States. An alarmed David Brooks reported that financial analysts have convinced themselves that the group has the potential to generate a worldwide “economic cataclysm.” And General Michael Flynn, recently retired as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, has been insisting that the terrorist enemy is “committed to the destruction of freedom and the American way of life” while seeking “world domination, achieved through violence and bloodshed.” It was reported that

his remarks provoked nods of approval, cheers and “ultimately a standing ovation” from the audience. Thus even the most modest imaginable effort to rein in the war on terror hyperbole may fail to gel.

Terrorist threats overblown – terrorists only have regional interests Norton-Taylor 14 (Richard, writer for The Guardian on defense and security and former security editor, “Islamist terror threat to west blown out of proportion – former M16 chief,” The Gaurdian, 7-7-14, http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jul/07/islamist-terror-threat-out-proportion-former-mi6-chief-richard-dearlove)//MJ

The government and media have blown the Islamist terrorism threat out of proportion, giving extremists publicity that is counter-productive, a former head of Britain's intelligence service has said. Sir Richard Dearlove, chief of MI6 at the time of the Iraq invasion, said that Britons spreading "blood-curdling" messages on the internet should be ignored. He told an audience in London on Monday there had been a fundamental change in the nature of Islamist extremism since the Arab spring. It had created a major political problem in the Middle East but the west, including Britain, was only "marginally

affected". Unlike the threat posed by al-Qaida before and in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks 13 years ago, the west was not the main target of the radical fundamentalism that created Isis, (the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant), Dearlove said. Addressing

the Royal United Services Institute, the London-based security and defence thinktank, he said the conflict was "essentially one of Muslim on Muslim". He made it clear he believed the way the British government and the media were giving the extremists the "oxygen of publicity" was counter-productive. The media were making monsters of "misguided young men, rather pathetic figures" who were getting coverage "more than their wildest dreams", said Dearlove, adding: "It is surely better to ignore them." The former MI6 chief, now master of Pembroke College, Cambridge University, was speaking to a prepared text hours after the ITV programme Good Morning Britain broadcast an interview with a Briton who had appeared in an Isis video saying he was recruited through the internet and was prepared to die for his cause. Abdul Raqib Amin, who was brought up in Aberdeen, appeared in an online video last month with two men from Cardiff urging western Muslims to join the fighting with Isis. He told Good Morning Britain: "I left the UK to fight for the sake of Allah, to give everything I have for the sake of Allah. One of the happiest moments in my life was when the plane took off from Gatwick airport. I was so happy, as a Muslim you cannot live in the country of kuffars [non-believers]."Amin added: "I left the house

with the intention not to go back, I'm going to stay and fight until the khilafah [rule of Islam] is established or I die." Dearlove said he was concerned about the influence of the media on the government's security policy. It was time to take what he called a "more proportionate approach to terrorism". MI5, MI6, and GCHQ devoted a greater share of their resources to countering Islamist fundamentalism than they did to the Soviet Union during the cold war, or to Irish terrorism that had

cost the lives of more UK citizens and British soldiers than al-Qaida had done, Dearlove noted. A massive reaction after the 9/11 attacks was inevitable, he said, but it was not inevitable the 2001 attacks would continue to "dominate our way of thinking about national security". There had been a "fundamental change" in the nature of the threat posed by Islamist extremists. Al-Qaida had largely failed to mount the kind of attacks in the US and UK it had threatened after 9/11. It was time, he said to move away from the "distortion" of the post-9/11 mindset, make "realistic risk assessments" and think rationally about the causes of the crisis in the Middle East.

9/11 style terrorism isn’t a thing anymore – new terrorists are homegrown and don’t have skills or resources to carry out an attackBrooks 11 (Risa A, assistant professor of political science at Marquette University, where she specialized in the study of civil-military relations and terrorist organizations, “The Exaggerated Threat of American Muslim “Homegrown Terrorism.” Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center for Science International Affairs. December 2011.

http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/brooks_policybrief_dec_2011.pdf)//MJ

LITTLE EVIDENCE OF AMERICAN MUSLIMS PLOTTING ATTACKS In recent years, public officials in the United States and terrorism analysts here and abroad have warned of an increasing threat of Muslim homegrown terrorist attacks. The terrorist attacks in Madrid in 2004 and in London in 2005 perpetrated by European homegrown terrorists have contributed to these concerns, as has the surge in terrorist-related arrests in the United States in 2009 and 2010. Among these are the highprofile arrests of Maj. Nidal Hasan, who engaged in a deadly shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas, in November 2009, and Faisal Shahzad, who attempted to bomb Times Square in May 2010. A closer look at the evidence, however, reveals that the threat of American Muslims engaging in lethal attacks in the United States has been frequently overstated. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, American Muslims do not appear to be increasingly motivated to commit terrorist acts in the United States. Recent studies of the “radicalization” of American Muslims accused of engaging in domestic terrorism have explored the life histories of these individuals, and they have provided insight into the extremist beliefs and changes in behavior that preceded the turn to violence. Yet these studies offer little evidence that American Muslims—even those exhibiting the danger signs of radicalization—will increasingly engage in acts of terrorism against fellow Americans. In fact, there is minimal evidence that American Muslims are becoming more radical in their beliefs. Surveys in 2011 by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press reveal no trend of growing support for militancy among American Muslims. In addition, a surge in the number of American Muslims arrested on terrorism-related offenses in recent years does not mean that this segment of society is more prone to engage in terrorism. As a result of expanded initiatives in domestic counterterrorism by the Department of Homeland Security and new FBI authority to undertake “assessments” and open preliminary investigations of suspect Americans, officials increasingly have the tools to detect terrorist activity in its early stages. According to the New York Times, from March 31, 2009 to March 31, 2011, the FBI initiated more than 82,000 assessments of individuals and groups suspected of being involved in terrorist activities in the United States. Combine this enhanced ability to detect aspiring terrorists with law enforcement’s frequent use of sting operations to advance plots that might have otherwise gone nowhere, and one can largely account for the spike in terrorist-related arrests. For example, of the eighteen attacks attempted against U.S. targets since September 11 that reached some level of operational development (targets chosen, surveillance undertaken, and the like), twelve involved the use of federal officials at the plots’ formative stages. The surge in arrests could also be the result of a clustering of arrests of those long engaged in militancy or the apprehension of large groups of individuals, such as members of the Daniel Boyd network or Somali al-Shabaab recruits. In short, improvements in detection or other actions by law enforcement could be contributing to the increase in the number of individuals charged with terrorism-related offenses independent of any larger trends in the American population. Even if more American Muslims were to engage in homegrown terrorism, their attacks would likely fail either because of technical error or because authorities were able to discover their plots before they could be executed. Unlike the September 11 hijackers, American Muslim homegrown terrorists tend to be amateurs and often lack the basic skills of terrorist tradecraft. Moreover, opportunities to enhance their skills are limited. Technical information available online is often incomplete or poorly presented, and perfecting the skills to manufacture explosives and cultivate other expertise—including the ability to maintain operational security when preparing attacks and recruiting other militants—increases the risk of exposure. For these reasons, every attempted terrorist plot by American Muslims in the United States has ended in the arrests of the would-be perpetrators, with the exception of Shahzad and two others, Carlos Bledsoe and Maj. Nidal Hasan. In fact, the evidence suggests that engaging in terrorist activity in the United States carries a serious risk of exposure. First, although difficult to quantify, societal awareness about terrorism has grown considerably over the years. In October 2010, for example, members of a Hawaiian mosque reported to authorities a new member whose recent move to the area raised their suspicions. Contrast this with the hospitality and no-questions-asked reception that the Muslim community in San Diego gave to two of the September 11 hijackers in the months preceding the attacks. Additionally, over the past decade, alert citizens otherwise unacquainted with the would-be

perpetrators have reported apparent terrorist activity involving American Muslims to authorities. Second, as the result of both a significant investment in grassroots counterterrorism efforts spanning the federal, state, and local levels as well as expanded prerogatives such as the availability of FBI assessments, would-be terrorists must contend with an increasingly sophisticated monitoring investigative apparatus. Third, American Muslim communities have demonstrated a willingness to report aspiring terrorists in their midst—a dynamic that, according to several studies, has occurred in more than 20 percent of terrorism-related cases. Consider that Shahzad is the only homegrown Muslim terrorist unknown to authorities before he tried to execute his plot. Equally telling is why he failed: according to New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, Shahzad purposely fabricated his bomb with inferior-grade fertilizer to evade detection. RISKS OF EXAGGERATING THE THREAT Since September 11, American Muslims have executed two successful terrorist attacks in the United States— the Fort Hood shootings by Maj. Nidal Hasan in November 2009 and a lesser-known attack by Carlos Bledsoe on a U.S. Army recruiting station in Little Rock, Arkansas, in June 2009. Although both cases could be cited as evidence of the dangers of “lone wolves,” the small number of such attacks, despite their operational simplicity, suggests either that there are no aspiring terrorists in the country or that even plotters of simple terrorist attacks are being detected before they can harm Americans.

Terrorist threats overblown – terrorists don’t have resources to attack the US and face hella opposition Gillespie 14 (Nick, editor in chief of Reason.com and the co-author of The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What’s Wrong with Americal, holds a Ph.D. in English literature from the State University of New York at Buffalo, Why We Shouldn't Be Scared of ISIS: Threat Inflation and Our Next Dumb War,” The Daily Beast, 9-10-14, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/10/why-we-shouldn-t-be-scared-of-isis-threat-inflation-and-our-next-dumb-war.html)//MJ

“God willing,” proclaims an ISIS spokesman, “we will raise the flag of Allah in the White House.” Administration officials are only too happy to play along as well. ISIS, explains Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Brett McGurk, “is worse than al Qaeda,” while a deputy secretary of defense warns that ISIS has proclaimed, “We’re coming for you, Barack Obama.” And so we’re being gulled into a new-and-improved crusade to fix a Middle East still utterly destabilized in large part due to our still-smoldering failure to reshape desert sand into a form more to our desires. As we prep for the next “smart war” engineered by Obama (he’s against “dumb wars,” remember, and lives by the credo “don’t do stupid shit”), it’s worth acknowledging that the signature characteristic of America’s 21st-century war on terrorism and foreign policy has been massive threat inflation at every level. Until we fully grok that terrorism—whether state-sponsored or stateless—thrives on the overreaction of its targets and that we have overreacted so far at virtually every turn, we have no hope of enacting real solutions. Domestically, we are finally beginning to understand that threat inflation has produced results like the petty, ineffective, and costly indignities that we experience each and every time we board an airplane. Even brass-balled, pro-security Republicans who are otherwise quick to redact the Constitution in the name of national security understand that the Transportation Security Administration exemplifies wasted time and money. Every time you raise your hands in the air and get irradiated in the name of national security, the terrorists have won another small victory. On the 10th anniversary of the TSA’s creation, Reps. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) and John Mica (R-Fla.) released a report that concluded (in Broun’s words), “Americans have spent nearly $60 billion, and they are no safer today than they were before 9/11.” The simple act of reinforcing cockpit doors has guaranteed that an American airliner will not be hijacked and used as a missile again. The TSA, by contrast, exemplifies “security theater,” or visible actions to make people feel comfortable while doing nothing to actually increase safety. The sheen has also mostly worn off The Patriot Act, that awful, Constitution-shredding piece of legislation that, until the passage of Obamacare, held the record for being the least-read law that was rubber-stamped by a pliant Congress (at least our representatives

debated The Affordable Care Act). Ongoing revelations about massive bipartisan government abuses of power and the general ineffectiveness of the Patriot Act have driven home the reality that government will use whatever powers it has to do pretty much whatever it can get away with. But when it comes to foreign threats in foreign lands, we’re still as gullible as the tourists Mark Twain chronicled in Innocents Abroad. As Ohio State University political scientist John Mueller has written , at least since 9/11, our elected officials and policymakers have been quick to designate any number of states (Iraq, Iran, North Korea, for starters) and terrorist groups (the Taliban, al Qaeda, and now ISIS) as “existential threats” to the United States and our way of life. This is, to say the least, preposterous. Unlike, say, the old Soviet Union, which controlled a vast nuclear arsenal capable of blowing up the planet and a large number of vassal states, none of these enemies has the military or economic might to challenge the United States. “As a misguided Turkish proverb holds,” explains Mueller, “‘If your enemy be an ant, imagine him to be an elephant.’” The original sin of post-9/11 foreign policy stems from the intertwined and equally mistaken ideas that al Qaeda was a potent, ongoing “existential” threat to America and that the United States had a responsibility to “nation build” in the Islamic world rather than avenge monstrous acts against its citizens. As Mueller and Mark G. Stewart note in their 2012 survey of “Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism Since 9/11” (PDF), the 9/11 attacks were not the start of a new era of mass terroristic violence in the West. “Terrorists are not really all that capable a bunch, terrorism tends to be a counterproductive exercise, and 9/11 is increasingly standing out as an aberration, not a harbinger,” they write in their survey of 50 Islamist terrorist acts since 2001. The United States had every right and reason to destroy al Qaeda’s capabilities and hunt down its leadership (which it eventually did do, after a long detour into Iraq). But apart from hawks who are always on the hunt for the next military engagement, who among us will argue that America’s adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq have left those places and neighboring areas more stable? As with al Qaeda back in the day, our fears of ISIS suffer from massive threat inflation at every possible level. At the start of the summer, the number of ISIS fighters in Iraq was somewhere in the neighborhood of 7,000 to 10,000; those numbers have doubtless grown but they still face off against more than a quarter of a million Iraqi troops and somewhere between 80,000 and 240,000 Peshmerga soldiers. Even the much-maligned Free Syrian Army numbers 70,000 to 90,000. And, it’s worth pointing out, ISIS is facing intense opposition (and some cooperation) from other jihadist groups, including and especially al Qaeda. If the Iraqi armed forces are in fact incapable of fighting successfully against ISIS after years of training and resources given them by the United States, there is in fact little we will be able to do to change things in Iraq (Obama has already ruled out “boots on the ground,” and it’s unlikely he will change course between now and leaving office). At the same time, we’re now in a position where we are de facto allies with at least two of our longtime enemies in the immediate vicinity: Iran and Bashar al-Assad in Syria, whose government Barack Obama was set to attack just a year ago. Indeed, the widely expected push to start bombing targets in Syria can only help Assad, who earlier this year was supposedly close to total defeat. The United States and other Western countries being hit up to form the next multinational coalition are now prepping their citizens to help keep Assad in power for the foreseeable future.

Global terror threats are exaggerated --- ISIS and AQ talk a big game but don’t pose a real threat.Stratfor, 5/14/2015. “Don't Take Terrorism Threats at Face Value,” Security Weekly, https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/dont-take-terrorism-threats-face-value.The Islamic State has demonstrated in the past year that it is quite adept in its use of social media as a tool to raise money, recruit fighters and inspire grassroots jihadists to conduct attacks. This week, however, its social media network was heavily focused on making threats. On May 11, Twitter users associated with the Islamic State unleashed two seemingly unrelated threat campaigns. One using the hashtag #LondonAttack, displayed photos of London and weapons (including AK-47 rifles and what appeared to be suicide bombs) and urged Muslims in the United Kingdom not to visit shopping malls. The second campaign threatened to launch a cyber war against the United States and Europe. The Islamic State took credit for the botched May 3 attack in Garland, Texas, saying it would carry out harder and "more bitter" attacks inside the United States. Coinciding with the Islamic State's threats, FBI Director James Comey warned that his agency does not have a handle on the grassroots terrorism problem in the United States. Department of Homeland Security

Secretary Jeh Johnson noted that the United States has entered "a new phase in the global terrorist threat, where the so-called lone wolf could strike at any moment." Michael Morell, the former Deputy Director of the CIA, added his voice by claiming that the Islamic State has the ability to conduct a 9/11-style attack today. While these statements and warnings paint a bleak picture, a threat should never be taken at face value — when placed into context, these claims aren't as dire as they seem. Analyzing Threats

When analyzing a direct threat from a person or organization it is important to understand that in most cases they come from a position of weakness rather than power. The old saying "all bark and no bite" is based on this reality. This applies to personal threats as well as terror-related threats. Terrorism is frequently used by weak actors as a way of taking asymmetrical military action against a superior opponent. Despite its battlefield successes against the Iraqi and Syrian governments and militant groups, the Islamic State is certainly far weaker militarily than the United States and Europe. An important part of threat evaluation is assessing if the party making the threat possesses both the intention to conduct such an action and the capability to carry out that intent. Indeed, many threats are made by groups or individuals who have neither intent nor capability. They are made simply to create fear and panic or to influence the conduct or behavior of the target, as in the cases of a person who sends a "white powder" letter to a government office or a student who phones in a bomb threat to his school to get out of taking a test. Generally, if a person or group possesses both the intent and capability to conduct an act of violence, they just do it. There is little need to waste the

time and effort to threaten what they are about to do. In fact, by telegraphing their intent they might provide their target with the opportunity to avoid the attack. Professional terrorists often invest a lot of time and resources in a plot, especially a spectacular transnational attack. Because of this, they take great pains to hide their operational activity so that the target or authorities do not catch wind of it and employ countermeasures that would prevent the successful execution of the scheme. Instead of telegraphing their attack, terrorist groups prefer to conduct the attack and exploit it after the fact, something sometimes called the propaganda of the deed. Certainly, people who possess the capability to fulfill the threat sometimes make threats. But normally in such cases the threat is made in a conditional manner. For example, the United States threatened to invade Afghanistan unless the Taliban government handed over Osama bin Laden. The Islamic State, however, is not in that type of dominating position. If it dispatched a team or teams of professional terrorist operatives to the United States and Europe to conduct terrorist attacks, the very last thing it would want to do is alert said countries to the presence of those teams and have them get rolled up. Trained terrorist operatives who have the ability to travel in the United States or Europe are far too valuable to jeopardize with a Twitter threat. Rather than reveal a network of sophisticated Islamic State operatives poised to conduct devastating attacks on the United States and Europe, these threats are meant to instill fear and strike terror into the hearts of one of their intended audiences: the public at large. I say one of their audiences because these threats are not only aimed at the American and European public. They are also meant to send a message to radicalize and energize grassroots jihadists like those who have conducted Islamic State-related attacks in the West.

No ISIS threatISIS hysteria is exaggerated and a result of media sentimentMichael Calderon 9/14Calderon 14 (Michael, senior media reporter for the Huffington Post, “Americans Panicked Over ISIS Threat That Experts Say Isn't Imminent,” 9-9-14, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/09/isis-media-threat_n_5791594.html)

WASHINGTON -- When President Barack Obama calls Wednesday night to expand the fight abroad against Islamic State militants, he'll be addressing an increasingly supportive public, recent polls suggest. Ninety-one percent of Americans see the Islamic State as a "threat to the vital interests of the United States," according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll published Tuesday. A CNN poll released Monday found that 90 percent of Americans view the group as a “very,” “fairly” or “somewhat” serious threat. Such findings shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who's watched TV news lately, as numerous political leaders and cable pundits have urged Obama to expand the campaign against the Islamic State beyond the air strikes already being carried out in Iraq. Given the sheer volume of coverage -- the group has been mentioned over 3,800 times on CNN in the past two weeks, according to monitoring service TVEyes -- it's understandable that Americans would widely perceive the extremist group to be a threat to the country. But most of the press coverage has failed to draw a clear distinction between an imminent threat to the U.S., marked by serious planning and capability, and a potential one, such as a "lone wolf" terrorist who gets inspired by online propaganda. That lack of clarity may be why “seven in 10 Americans believe ISIS has the resources to launch an attack against the United States," according to the CNN poll. Politicians, increasingly, are blurring those lines too. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that the Islamic State is "obviously a threat to us," without elaborating on what he sees as America's vulnerabilities. The Obama administration has proceeded with more caution. White House press secretary Josh Earnest acknowledged during a Tuesday briefing that "the United States is not aware of any active plotting that is underway to attack the homeland" -- a statement that echoes those made by several agencies in recent weeks. But Earnest also said that it was "understandable" that Americans fear the Islamic State. "We have seen ISIL perpetrate terrible acts of violence against American citizens. I’m sure that is part of what is contributing to the information that you’re seeing in the polls," Earnest said. "The other thing that is undoubtedly true is that there are American interests in the region that are under a pretty direct threat from ISIL." Earnest said that had the U.S. military not intervened, the American consulate in Erbil, Iraq, could have been overrun by Islamic State fighters. "It does threaten American national security interests for ISIL to be operating in a virtual safe haven along the vanishing border between Iraq and Syria," he said. The distinction between a threat to the homeland and a threat to U.S. national security interests in the Middle East has been borne out by statements from the intelligence community. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has said that the Islamic State poses an imminent threat to U.S. interests abroad. But the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security recently stated that the group poses “no specific or credible terror threats to the U.S. homeland." Similarly, Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said last month that the Islamic State does not have “the capability right now to conduct a major attack on the U.S. homeland.” National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen said Wednesday that “we have no credible information that ISIL is planning to attack the United States.” The Islamic State certainly warrants media coverage, given its territorial gains in Iraq and Syria and its brutal tactics, such as the gruesome beheadings of two American journalists in recent weeks. Moreover, supporters of increased intervention argue that failing to address the threat in Iraq and Syria could create a safe haven where militants could plot a future attack against the U.S., a similar rationale to the one used to justify the war in Afghanistan. They also argue that members of the Islamic State who hold American or European passports could reach U.S. soil and perpetrate an attack, or that someone in the U.S. who is inspired by the group could build a crude bomb or stage a small-scale attack. But it's incumbent upon journalists to press administration officials and lawmakers to explain what immediate, credible threats justify further military action against the Islamic State -- especially after the 13 years of war that followed the Sept. 11 attacks. Several journalists have noted that calls for military intervention

run the risk of misleading the public. The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald pointed out Tuesday that months after the Iraq invasion, 70 percent of Americans still wrongly believed that Saddam Hussein had played a role in the Sept. 11 attacks. James Risen, a New York Times reporter who revealed the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program during the Bush administration and is currently fighting to stay out of jail for refusing to reveal his sources, tweeted several days ago that “the fact that U.S. intelligence assesses that ISIS poses no current threat to the US is repeatedly ignored by politicians and the media.” “War fever in America always seems to develop in pretty much the same way,” Risen tweeted later. “Over and over again.” Andrew Sullivan wrote in a blog post published Tuesday that the recent polls suggests the Islamic State's goal of terrorizing Americans has worked. "But I have yet to see or be shown any solid intelligence that suggests that these fanatics are aiming at the US,” Sullivan wrote. “We may well have a problem of home-grown Jihadists returning and wreaking havoc -– but that is a manageable threat. And direct military intervention by the West could easily increase these losers’ incentives to strike us here at home. So, in that narrow sense, this return to fighting other people’s civil wars in the Middle East may actually increase the risks to us. That’s what I mean by 'taking the bait.'" Sullivan said he awaits Obama’s “proof of ISIS’ threat to America and the West,” as opposed to “the kind of intelligence that gave us the Iraq War.”

Obama concedes that ISIS doesn’t pose an existential threat Brannen 15 (Kate, senior reporter covering the Pentagon and the U.S. military, “Obama warns against exaggerating the Islamic State threat,” Foreign Policy, 2-1-15, http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/01/obama-warns-against-exaggerating-the-islamic-state-threat/)//MJ

President Barack Obama said it’s important to see the Islamic State for what it is and not to exaggerate the group’s strengths. “When you look at ISIL, it has no governing strategy,” Obama said Sunday in an interview on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS. “It can talk about setting up the new caliphate, but nobody is under any illusions that they can actually in a sustained way feed people or educate people or organize a society that would work.” The Islamic State continues to hold vast stretches of territory in Syria and Iraq. Winning the support of local populations is key to the militant group’s long-term success, but today its power is derived mostly through fear. In Raqqa, the group’s headquarters in Syria, public beheadings and crucifictions are regular occurrences. But perhaps more threatening to its long-term stability is the group’s inability to deliver a functioning government and a productive economy to the people who live in the territory it controls. The Islamic State brags about its ability to administer services and promotes itself as an alternative to the corruption and poor governance of the Syrian or Iraqi government, but reports of poverty, inflation, water shortages and power outages are emerging from cities like Mosul in Iraq. With no journalists inside these places though, it is difficult to get a clear picture of what life is really like there. Obama said it’s important “we maintain a proper perspective,” on the Islamic State, describing it as a “death cult or a entirely backward-looking fantasy that can’t function in the world.” The group, and other Islamic extremist terrorist organizations, can do harm, but they are not “an existential threat to the United States or the world order.” The U.S. needs to see the threat for what it is and respond to it in a way that doesn’t undermine American values, the president said. “It means that we don’t approach this with a strategy of sending out occupying armies and playing whack-a-mole wherever a terrorist group appears, because that drains our economic strength and it puts enormous burdens on our military,” he said. Instead, “what’s required is a surgical, precise response to a very specific problem,” Obama added.

ISIS is a regional problem Lehman 15 (Roy, “ISIS is not a threat to America,” Courier-Post, 3-4-15, http://www.courierpostonline.com/story/opinion/readers/2015/03/04/letter-isis-threat-america/24315501/)

We’ve all seen the disgusting brutality of ISIS. We hear the war drums beating every day. Will we ever learn? A recent poll says 57 percent of Americans would approve of the American military fighting ISIS. There’s an exposé in The Atlantic, “What ISIS Really Wants,” by Graeme Wood. According to the author, ISIS wants to establish a caliphate, which is now in place, and to grow the caliphate by continually annexing territory. Now, if you believe this author, and I have no reason to doubt him, ISIS is a minimal threat to the U.S. and not worth throwing more taxpayer money into the rat hole desert of the Middle East. If you think about the regional powers ISIS would have to defeat to expand its caliphate — Turkey, Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Baghdad Shia military, the Syrian military, as well as Egypt — you realize exactly how minimal this threat is to America . ISIS has no air force and no nav y, and appears to be a large ideological ragtag gang of hooligan extremists dressed in ski masks, toting machine guns, riding around in pickup trucks. Don’t buy the warmongers’ sales job. The last time we bought this sales job, the Bush administration took out Saddam Hussein, who had fallen into disfavor, and ISIS was birthed. We took out another dictator in Libya with the same results. This time, demand the warmongers lay out the endgame. No more American troops in the Middle East. It is a regional problem; make the regional powers handle it.

ISIS failsISIS will fail inevitably because they can’t governBarrett 15, Richard Barrett, the senior vice president of the Soufan Group, is the former director of global counterterrorism operations at MI6 and the former head of the Taliban and Al Qaeda monitoring team at the United Nations. 6/1/15 “ISIS Will Fall Through Internal Revolt” New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/01/can-victory-over-isis-be-more-than-a-mirage/isis-will-fall-through-internal-revolt

What distinguishes the Islamic State from Al Qaeda and its other rivals is that it willingly embraces the role of government. It advertises itself as the one place on earth where a Muslim can live according to the rules and customs of his religion without any reinterpretation of or deviation from the practices established by its founders. It does not just ask for people who can fight; it makes a very public appeal to all Muslims, whatever their ages or skills, to come and help build every aspect of the state. It is as a state that ISIS will succeed or fail. It can weather military defeats so long as it is not beaten completely, which is unlikely in current circumstances, but it cannot so easily survive a collapse of its administrative structures. If it proves not to be a state, or not a state where anyone wants to live, then it will disappear. It is a sad fact that ISIS has been able to hold so much territory not just because of the horrific violence with which it imposes its will, but also, and more important, because for many of its approximately six million residents, its rule is in some ways better than what was there before. Before the advent of ISIS, the Sunni population in western Iraq and eastern Syria suffered from poor governance at every level, and however appalling ISIS may be, it at least offers quicker and more consistent justice and far less corruption. It follows that the best way to undermine ISIS is to offer something better to replace it. At present, it is hard to conceive what better government in Iraq and Syria would look like, or who would provide it. But if the only alternative on offer is a return to the past, there will not be many takers. Rather than train up a few hundred rebels to fight ISIS in Syria, or worry about enabling Shia militia by bombing Sunni targets in Iraq, it might be better to take a longer view. The future of Syria -- and increasingly of Iraq -- lies in part with the millions of women and children who are now refugees. Some will return, and they should do so with concepts of tolerance and justice, not hatred in their hearts. Ultimately it is the people of Iraq and Syria who will defeat ISIS, and they will do so not by fighting but by asserting values that expose ISIS for what it is, an unsustainable and bloody dictatorship.

Even if ISIS has motives to attack, they’ll fail – historical evidenceBergen 15 (Peter CNN's national security analyst, a vice president at New America and professor of practice at Arizona State University, “Why ISIS terrorism won’t work,” CNN, 2-6-15, http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/06/opinion/bergen-isis-terrorism/)//MJ

Similarly, 9/11 was a great tactical success for al Qaeda, but it also turned out be a great strategic failure for Osama bin Laden. On 9/11 bin Laden's main strategic goal was to overthrow regimes across the Middle East and to replace them with Taliban-style rule. He believed that the best way to accomplish this was to attack the "far enemy" (the United States) and then watch as the U.S.-backed Arab regimes he termed the "near enemy" toppled. This might have worked if the United States really was the paper tiger that bin Laden believed it to be, but not only did bin Laden not achieve his war aims, the 9/11 attacks resulted in the direct opposite of his goal of forcing a U.S. withdrawal from Muslim lands. After 9/11, American soldiers occupied both Afghanistan and Iraq, and al Qaeda -- "the base" in Arabic -- lost the best

base it ever had: Afghanistan as it had existed before the overthrow of the Taliban by U.S. forces in late 2001. In short, bin Laden's violent tactics did not serve his strategic goals, and al Qaeda's violence became only an end in itself. That is where ISIS is today. Its strategy is incoherent because only a tiny minority of Muslims want to live in the Taliban-style utopia that ISIS wants to bring to the Muslim world, while at the same time ISIS' principal victims are fellow Muslims who don't share their views to the letter. This is a decidedly mixed message for a group that presents itself as the defender of Muslims. Indeed, the burning to death of the Jordanian pilot Moath al-Kasasbeh is an indelible image that will long serve to undercut any ISIS claim to be the defender of Islam. That said, could ISIS' campaign of brutal terrorism work to bring its goal of a Taliban-style caliphate across the Middle East? If one examines other significant campaigns of terrorism in the modern era, the historical record suggests that this is quite unlikely. Anarchists in the early 20th century carried out a number of high-profile assassinations and bombings. In 1901, for instance, an anarchist killed U.S. President William McKinley. And in 1920 an anarchist blew up a bomb-laden wagon on Wall Street, killing more than 30, which was the deadliest act of terrorism in New York until 9/11. Anarchists termed these kinds of high-profile attacks "the propaganda of the deed." Yet they achieved nothing with these attacks, and their ideology has withered and largely died out. The Baader-Meinhof gang in Germany was a group of Marxist-inspired terrorists who during the 1970s and 1980s killed more than 30 people, a number of whom were prominent German government officials and businessmen as well as U.S. military personnel, yet this campaign also achieved absolutely nothing. One could also make the same observation for other Western leftist terrorist groups of the same era, such as the Weather Underground. Indeed, there are few campaigns of terrorism that have succeeded in bringing about their political objectives, but in some cases terrorism can actually work. This is the big, uncomfortable takeaway of an important new book, "Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle for Israel 1917-1947," about the era that led up to the creation of Israel, written by the leading American terrorism expert, Bruce Hoffman. Hoffman demonstrates that Jewish terrorism helped to push the British occupiers out of Palestine after World War II. Indeed, Menachem Begin, the leader of the Irgun group that played an instrumental role in the Jewish terrorist campaign against British and Arab targets, went on to become the Prime Minister of Israel and shared in a Nobel Peace Prize. Some 300 miles from where the Jordanian pilot was believed to have been burned alive by ISIS, almost seven decades ago two soldiers were hanged from a tree in the land that is now called Israel. The soldiers were British and the executioners were Jewish militants whose overall commander was Begin. The burning to death of the Jordanian pilot was, of course, particularly abhorrent, but the hanging deaths of the two British soldiers in 1947 were greeted with as much outrage in the United Kingdom as the pilot's death has had in Jordan. But after the killings of the British soldiers an unexpected thing happened. The British, who had endured a campaign of terrorist attacks in Palestine, including the attack on Jerusalem's iconic King David Hotel that killed 91 soldiers and civilians, didn't double down on their occupation of Palestine. Instead, they washed their hands of it and packed up their bags and left, leading to the formation of the state of Israel in 1948. The emerging scholarly consensus is that campaigns of terrorism can sometimes work to achieve the goal of forcing the withdrawal of a colonial power as happened with the British in Palestine, but more often than not terrorism doesn't succeed as a tactic to achieve the strategic goals of terrorist groups, whether they are Marxist in orientation, or ultra-fundamentalist jihadists. Instead, all too often violence becomes an end in itself for the terrorist organization, which then loses any legitimacy that it might have once had and is eventually wiped out by military or police action. That is the position that ISIS now finds itself in with its killing of the Jordanian pilot.

A2: Americans joining ISISAmerican recruits aren’t a sign of a growing threat – recruitment numbers are exaggerated tooBergen and Sterman 14 (Peter CNN's national security analyst, a vice president at New America and professor of practice at Arizona State University, and David, associate at New America and holds a master’s degree from Georgetown’s Center for Security Studies, “ISIS threat to U.S. mostly hype,” CNN, 9-4-14, http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/05/opinion/bergen-sterman-isis-threat-hype/)//MJISIS has Americans worried. Two-thirds of those surveyed in a recent Pew Research poll said they consider the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria to be a "major threat" to this country. But are such fears really justified? Despite the impression you may have had from listening to U.S. officials in recent weeks, the answer is probably not really. For a start, U.S. officials have been inflating the numbers of Americans fighting for ISIS, which has muddied the issue for the public. U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, for example, told CNN's Jim Sciutto earlier this month, "We are aware of over 100 U.S. citizens who have U.S. passports who are fighting in the Middle East with ISIL forces." (ISIS is sometimes referred to as ISIL and now calls itself the Islamic State). But the Pentagon soon corrected Hagel's comment, saying the 100 count is the total number of Americans fighting for any of the various groups fighting in Syria, some of which are more militant than others -- and some of which are even allied with the U.S. Indeed, Matthew Olsen, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center -- the government office tasked with assessing terrorist threats -- also confirmed that 100 is the total count of the various Americans fighting in Syria and not a count of those fighting for ISIS. Hagel's comment is only the latest inflated claim regarding the number of Americans fighting with ISIS. Last week, the Washington Times cited anonymous official sources who said there are 300 Americans fighting with ISIS, despite the Pentagon estimating the figure to be more like a dozen. Who is the ISIS? True, a dozen is still too many. But it is important to remember that just because these Americans are fighting with ISIS, it doesn't necessarily translate into a significant threat to the American homeland. One need only look at the example of Somalia to see why. The last sizeable group of Americans who went overseas to fight with an al Qaeda-aligned group are the 29 Americans known to have traveled to fight with the Somali terrorist group Al-Shabaab after the 2006 invasion of Somalia by the Ethiopian army. However, none of those 29 subsequently planned or conducted a terrorist attack inside the United States, according to a survey of more than 240 jihadist terrorism cases since September 11 conducted by the New America Foundation. What can the U.S. do against ISIS and could it work? Of course, the fact that 13 of the 29 American militants who fought in Somalia remain at large is a reminder that the CIA and FBI also need to pay attention to the potential threat posed by American foreign fighters in Syria. But this is no reason for U.S. officials to overhype the threat posed by ISIS to the United States. Yes, Americans should always be mindful of the threats posed by extremists. But as the case of U.S. citizens in Somalia suggests, Syria could very well end up being a graveyard for Americans fighting there rather than a launch pad for attacks on the United States.

No Muslim terrorismMost recent studies prove Muslims aren’t a threat – right wing extremists are the real threatKurzman and Schanzer 6/16 (Charles, professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and David, director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security at Duke University, “The Growing Right Wing Terror Threat,” The New York Times, June 6, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/16/opinion/the-other-terror-threat.html?_r=0)//MJ

THIS month, the headlines were about a Muslim man in Boston who was accused of threatening police officers with a knife. Last month, two Muslims attacked an anti-Islamic conference in Garland, Tex. The month before, a Muslim man was charged with plotting to drive a truck bomb onto a military installation in Kansas. If you keep up with the news, you know that a small but steady stream of American Muslims, radicalized by overseas extremists, are engaging in violence here in the United States. But headlines can mislead. The main terrorist threat in the United States is not from violent Muslim extremists, but from right-wing extremists. Just ask the police. In a survey we conducted with the Police Executive Research Forum last year of 382 law enforcement agencies, 74 percent reported anti-government extremism as one of the top three terrorist threats in their jurisdiction; 39 percent listed extremism connected with Al Qaeda or like-minded terrorist organizations. And only 3 percent identified the threat from Muslim extremists as severe, compared with 7 percent for anti-government and other forms of extremism. The self-proclaimed Islamic State’s efforts to radicalize American Muslims, which began just after the survey ended, may have increased threat perceptions somewhat, but not by much, as we found in follow-up interviews over the past year with counterterrorism specialists at 19 law enforcement agencies. These officers, selected from urban and rural areas around the country, said that radicalization from the Middle East was a concern, but not as dangerous as radicalization among right-wing extremists. An officer from a large metropolitan area said that “militias, neo-Nazis and sovereign citizens” are the biggest threat we face in regard to extremism. One officer explained that he ranked the right-wing threat higher because “it is an emerging threat that we don’t have as good of a grip on, even with our intelligence unit, as we do with the Al Shabab/Al Qaeda issue, which we have been dealing with for some time.” An officer on the West Coast explained that the “sovereign citizen” anti-government threat has “really taken off,” whereas terrorism by American Muslim is something “we just haven’t experienced yet.” Last year, for example, a man who identified with the sovereign citizen movement — which claims not to recognize the authority of federal or local government — attacked a courthouse in Forsyth County, Ga., firing an assault rifle at police officers and trying to cover his approach with tear gas and smoke grenades. The suspect was killed by the police, who returned fire. In Nevada, anti-government militants reportedly walked up to and shot two police officers at a restaurant, then placed a “Don’t tread on me” flag on their bodies. An anti-government extremist in Pennsylvania was arrested on suspicion of shooting two state troopers, killing one of them, before leading authorities on a 48-day manhunt. A right-wing militant in Texas declared a “revolution” and was arrested on suspicion of attempting to rob an armored car in order to buy weapons and explosives and attack law enforcement. These individuals on the fringes of right-wing politics increasingly worry law enforcement officials. Law enforcement agencies around the country are training their officers to recognize signs of anti-government extremism and to exercise caution during routine traffic stops, criminal investigations and other interactions with potential extremists. “The threat is real,” says the handout from one training program sponsored by the Department of Justice. Since 2000, the handout notes, 25 law enforcement officers have been killed by right-wing extremists, who share a “fear that government will confiscate firearms” and a “belief in the approaching collapse of government and the economy.” Despite public anxiety about extremists inspired by Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, the number of violent plots by such individuals has remained very low. Since 9/11, an average of nine American Muslims per year have been involved in an average of six terrorism-related plots against targets in the United States. Most were disrupted, but the 20 plots that were carried out accounted for 50 fatalities over the past 13 and a half years. In contrast, right-wing

extremists averaged 337 attacks per year in the decade after 9/11, causing a total of 254 fatalities, according to a study by Arie Perliger, a professor at the United States Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center. The toll has increased since the study was released in 2012. Other data sets, using different definitions of political violence, tell comparable stories. The Global Terrorism Database maintained by the Start Center at the University of Maryland includes 65 attacks in the United States associated with right-wing ideologies and 24 by Muslim extremists since 9/11. The International Security Program at the New America Foundation identifies 39 fatalities from “non-jihadist” homegrown extremists and 26 fatalities from “jihadist” extremists. Meanwhile, terrorism of all forms has accounted for a tiny proportion of violence in America. There have been more than 215,000 murders in the United States since 9/11. For every person killed by Muslim extremists, there have been 4,300 homicides from other threats. Public debates on terrorism focus intensely on Muslims. But this focus does not square with the low number of plots in the United States by Muslims, and it does a disservice to a minority group that suffers from increasingly hostile public opinion. As state and local police agencies remind us, right-wing, anti-government extremism is the leading source of ideological violence in America.

Muslim terrorism threats are overblown – white supremacists have killed twice as many people since 9/11Shane 6/24 (Scott, journalist for The New York Times, “Homegrown Extremists Tied to Deadlier Toll Than Jihadists in U.S. Since 9/11,” The New York Times, June 24, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/us/tally-of-attacks-in-us-challenges-perceptions-of-top-terror-threat.html)//MJWASHINGTON — In the 14 years since Al Qaeda carried out attacks on New York and the Pentagon, extremists have regularly executed smaller lethal assaults in the United States, explaining their motives in online manifestoes or social media rants. But the breakdown of extremist ideologies behind those attacks may come as a surprise. Since Sept. 11, 2001, nearly twice as many people have been killed by white supremacists, antigovernment fanatics and other non-Muslim extremists than by radical Muslims: 48 have been killed by extremists who are not Muslim, including the recent mass killing in Charleston, S.C., compared with 26 by self-proclaimed jihadists, according to a count by New America, a Washington research center. The slaying of nine African-Americans in a Charleston church last week, with an avowed white supremacist charged with their murders, was a particularly savage case. But it is only the latest in a string of lethal attacks by people espousing racial hatred, hostility to government and theories such as those of the “sovereign citizen” movement, which denies the legitimacy of most statutory law. The assaults have taken the lives of police officers, members of racial or religious minorities and random civilians. Non-Muslim extremists have carried out 19 such attacks since Sept. 11, according to the latest count, compiled by David Sterman, a New America program associate, and overseen by Peter Bergen, a terrorism expert. By comparison, seven lethal attacks by Islamic militants have taken place in the same period. If such numbers are new to the public, they are familiar to police officers. A survey to be published this week asked 382 police and sheriff’s departments nationwide to rank the three biggest threats from violent extremism in their jurisdiction. About 74 percent listed antigovernment violence, while 39 percent listed “Al Qaeda-inspired” violence, according to the researchers, Charles Kurzman of the University of North Carolina and David Schanzer of Duke University. “Law enforcement agencies around the country have told us the threat from Muslim extremists is not as great as the threat from right-wing extremists,” said Dr. Kurzman, whose study is to be published by the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security and the Police Executive Research Forum. John G. Horgan, who studies terrorism at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, said the mismatch between public perceptions and actual cases had become steadily more obvious to scholars. “There’s an acceptance now of the idea that the threat from jihadi terrorism in the United States has been overblown,” Dr. Horgan said. “And there’s a belief that the threat of right-wing, antigovernment violence has been underestimated.” Counting terrorism cases is a subjective enterprise, relying on shifting definitions and judgment calls. If terrorism is defined as ideological violence, for instance, should

an attacker who has merely ranted about religion, politics or race be considered a terrorist? A man in Chapel Hill, N.C., who was charged with fatally shooting three young Muslim neighbors had posted angry critiques of religion, but he also had a history of outbursts over parking issues. (New America does not include this attack in its count.) Likewise, what about mass killings in which no ideological motive is evident, such as those at a Colorado movie theater and a Connecticut elementary school in 2012? The criteria used by New America and most other research groups exclude such attacks, which have cost more lives than those clearly tied to ideology. Some killings by non-Muslims that most experts would categorize as terrorism have drawn only fleeting news media coverage, never jelling in the public memory. But to revisit some of the episodes is to wonder why. In 2012, a neo-Nazi named Wade Michael Page entered a Sikh temple in Wisconsin and opened fire, killing six people and seriously wounding three others. Mr. Page, who died at the scene, was a member of a white supremacist group called the Northern Hammerskins. In another case, in June 2014, Jerad and Amanda Miller, a married couple with radical antigovernment views, entered a Las Vegas pizza restaurant and fatally shot two police officers who were eating lunch. On the bodies, they left a swastika, a flag inscribed with the slogan “Don’t tread on me” and a note saying, “This is the start of the revolution.” Then they killed a third person in a nearby Walmart. And, as in the case of jihadist plots, there have been sobering close calls. In November 2014 in Austin, Tex., a man named Larry McQuilliams fired more than 100 rounds at government buildings that included the Police Headquarters and the Mexican Consulate. Remarkably, his shooting spree hit no one, and he was killed by an officer before he could try to detonate propane cylinders he drove to the scene. Some Muslim advocates complain that when the perpetrator of an attack is not Muslim, news media commentators quickly focus on the question of mental illness. “With non-Muslims, the media bends over backward to identify some psychological traits that may have pushed them over the edge,” said Abdul Cader Asmal, a retired physician and a longtime spokesman for Muslims in Boston. “Whereas if it’s a Muslim, the assumption is that they must have done it because of their religion.” On several occasions since President Obama took office, efforts by government agencies to conduct research on right-wing extremism have run into resistance from Republicans, who suspected an attempt to smear conservatives.

Can’t stop terrorism – flawed ideology

American counter-terrorism policy is failing and will continue to fail, we can never stop an ideology.Micah Zenko 15, 5-21-2015, "America’s Virulent, Extremist Counterterrorism Ideology," Foreign Policy, http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/05/21/americas-virulent-extremist-counterterrorism-ideology-perpetual-war-islamic-state/What is most disheartening about this radicalized counterterrorism discourse is that these same officials and policymakers still pretend that these diffuse terrorist threats will be “destroyed,” “defeated,” or “eliminated.” This quite simply will not happen because the United States and its partners keep applying the same strategies and policies while foolishly hoping for a different result . Officials claim that terrorists’ ideology is their “center of gravity,” a term the Pentagon defines as: “The source of power that provides moral or physical strength, freedom of action, or will to act.” Yet, again, because nothing has succeeded at countering that ideology, we are supposed to become accustomed to an endless war against a nondescript concept. The only ideology that the United States can influence or control is its own. Instead, Washington has busied itself conflating local militancy with threats to the homeland, refusing to identify the enemy, proclaiming tough-sounding and implausible strategic objectives, and demonstrating no meaningful learning or adjustments over 13 years. The lack of precision employed when defining America’s adversaries in the war on terrorism and the absence of any end state (combined with those unachievable objectives) comprise a dangerous and extremist set of beliefs for U.S. officials and policymakers to hold. If the war on terrorism is really all about ideology and ideas, then the United States should spend as much time analyzing its own ideology as it does its enemies’. The emerging counterterrorism ideology that Washington is expressing is hazardous, illusory, and sadly unchallenged.

***Aff link Answers***

Surv. FailsMass surveillance is a terrible strategy to find terrorists – only targeted surveillance can thwart attacks Schneier 15 [Bruce Schneier is an American cryptographer, computer security and privacy specialist, and writer. He is the author of several books on general security topics, computer security and cryptography, “Why Mass Surveillance Can't, Won't, And Never Has Stopped A Terrorist”, http://digg.com/2015/why-mass-surveillance-cant-wont-and-never-has-stopped-a-terrorist, March 25th, 2015//Rahul]In his latest bestseller, Data and Goliath, world-renowned security expert and author Bruce Schneier goes deep into the world of surveillance, investigating how governments and corporations alike monitor nearly our every move. In this excerpt, Schneier explains how we are fed a false narrative of how our surveillance state is able to stop terrorist attacks before they happen. In fact, Schneier argues, the idea that our government is able to parse all the invasive and personal data they collect on us is laughable. The data-mining conducted every day only seems to take valuable resources and time away from the tactics that should be used to fight terrorism. Illustration: Electronic Frontier Foundation/Hugh D'Andrade The NSA repeatedly uses a connect-the-dots metaphor to justify its surveillance activities. Again and again — after 9/11, after the Underwear Bomber, after the Boston Marathon bombings — government is criticized for not connecting the dots. However, this is a terribly misleading metaphor. Connecting the dots in a coloring book is easy, because they’re all numbered and visible. In real life, the dots can only be recognized after the fact. That doesn’t stop us from demanding to know why the authorities couldn’t connect the dots. The warning signs left by the Fort Hood shooter, the Boston Marathon bombers, and the Isla Vista shooter look obvious in hindsight. Nassim Taleb, an expert on risk engineering, calls this tendency the “narrative fallacy.” Humans are natural storytellers, and the world of stories is much more tidy, predictable, and coherent than reality. Millions of people behave strangely enough to attract the FBI’s notice, and almost all of them are harmless. The TSA’s no-fly list has over 20,000 people on it. The Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, also known as the watch list, has 680,000, 40% of whom have “no recognized terrorist group affiliation.” Data mining is offered as the technique that will enable us to connect those dots. But while corporations are successfully mining our personal data in order to target advertising, detect financial fraud, and perform other tasks, three critical issues make data mining an inappropriate tool for finding terrorists. The first, and most important, issue is error rates. For advertising, data mining can be successful even with a large error rate, but finding terrorists requires a much higher degree of accuracy than data-mining systems can possibly provide. Data mining works best when you’re searching for a well-defined profile, when there are a reasonable number of events per year, and when the cost of false alarms is low. Detecting credit card fraud is one of data mining’s security success stories: all credit card companies mine their transaction databases for spending patterns that indicate a stolen card. There are over a billion active credit cards in circulation in the United States, and nearly 8% of those are fraudulently used each year. Many credit card thefts share a pattern — purchases in locations not normally frequented by the cardholder, and purchases of travel, luxury goods, and easily fenced items — and in many cases data-mining systems can minimize the losses by preventing fraudulent transactions. The only cost of a false alarm is a phone call to the cardholder asking her to verify a couple of her purchases. Similarly, the IRS uses data mining to identify tax evaders, the police use it to predict crime hot spots, and banks use it to predict loan defaults. These applications have had mixed success, based on the data and the application, but they’re all within the scope of what data mining can accomplish. Terrorist plots are different, mostly because whereas fraud is common, terrorist attacks are very rare. This means that even highly accurate terrorism prediction systems will be so flooded with false alarms that they will be useless. The reason lies in the mathematics of detection. All detection systems have errors, and system designers can tune them to minimize either false positives or false negatives. In a terrorist-detection system, a false positive occurs when the system mistakenly identifies something harmless

as a threat. A false negative occurs when the system misses an actual attack. Depending on how you “tune” your detection system, you can increase the number of false positives to assure you are less likely to miss an attack, or you can reduce the number of false positives at the expense of missing attacks. Because terrorist attacks are so rare, false positives completely overwhelm the system, no matter how well you tune. And I mean completely: millions of people will be falsely accused for every real terrorist plot the system finds, if it ever finds any. We might be able to deal with all of the innocents being flagged by the system if the cost of false positives were minor. Think about the full-body scanners at airports. Those alert all the time when scanning people. But a TSA officer can easily check for a false alarm with a simple pat-down. This doesn’t work for a more general data-based terrorism-detection system. Each alert requires a lengthy investigation to determine whether it’s real or not. That takes time and money, and prevents intelligence officers from doing other productive work. Or, more pithily, when you’re watching everything, you’re not seeing anything. The US intelligence community also likens finding a terrorist plot to looking for a needle in a haystack. And, as former NSA director General Keith Alexander said, “you need the haystack to find the needle.” That statement perfectly illustrates the problem with mass surveillance and bulk collection. When you’re looking for the needle, the last thing you want to do is pile lots more hay on it. More specifically, there is no scientific rationale for believing that adding irrelevant data about innocent people makes it easier to find a terrorist attack, and lots of evidence that it does not. You might be adding slightly more signal, but you’re also adding much more noise. And despite the NSA’s “collect it all” mentality, its own documents bear this out. The military intelligence community even talks about the problem of “drinking from a fire hose”: having so much irrelevant data that it’s impossible to find the important bits. The NSA's Utah Data Center Photo Credit: Electronic Frontier Foundation We saw this problem with the NSA’s eavesdropping program: the false positives overwhelmed the system. In the years after 9/11, the NSA passed to the FBI thousands of tips per month; every one of them turned out to be a false alarm. The cost was enormous, and ended up frustrating the FBI agents who were obligated to investigate all the tips. We also saw this with the Suspicious Activity Reports —or SAR — database: tens of thousands of reports, and no actual results. And all the telephone metadata the NSA collected led to just one success: the conviction of a taxi driver who sent $8,500 to a Somali group that posed no direct threat to the US — and that was probably trumped up so the NSA would have better talking points in front of Congress. The second problem with using data-mining techniques to try to uncover terrorist plots is that each attack is unique. Who would have guessed that two pressure-cooker bombs would be delivered to the Boston Marathon finish line in backpacks by a Boston college kid and his older brother? Each rare individual who carries out a terrorist attack will have a disproportionate impact on the criteria used to decide who’s a likely terrorist, leading to ineffective detection strategies. The third problem is that the people the NSA is trying to find are wily, and they’re trying to avoid detection. In the world of personalized marketing, the typical surveillance subject isn’t trying to hide his activities. That is not true in a police or national security context. An adversarial relationship makes the problem much harder, and means that most commercial big data analysis tools just don’t work. A commercial tool can simply ignore people trying to hide and assume benign behavior on the part of everyone else. Government data-mining techniques can’t do that, because those are the very people they’re looking for. Adversaries vary in the sophistication of their ability to avoid surveillance. Most criminals and terrorists — and political dissidents, sad to say — are pretty unsavvy and make lots of mistakes. But that’s no justification for data mining; targeted surveillance could potentially identify them just as well. The question is whether mass surveillance performs sufficiently better than targeted surveillance to justify its extremely high costs. Several analyses of all the NSA’s efforts indicate that it does not. The three problems listed above cannot be fixed. Data mining is simply the wrong tool for this job, which means that all the mass surveillance required to feed it cannot be justified. When he was NSA director, General Keith Alexander argued that ubiquitous surveillance would have enabled the NSA to prevent 9/11. That seems unlikely. He wasn’t able to prevent the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013, even though one of the bombers was on the terrorist watch list and both had sloppy social media trails — and this was after a dozen post-9/11 years of honing techniques. The NSA collected data on the Tsarnaevs before the bombing, but hadn’t realized that it was more important than the data they collected on millions of other people. This point was made in the 9/11 Commission Report. That report described a failure to “connect the dots,” which proponents of mass surveillance claim requires collection of more data. But what the report actually said was that the intelligence community had all the information about the plot without mass surveillance, and that the failures were the result of inadequate analysis. Mass surveillance didn’t catch underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in 2006, even though his father had repeatedly

warned the U.S. government that he was dangerous. And the liquid bombers (they’re the reason governments prohibit passengers from bringing large bottles of liquids, creams, and gels on airplanes in their carry-on luggage) were captured in 2006 in their London apartment not due to mass surveillance but through traditional investigative police work. Whenever we learn about an NSA success, it invariably comes from targeted surveillance rather than from mass surveillance. One analysis showed that the FBI identifies potential terrorist plots from reports of suspicious activity, reports of plots, and investigations of other, unrelated, crimes. This is a critical point. Ubiquitous surveillance and data mining are not suitable tools for finding dedicated criminals or terrorists. We taxpayers are wasting billions on mass-surveillance programs, and not getting the security we’ve been promised. More importantly, the money we’re wasting on these ineffective surveillance programs is not being spent on investigation, intelligence, and emergency response: tactics that have been proven to work. The NSA's surveillance efforts have actually made us less secure.

Data shows no meaningful terror plots have been stopped via mass surveillance Osterndorf 15 [Chris Osterndorf, reporter for the Daily Dot, “Edward Snowden is right—NSA surveillance won't stop terrorism”, http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/edward-snowden-mass-surveillance-nsa-america/, March 17th, 2015//Rahul]It appears that Snowden season is approaching once again. The controversial whistleblower made a surprise appearance via Google Hangout at SXSW this week, where his remarks proved captivating as always. Essentially a less flashy sequel to his ACLU speech from 2014, Snowden only spoke to a few people this time around, engaging in a conversation with a select group of leaders from America’s tech sector. In particular, he urged tech companies to become "champions of privacy," suggesting that they use their power to help shield Americans from an increasingly watchful government. In addition to speaking at SXSW in Austin, Snowden also said a few words at FutureFest in London, where he warned that massive surveillance won't stop terrorism. In this instance, Snowden is absolutely correct, and it’s time we start heeding his advice. At this point, the only people clinging to this idea is an effective is the NSA themselves. In 2013, NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander went before the House Intelligence Committee to testify to claim that increased surveillance had helped to stop terrorist threats over 50 times since 9/11, including attacks on U.S. soil such as a plot to blow up the New York Stock Exchange and a defunct scheme to fund an overseas terrorist group. Other witnesses in the same hearing also suggested that the Snowden leaks had harmed America greatly. “We are now faced with a situation that because this information has been made public, we run the risk of losing these collection capabilities,” stated Robert S. Litt, general counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. “We’re not going to know for many months whether these leaks in fact have caused us to lose these capabilities, but if they do have that effect, there is no doubt that they will cause our national security to be affected.” However, the details the NSA provided in this hearing were somewhat hazy, and a closer look at the numbers indicates the benefits of increased surveillance may not be so clear-cut after all. Research from International Security found that out of the 269 terrorist suspects apprehended since 9/11, 158 were brought in through the use of traditional investigative measures. That’s almost 60 percent of all who were arrested. Meanwhile, 78 suspects were apprehended through measures which were “unclear” and 15 were implicated in plots but were not apprehended, while the remaining 18 were apprehended by some form of NSA surveillance. Eighteen is no small number when you’re discussing matters of national security; however, the above statistics do not necessarily indicate that mass surveillance was responsible for the apprehension of these 18 terrorists or whether these suspects were detained under more traditional surveillance measures. Moreover, the evidence suggests that traditional means of combatting terrorism are more effective than surveillance when it comes to overall arrests. Additional analysis from the New America Foundation further supports these findings. Examining 225 post-9/11 terrorism cases in the U.S.,

their 2014 report found that the NSA’s bulk surveillance program “has had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism, ” citing traditional methods of law enforcement and investigation as being far more effective in the majority of cases. In as many as 48 of these cases, traditional surveillance warrants were used to collect evidence, while more

than half of the cases were the product of other traditional investigative actions, such as informants and reports of suspicious activity. In fact, New America determined that the NSA has only been responsible for 7.5 percent of all counterterrorism investigations and that only one of those investigations led to suspects being convicted based on metadata collection. And that case, which took months to solve, as the NSA went back and forth with the FBI, involved money being sent to a terrorist group in Somalia, rather than an active plan to perpetrate an attack on U.S. soil. According to the report’s principal author Peter Bergen, who is the director of the foundation’s National Security Program and their resident terrorism expert, the issue has less to do with the collection of data and more to do with the comprehension of it. Bergen said, “The overall problem for U.S. counterterrorism officials is not that they need vaster amounts of information from the bulk surveillance programs, but that they don’t sufficiently understand or widely share the information they already possess that was derived from conventional law enforcement and intelligence techniques.” Of course, even when all of the data has been collected, it still isn’t enough to stop a terrorist attack. “It’s worth remembering that the mass surveillance programs initiated by the U.S. government after the 9/11 attacks—the legal ones and the constitutionally dubious ones—were premised on the belief that bin Laden’s hijacker-terrorists were able to pull off the attacks because of a failure to collect enough data,” asserts Reason’s Patrick Eddington. “Yet in their subsequent reports on the attacks, the Congressional Joint Inquiry (2002) and the 9/11 Commission found exactly the opposite. The data to detect (and thus foil) the plots was in the U.S. government’s hands prior to the attacks; the failures were ones of sharing, analysis, and dissemination.” So once again, we see that the key is not collection, but comprehension. If all of this still doesn’t seem like enough evidence that mass surveillance is ineffective, consider that a White House review group has also admitted the NSA’s counterterrorism program “was not essential to preventing attacks” and that a large portion of the evidence that was collected “could readily have been obtained in a timely manner using conventional [court] orders.” But mass surveillance isn’t just the United States’ problem. Research has shown that Canada's Levitation project, which also involves collecting large amounts of data in the service of fighting terrorism, may be just as questionable as the NSA’s own data collection practices. Meanwhile, in response to the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris, British Prime Minister David Cameron has reintroduced the Communications Data Bill, which would force telecom companies to keep track of all Internet, email, and cellphone activity and ban encrypted communication services. But support for this type of legislation in Europe doesn't appear to be any stronger than in North America. Slate’s Ray Corrigan argued, “Even if your magic terrorist-catching machine has a false positive rate of 1 in 1,000—and no security technology comes anywhere near this—every time you asked it for suspects in the U.K., it would flag 60,000 innocent people.” Fortunately, the cultural shift against increased data collection has become so evident in the U.S. that even President Obama is trying to get out of the business of mass surveillance; the president announced plans last March to reform the National Security Agency's practice of collecting call records, which have yet to come to fruition. Benjamin Franklin famously said that “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” While this quote has been notoriously butchered and misinterpreted over the years, it has now become evident that we shouldn’t have to give up either of these things in pursuit of the other. The U.S. is still grappling with how to fight terrorism in this technologically advanced age, but just because we have additional technology at our disposal, doesn’t mean that technology is always going to be used for the common good. You may believe Edward Snowden to be a traitor or a hero, but on this matter, there is virtually no question: Mass surveillance is not only unconstitutional, it is also the wrong way to fight terrorism.

Paris proves surveillance can’t stop attacks Corrigan 15 [Ray Corrigan, Ray Corrigan is a senior lecturer in mathematics, computing, and technology at the Open University, U.K., “Mass Surveillance Will Not Stop Terrorism”, http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/new_scientist/2015/01/mass_surveillance_against_terrorism_gathering_intelligence_on_all_is_statistically.html, January 25th, 2015//Rahul]Cameron seems to believe terrorist attacks can be prevented if only mass surveillance, by the U.K.’s intelligence-gathering center GCHQ and the U.S. National Security Agency, reaches the degree of perfection portrayed in his favorite TV dramas, where computers magically pinpoint the bad guys. Computers don’t work this way in real life and neither does mass surveillance. Brothers Said and Cherif

Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly, who murdered 17 people, were known to the French security services and considered a serious threat. France has blanket electronic surveillance. It didn’t avert what happened. Police, intelligence, and security systems are imperfect. They process vast amounts of imperfect intelligence data and do not have the resources to monitor all known suspects 24/7. The French authorities lost track of these extremists long enough for them to carry out their murderous acts. You cannot fix any of this by treating the entire population as suspects and then engaging in suspicion less, blanket collection and processing of personal data. Mass data collectors can dig deeply into anyone’s digital persona but don’t have the resources to do so with everyone. Surveillance of the entire population, the vast majority of whom are innocent, leads to the diversion of limited intelligence resources in pursuit of huge numbers of false leads. Terrorists are comparatively rare, so finding one is a needle-in-a-haystack problem. You don’t make it easier by throwing more needleless hay on the stack. It is statistically impossible for total population surveillance to be an effective tool for catching terrorists. Even if your magic terrorist-catching machine has a false positive rate of 1 in 1,000—and no security technology comes anywhere near this—every time you asked it for suspects in the U.K. it would flag 60,000 innocent people. Law enforcement and security services need to be able to move with the times, using modern digital technologies intelligently and through targeted data preservation—not a mass surveillance regime—to engage in court-supervised technological surveillance of individuals whom they have reasonable cause to suspect. That is not, however, the same as building an infrastructure of mass surveillance. Mass surveillance makes the job of the security services more difficult and the rest of us less secure.

The statement that 54 terror plots were found by bulk surveillance was fabricated – mass collection of data has stopped only 2 attacks Waterman 13 [Shaun Waterman, cyber security expert and writer for Politico, “NSA chief’s admission of misleading numbers adds to Obama administration blunders”, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/2/nsa-chief-figures-foiled-terror-plots-misleading/?page=all, October 2nd, 2013//Rahul]The Obama administration’s credibility on intelligence suffered another blow Wednesday as the chief of the National Security Agency admitted that officials put out numbers that vastly overstated the counterterrorism successes of the government’s warrantless bulk collection of all Americans’ phone records. Pressed by the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at an oversight hearing, Gen. Keith B. Alexander admitted that the number of terrorist plots foiled by the NSA’s huge database of every phone call made in or to America was only one or perhaps two — far smaller than the 54 originally claimed by the administration. Gen. Alexander and other intelligence chiefs have pleaded with lawmakers not to shut down the bulk collection of U.S. phone records despite growing unease about government overreach in the program, which was revealed in documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. SEE ALSO: Shutdown furloughs 70 percent of U.S. intelligence workers “There is no evidence that [bulk] phone records collection helped to thwart dozens or even several terrorist plots,” Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat and committee chairman, told Gen. Alexander of the 54 cases that administration officials — including the general himself — have cited as the fruit of the NSA’s domestic snooping. “These weren’t all plots and they weren’t all foiled,” he said. Mr. Leahy and Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Wisconsin Republican and author of the USA Patriot Act, which the government says allows bulk data collection, are working on a bill to roll back that authority. In a summary they floated to colleagues Wednesday, the men said they would end bulk collection and require the NSA to show that the data it is seeking are relevant to an authorized investigation and involve a foreign agent. The two lawmakers also proposed a special advocacy office with appellate powers to be part of the proceedings in the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and requiring the court to release secret opinions that lay out major interpretations of law. Mr. Leahy, who has been a chief critic of the NSA, asked Gen. Alexander to admit that only 13 of the 54 cases had any

connection at all to the U.S., “Would you agree with that, yes or no?” “Yes,” Gen. Alexander replied in a departure from normal practice. Administration officials giving testimony to Congress, even when asked to confine themselves to a simple yes or no, rarely do. In response to a follow-up question, Gen. Alexander also acknowledged that only one or perhaps two of even those 13 cases had been foiled with help from the NSA’s vast phone records database.

Surveillance fails in preventing security threatsLarsen 14 (Mike; Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Criminology, Faculty Member; the consequences of mass surveillance; 12/1/14) Privacy interests are currently “at odds” (CBC, 2014) with the surveillance state as it exists. The surveillance state has expanded due to the rapid advancement of technology in the last 50 years. Advocates of privacy rights contend that privacy is a fundamental right that is inherent in North American society. The privacy advocates in The Munk Debate claim that the use of indiscriminate mass surveillance has 3 hindrances. Privacy advocates claim that mass surveillance is inefficient in that it hinders technological progress, it is harmful to the economy, and counterproductive in addressing threats to national security. Mass-surveillance creates distrust amongst the global community and diverts the “global user base” (CBC, 2014) away from North American technological services. Internet users will use servers outside of North America that maintain a veneer of privacy. Economic security that helps to provide “national security” (CBC, 2014) has been hindered by mass-surveillance. Countries threatened by North American surveillance may insulate themselves from the internet. Technological progress that results from global interconnectedness through the internet has been threatened by The Five Eyes Program. Michael Hayden describes how countries like Germany and Brazil may detach their interconnectedness from the World Wide Web (CBC, 2014). The use of mass-surveillance undermines national security because it fails to secure technological exploits. Threats to national security can utilize the same weaknesses in technology that the state utilizes to surveil citizens. Technological defects should be fixed to prevent further exploitation and criminal activity. Mass-surveillance destabilizes the security of global interconnectedness by allowing technological flaws to endure. The NSA and CSEC receive massive budgets that could be utilized to prevent further criminal activity on the internet. The use of mass surveillance is counterproductive to security, democracy, and the economy.

Mass Surveillance fails to prevent terrorist attacksEddington 15 (Patrick; a policy analyst in homeland security and civil liberties at the Cato Institute;No, Mass Surveillance Won't Stop Terrorist Attacks)No, mass surveillance does not prevent terrorist attacks. It’s worth remembering that the mass surveillance programs initiated by the U.S. government after the 9/11 attacks—the legal ones and the constitutionally-

dubious ones—were premised on the belief that bin Laden’s hijacker-terrorists were able to pull off the attacks because of a failure to collect enough data. Yet in their subsequent reports on the attacks, the Congressional Joint Inquiry (2002) and the 9/11 Commission found exactly the opposite. The data to detect (and thus foil) the plots was in the U.S. government’s hands prior to the attacks; the failures were ones of sharing, analysis, and dissemination. That malady perfectly describes every intelligence failure from Pearl Harbor to the present day. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (created by Congress in 2004) was supposed to be the answer to the "failure-to-connect-the-dots" problem. Ten years on, the problem remains, the IC bureaucracy is bigger than ever, and our government is continuing to rely on mass surveillance programs that have failed time and again to stop terrorists while simultaneously undermining the civil liberties and personal privacy of every American. The quest to "collect it all," to borrow a phrase from NSA Director Keith Alexander, only leads to the accumulation of masses of useless information, making it harder to find real threats and costing billions to store. A recent Guardian editorial noted that such mass-surveillance myopia is spreading among European political leaders as well, despite the fact that "terrorists, from 9/11 to the Woolwich jihadists and the neo-Nazi Anders Breivik, have almost always come to the authorities’ attention before murdering." Mass surveillance is not only destructive of our liberties, its continued use is a virtual guarantee of more lethal intelligence failures. And our continued will to disbelieve those facts is a mental dodge we engage in at our peril.

Surveillance doesn’t solve terrorism – can’t stop lone wolf attackersKayyem 7/9 (Juliette Kayyem, CNN National Security Analyst, professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, a former assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and founder of Kayyem Solutions, a security consulting firm, 7-9-2015, "Why July 4 terror threat was no joke," CNN, http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/06/opinions/kayyem-terror-threats/)//MJ

The reason is because intelligence can almost never provide enough information to thoughtfully and specifically prepare the public for a threat. And while a tremendous amount of progress has been made so government agencies are better at sharing information with each other and state and local officials, the notion that terrorist attacks can be stopped if we simply "connected the dots" better is often wishful thinking. In the end, especially for those who self-radicalize with no formal ties to terrorist organizations, there may not be that many dots to connect. Indeed, life would be so much easier if terrorists always spoke about specific targets at specific dates and times, and we intercepted their messages. But, "We will meet at the intersection of Constitution and 7th Avenue on Tuesday, Feb. 11, at 11 a.m.," is not how terrorists work. In an age of lone-wolf attackers, it is even rarer to be able to intercept any communication that would tell law enforcement who -- of the thousands of people who toy with ISIS online -- is going to attack and when. And so the United States, like other countries, is left with a bit of a dilemma: the government has to try to prepare the public for potential terror threats that are inherently random. What isn't random, however, are days that matter to the United States -- anniversaries of other terror attacks, national and religious holidays, and large gatherings such as the Super Bowl. Those we can control. And we have to, because the impact of terror strikes on those days -- whether a large or small attack -- will be much greater psychologically, because the public views those days as more meaningful than days that are normal. Let's do a rather crude exercise. An ISIS attacker, acting on his own, attacks a police officer on some Tuesday in July. The officer is killed. That is a story, of course. But imagine if the officer were patrolling a July 4 gathering in New York. That too is a story, but it is also a symbol. And the terrorist organization will surely use it to

recruit others to their cause. So, instead of viewing terror threats as fear-mongering, it is time to see them as an embedded reality of the age we live in. Symbols matter to terrorists, and to us. As the administration admitted, they had no specific evidence of an attack threat, and that is simply because specific evidence of direct threats is wishful thinking in the age of lone wolves and home-grown affiliates. We can't easily control them. But what we can control is an aggressive and publicly heightened alert on days when terrorists will view the consequences of random violence as a victory against our national pride and as a recruitment effort. The truth is that we will never know whether a planned attack was thwarted because a would-be lone wolf decided to wait it out based on the public warnings of increased vigilance. And there is a very real possibility that there will be several ISIS-inspired attacks or planned attacks by year's end in the United States. In a world where both possibilities are a reality, government warnings are not to cause unnecessary fear. They are meant to put some sort of order and process into an age when terror attacks have none.

Surveillance has caught legit no terrorists Mueller 6 (John, professor of political science at Ohio State University, “Is There Still a Terrorist Threat?: The Myth of the Omnipresent Enemy.” Foreign Affairs. September/October 2006. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2006-09-01/there-still-terrorist-threat-myth-omnipresent-enemy)//MJFor the past five years, Americans have been regularly regaled with dire predictions of another major al Qaeda attack in the United States. In 2003, a group of 200 senior government officials and business executives, many of them specialists in security and terrorism, pronounced it likely that a terrorist strike more devastating than 9/11 -- possibly involving weapons of mass destruction -- would occur before the end of 2004. In May 2004, Attorney General John Ashcroft warned that al Qaeda could "hit hard" in the next few months and said that 90 percent of the arrangements for an attack on U.S. soil were complete. That fall, Newsweek reported that it was "practically an article of faith among counterterrorism officials" that al Qaeda would strike in the run-up to the November 2004 election. When that "October surprise" failed to materialize, the focus shifted: a taped encyclical from Osama bin Laden, it was said, demonstrated that he was too weak to attack before the election but was marshalling his resources to do

so months after it. On the first page of its founding manifesto, the massively funded Department of Homeland Security intones, "Today's terrorists can strike at any place, at any time, and with virtually any weapon." But if it is so easy to pull off an attack and if terrorists are so demonically competent, why have they not done it? Why have they not been sniping at people in shopping centers, collapsing tunnels, poisoning the food supply, cutting electrical lines, derailing trains, blowing up oil pipelines, causing massive traffic jams, or exploiting the countless other vulnerabilities that, according to security experts,

could so easily be exploited? One reasonable explanation is that almost no terrorists exist in the United States and few have the means or the inclination to strike from abroad. But this

explanation is rarely offered.Instead, Americans are told -- often by the same people who had once predicted imminent

attacks -- that the absence of international terrorist strikes in the United States is owed to the protective measures so hastily and expensively put in place after 9/11. But there is a problem with this argument. True, there have been no terrorist incidents in the United States in the last five years. But nor were there any in the five years before the 9/11 attacks, at a time when the United States was doing much less to protect itself. It would take only one or two guys with a gun or an explosive to terrorize vast numbers of people, as the sniper attacks around Washington, D.C., demonstrated in 2002. Accordingly, the government's

protective measures would have to be nearly perfect to thwart all such plans. Given the monumental imperfection of the

government's response to Hurricane Katrina, and the debacle of FBI and National Security Agency programs to upgrade their computers to better coordinate intelligence information, that explanation seems far-fetched. Moreover, Israel still experiences terrorism even

with a far more extensive security apparatus. Intelligence estimates in 2002 held that there were

as many as 5,000 al Qaeda terrorists and supporters in the United States. However, a secret FBI report in 2005 wistfully noted that although the bureau had managed to arrest a few bad guys here and there after more than three years of intense and well-funded hunting, it had been unable to identify a single true al Qaeda sleeper cell anywhere in the country. Thousands of people in the United States have had their overseas communications monitored under a controversial warrantless surveillance

program. Of these, fewer than ten U.S. citizens or residents per year have aroused enough suspicion to impel the agencies spying on them to seek warrants authorizing surveillance of their domestic communications as well; none of this activity, it appears, has led to an indictment on any charge whatever.

Understanding data is more important than the amount storedSchwartz 15 [Mattathias Schwartz, staff writer won the 2011 Livingston Award for international reporting, 1-26-2015, "How to Catch a Terrorist," New Yorker, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/26/whole-haystack jf] Almost every major terrorist attack on Western soil in the past fifteen years has been committed by people who were already known to law enforcement. One of the gunmen in the attack on Charlie Hebdo, in Paris, had been sent to prison for recruiting jihadist fighters. The other had reportedly studied in Yemen with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the underwear bomber, who was arrested and interrogated by the F.B.I. in 2009. The leader of the 7/7 London suicide bombings, in 2005, had been observed by British intelligence meeting with a suspected terrorist, though MI5 later said that the bombers were “not on our radar.” The men who planned the Mumbai attacks, in 2008, were under electronic surveillance by the United States, the United Kingdom, and India, and one had been an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration. One of the brothers accused of bombing the Boston Marathon was the subject of an F.B.I. threat assessment and a warning from Russian intelligence.In each of these cases, the authorities were not wanting for data. What they failed to do was appreciate the significance of the data they already had. Nevertheless, since 9/11, the National Security Agency has sought to acquire every possible scrap of digital information—what General Keith Alexander, the agency’s former head, has called “the whole haystack.” The size of the haystack was revealed in June, 2013, by Edward Snowden. The N.S.A. vacuums up Internet searches, social-media content, and, most controversially, the records (known as metadata) of United States phone calls—who called whom, for how long, and from where. The agency stores the metadata for five years, possibly longer.

Surv. link turn

surveillance increases terrorism threat, destroys relations with Muslim communities willing to expose militantsBrooks 11 (Risa A, assistant professor of political science at Marquette University, where she specialized in the study of civil-military relations and terrorist organizations, “The Exaggerated Threat of American Muslim “Homegrown Terrorism.” Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center for Science International Affairs. December 2011. http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/brooks_policybrief_dec_2011.pdf)//MJ

Based on the evidence, the fear of a coming wave of Muslim homegrown terrorist attacks against the United States is greatly exaggerated. This fact deserves serious reflection given the considerable risks that can arise from mischaracterizing the threat. As the United States enters an era of fiscal austerity, officials must evaluate the opportunity costs of investing in domestic counterterrorism against other priorities. Consider, for example, how the FBI’s shift in resources from white collar crime to counterterrorism after the September 11 attacks, as documented by the national media, reduced the agency’s capacity to handle cases of mortgage and securities fraud at the height of the financial crisis. Additionally, the FBI has assigned dozens of agents to participate in recent sting operations. Government officials need to seriously consider whether these investments in domestic counterterrorism are worth the cost. Equally important, overstating the threat of Muslim homegrown terrorism unnecessarily heightens tensions between American Muslim communities and federal and local officials. This potentially undermines relationships of trust that form the basis for cooperation between Muslim communities and authorities. Methods commonly employed by law enforcement in these communities, such as extensive surveillance and cultivation of informants, are inherently challenging for any segment of society to endure, even when they are handled with care and sensitivity—care and sensitivity that a false sense of urgency associated with the homegrown terrorism threat could undermine. Federal officials and local police should be commended for their outreach efforts to American Muslim communities. Yet there is evidence of questionable and counterproductive practices being employed by some members of law enforcement in monitoring these communities. One example involves the October 2011 reports by the Associated Press about the extensive surveillance of Imam Sheikh Rada Shata by the New York City police, even though he had been an invited speaker and a host of events for NYPD officers in his Bay Ridge mosque. In sum, inflating the terrorist threat could alienate Muslim communities in the United States. This would be a worrisome development, because those communities’ widespread rejection of terrorism and their ongoing willingness to expose suspected militants are two reasons why the homegrown threat remains small.

Mass surveillance creates useless data, allows for terrorist attacksPatrick Eddington, 1-27-2015, "No, Mass Surveillance Won't Stop Terrorist Attacks," Reason, http://reason.com/archives/2015/01/27/mass-surveillance-and-terrorism#.bejqzr:U8Io, Patrick G. Eddington is a policy analyst in Homeland Security and Civil Liberties at the Cato Institute, and an assistant professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. From 2004-2010, he served as communications director and later as senior policy advisor to Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ). Eddington’s legislative portfolio included the full range of security-related issues, with an emphasis on intelligence policy reform in the areas of surveillance, detainee interrogation, and the use of drones, both in overseas and domestic contexts.¶ From 1988 to 1996, Eddington was a military imagery analyst at the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation CenterThe recent terrorist attack on the office of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo generated a now-familiar meme: Another terrorist attack means we

need more surveillance.¶ Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said that while "Congress having oversight certainly is important ... what is more important relative to these types of events is ensuring we don't overly hamstring the NSA's ability to collect this kind of information in advance and keep these kinds of activities from occurring." Similarly, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) spoke of his "fear" that "our intelligence capabilities, those designed to prevent such an attack from taking place on our shores, are quickly eroding," adding that the government surveillance "designed to prevent these types of attacks from occurring is under siege."¶ A recent poll demonstrates that their sentiments are widely shared in the wake of the attack.¶ But would more mass surveillance have prevented the assault on the Charlie Hebdo office? Events from 9/11 to the present help provide the answer:¶ 2009: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab—i.e., the "underwear bomber"—nearly succeeded in downing the airline he was on over Detroit because, according to then-National Counterterrorism Center (NCC) director Michael Leiter, the federal Intelligence Community (IC) failed "to connect, integrate, and fully understand the intelligence" it had collected.¶ 2009: Army Major Nidal Hasan was able to conduct his deadly, Anwar al-Awlaki-inspired rampage at Ft. Hood, Texas, because the FBI bungled its Hasan investigation.¶ 2013: The Boston Marathon bombing happened, at least in part, because the CIA, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), FBI, NCC, and National Security Agency (NSA) failed to properly coordinate and share information about Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his family, associations, and travel to and from Russia in 2012. Those failures were detailed in a 2014 report prepared by the Inspectors General of the IC, Department of Justice, CIA, and DHS.¶ 2014: The Charlie Hebdo and French grocery store attackers were not only known to French and U.S. authorities but one had a prior terrorism conviction and another was monitored for years by French authorities until less than a year before the attack on the magazine.¶ No, mass surveillance does not prevent terrorist attacks.¶ It’s worth remembering that the mass surveillance programs initiated by the U.S. government after the 9/11 attacks—the legal ones and the constitutionally-dubious ones—were premised on the belief that bin Laden’s hijacker-terrorists were able to pull off the attacks because of a failure to collect enough data. Yet in their subsequent reports on the attacks, the Congressional Joint Inquiry (2002) and the 9/11 Commission found exactly the opposite. The data to detect (and thus foil) the plots was in the U.S. government’s hands prior to the attacks; the failures were ones of sharing, analysis, and dissemination . That malady perfectly describes every intelligence failure from Pearl Harbor to the present day.¶ The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (created by Congress in 2004) was supposed to be the answer to the "failure-to-connect-the-dots" problem. Ten years on, the problem remains, the IC bureaucracy is bigger than ever, and our government is continuing to rely on mass surveillance programs that have failed time and again to stop terrorists while simultaneously undermining the civil liberties and personal privacy of every American. The quest to "collect it all," to borrow a phrase from NSA Director Keith Alexander, only leads to the accumulation of masses of useless information, making it harder to find real threats and costing billions to store.¶ A recent Guardian editorial noted that such mass-surveillance myopia is spreading among European political leaders as well, despite the fact that "terrorists, from 9/11 to the Woolwich jihadists and the neo-Nazi Anders Breivik, have almost always come to the authorities’

attention before murdering."¶ Mass surveillance is not only destructive of our liberties, its continued use is a virtual guarantee of more lethal intelligence failures. And our continued will to disbelieve those facts is a mental dodge we engage in at our peril.

BordersBorder security increases terrorism Newman, 2013(Joel Newman 13, 5/7/2013, "Open Borders, Terrorism, and Islam," Open Borders: The Case, http://openborders.info/blog/open-borders-terrorism-and-islam/ CCC)I assume that other open borders supporters cringed, as I did, when it was reported that the suspects in the Boston bombings were immigrants. For some people, the Boston atrocity appears to have reinforced fears that immigrants could be terrorists.  A man interviewed in a Philadelphia suburb said, “’I’m a little more of an extremist now after what happened in Boston… I think we should just stop letting people in.’” Even maintaining current immigration levels or instituting small liberalizations of American immigration policy may be threatened by what happened in Boston and similar immigrant-connected terrorism, let alone their negative impact on the push for open borders. Concerns about the connection between immigrants and terrorism involve Muslim immigrants. The Boston suspects were Muslims andmay have been inspired by religious extremism to carry out the attacks. The Bipartisan Policy Center reports that the U.S. has “a domestic terrorist problem involving immigrant and indigenous Muslims as well as converts to Islam.” ((9/10/10, Bipartisan Policy Center, Assessing the Terrorist Threat), page 31) Even some open borders advocates seem uncertain if an open borders policy should apply to Muslim immigrants. In the site’s background page on terrorism, Vipul paraphrases a view (not necessarily his own): “[F]or those who believe that Islamic immigration to the United States poses a unique threat, this may be a reason to maintain present restrictions on immigration from Islamic countries and self-identified Muslims from other countries.”  Muslim immigration would increase with open borders, and some of these additional immigrants could become terrorists. (see also here and here). However, especially after situations like Boston (and there   have been others ), open borders supporters should explain how open borders could actually help protect the U.S. from terrorism and that open borders should be available to all individual immigrants, regardless of religion, so long as they pose no terrorist threat. Vipul has collected some of these arguments at the link above.  My vision of open borders and that of a number of other supporters does involve keeping out potential terrorists through security screenings at the border.   So one argument notes that, unlike our current restrictionist policy which devotes considerable resources and focus on keeping out unauthorized immigrants seeking to work in the U.S., resources under an open borders policy could be focused on screening out terrorists.   (2) Another argument is that the free movement of people between countries could lead to the spreading of ideas contrary to those which inspire terrorism; immigrants who

move between the U.S. or other western countries and their native countries would share values such as individual rights, tolerance, and democracy with their compatriots who remain in the native countries .   A third argument is that if terrorism grows out of weak economies in native countries, the free movement of people from those countries and the resulting economic benefit to those countries (through remittances and immigrants returning to their native country to establish new businesses) could help prevent terrorism . There is another reason open borders could help combat terrorism.   Kevin Johnson, author of   Opening the Floodgates, notes that “carefully crafted immigration enforcement is less likely to frighten immigrant communities—the very communities whose assistance is essential if the United States truly seeks to successfully fight terrorism.” (page 35)   Without the fear of being the targets of immigration enforcement, immigrants would be more likely to cooperate with authorities in identifying individuals who are potential terrorists in the U.S. and assist with efforts against terrorist groups abroad. This would fit with the government’s strategy to gain the cooperation of Muslims in the U.S. in addressing terrorism.  Quintan Wiktorowicz, a national security staff member in the White House,   notes   in a discussion on an administration plan to fight terrorism in the U.S. that “Muslim communities and Muslims in the United States are not the problem, they are the solution. And that’s the message we plan to take to those particular communities in addressing at least al-Qaida inspired radicalization of violent extremism…” For the effort abroad, Nathan Smith   suggests   that “emigrants from Islamic countries could provide a valuable resource for the intelligence services of the West in their fight against Islamic terrorism.”   Open borders   would presumably increase the number of immigrants from countries that have been sources of terrorism against the U.S., such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen.   Some of these immigrants could provide the cultural and language skills which would bolster our intelligence resources and help America stay safe from future attacks.   Indeed, our intelligence agencies have often lacked agents who could infiltrate groups that threaten the U.S. (In an article in the   Atlantic Monthly   in the summer of 2001, Reuel Marc Gereht quoted a former CIA operative as saying “‘The CIA probably doesn’t have a single truly qualified Arabic speaking officer of Middle Eastern background who can play a believable Muslim fundamentalist…’” (pages 38-42, July/August 2001)) In addition to articulating the potential benefits of open borders to stopping terrorism, open borders advocates must emphasize that most Muslims are peaceful and should be allowed to immigrate.  Philippe Legrain, author of Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them, warns “we should not fall into the trap of thinking that Muslims are a uniform and separate community whose identity is wholly defined by their religion, still less an inevitably hostile or violent one.” (page 304) He notes that Muslims come from many different countries, each with their own traditions, and, like other religious groups, some are religious, some not.  “There are feminist Muslims, gay Muslims and Muslims who reject their faith.” (page 304)  In addition, “only a small minority of

Muslims are fundamentalist,” and only a tiny number of fundamentalists are terrorists. (page 305)  There are over 2.5   million Muslims  living in the U.S., about two thirds of whom are immigrants, but very few are involved in terrorism.  The Bipartisan Policy Center reports that in 2009 “at least 43 American citizens or residents aligned with Sunni militant groups or their ideology were charged or convicted of terrorism crimes in the U.S. or elsewhere, the highest number in any year since 9/11.” (Page 5 of this report ) Mr. Legrain explains that “the threat of Islamic terrorism  is a reason for increased vigilance, surveillance and scrutiny; it is not reason for limiting immigration.” Nathan Smith has noted that when dramatic events occur, such as an act of terrorism by immigrants or a plane crash, people often overestimate the frequency of such events, a phenomenon called“availability bias.”  This mental overreaction to “extremely unrepresentative events” makes people attribute more importance to the events than they deserve.  This dynamic suggests that open borders supporters have a lot of work to do convincing the public that most Muslims who want to immigrate pose no threat and that open borders may actually help in the fight against terrorism.

U.S attempts to securitize and survey borders in order to prevent terrorism have done absolutely nothing Washington Times 5/15 (Washington Times Http 15, 5-21-2015, "FBI admits Patriot Act snooping powers didn’t crack any major terrorism cases," Washingtion Times, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/21/fbi-admits-patriot-act-snooping-powers-didnt-crack/?page=1 CCC)FBI agents can’t point to any major terrorism cases they’ve cracked thanks to the key snooping powers in the Patriot Act, the Justice Department’s inspector general said in a report Thursday that could complicate efforts to keep key parts of the law operating. Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz said that between 2004 and 2009, the FBI tripled its use of bulk collection under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows government agents to compel businesses to turn over records and documents, and increasingly scooped up records of Americans who had no ties to official terrorism investigationsThe FBI did finally come up with procedures to try to minimize the information it was gathering on nontargets, but it took far too long, Mr. Horowitz said in the 77-page report, which comes just as Congress is trying to decide whether to extend, rewrite or entirely nix Section 215. PHOTOS: Bang for your buck: Best handguns under $500. Backers say the Patriot Act powers are critical and must be kept intact, particularly with the spread of the threat from terrorists. But opponents have doubted the efficacy of Section 215, particularly when it’s used to justify bulk data collection such as in the case of the National Security Agency’s phone metadata program, revealed in leaks from former government contractor Edward Snowden. The new report adds ammunition to those opponents, with the inspector general concluding that no major cases have been broken by use of the Patriot Act ’s records- snooping provisions. “The agents we interviewed did not identify any major

case developments that resulted from use of the records obtained in response to Section 215 orders,” the inspector general concluded — though he said agents did view the material they gathered as “valuable” in developing other leads or corroborating information. PHOTOS: 21 best guns for home protection. The report said agents bumped their number of bulk-data requests under Section 215 from seven in 2004 to 21 in 2009 as a result of technological advances and legislative changes that the intelligence community believed expanded the reach of the law. Increasingly, that meant scooping up information on those who weren’t targets of a terrorism investigation, Mr. Horowitz said. He said that while Section 215 authority allows the government to do that, the FBI needed more checks to make sure it was using the power properly. “While the expanded scope of these requests can be important uses of Section 215 authority, we believe these expanded uses require continued significant oversight,” he concluded. The report was an update to a previous study done in 2008 that urged the department to figure out ways to minimize the amount of data it was gathering on ordinary Americans even as it was targeting terrorists. In Thursday’s report Mr. Horowitz said the administration finally came up with procedures — five years later. He said it never should have taken that long but that he considers that issue solved. The report was heavily redacted, and key details were deleted. The entire chart showing the number of Section 215 requests made from 2007 through 2009 was blacked out, as was the breakdown of what types of investigations they stemmed from: counterintelligence, counterterrorism, cyber or foreign intelligence investigations. Section 215 of the Patriot Act is slated to expire at the end of this month. The House, in an overwhelming bipartisan vote, passed a bill to renew it but also to limit it so the government could no longer do bulk collection such as the NSA phone data program. That legislation is known as the USA Freedom Act. But Senate Republican leaders have balked, insisting the NSA program and Section 215 should be kept intact as is. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is leading the fight to protect the NSA program, is counting on his opponents not being able to muster the 60 votes needed to pass the bill, leaving them with the choice of either extending Section 215 or seeing all of the powers expire — including those that would go after specific terrorist suspects. Mr. McConnell believes that, faced with that choice, enough of his colleagues will vote to extend all of the powers

DronesDrones are super scary and bad for surv. (Foreign)Kristian, 14 (Bonnie Kristian, Rare Contributor 14, 3-26-2014, "Here are 7 reasons why drones are scary and awful," Rare, http://rare.us/story/here-are-7-reasons-why-drones-are-scary-and-awful/ CCC)Here’s seven reasons why drones are such a big deal: 1. Drones offer scary new surveillance capabilities. People are pretty much a fixed size. You can’t make a manned aircraft smaller than the person manning it. Drones, however, can be tiny. Super tiny. The size of bugs, in fact. When it comes to surveillance (and potentially assassinations), this makes drones much more of a threat than manned aircraft. You won’t miss the chopper hovering outside your window; you will miss the fly on the wall. 2. Drone warfare is bad for the drone pilots. Dropping bombs by remote control allows drone operators to be thousands of miles removed from their targets. It’s inherently uncertain and minimizes the very real psychological cost of hitting the kill button. Said one former drone operator, “We always wonder if we killed the right people, if we endangered the wrong people, if we destroyed an innocent civilian’s life all because of a bad image or angle.” When the American military is already suffering from a tragic suicide epidemic, adding the psychological strain of drone warfare can only make matters worse. 3. Speaking of the victims, the ratio of civilians to terrorists killed may be as high as 50:1. In Pakistan, a major target for US drone strikes, as few as 2% of those who die by our drone strikes are high-level terror suspects . As for the other 98%, it’s difficult to determine who’s a civilian and who isn’t . That’s because the Obama Administration classifies every male from 18 to 60 who is killed as a terrorist, regardless of evidence. This “guilty until proven innocent” rule gives the President free reign—all while pretending that every kill is a success. Many of these men are simply poor farmers in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some estimates put the civilian to terrorist kill ratio as high as 50:1! 4. Drones’ first victim is the Golden Rule. The high rate of civilian casualties contradicts the “drones are super precise” narrative we often hear. Conor Friedersdorf poses this thought experiment about drones: We’re often told how precise drone strikes are. Obama Administration officials have called them surgical. If a surgery were happening in the building next door I wouldn’t be worried about getting nicked by the scalpel. Would you be worried for your safety if you were 100 yards away from drone strike? Say you’re lying in bed one night, and in the house next door, a terrorist is lying in his bed. Would you want a drone strike to take him out? If next door is too close for comfort, do you think the U.S. military or the CIA should be allowed to carry out drone strikes on terrorists with innocent people next door? 5. Many drone strikes kill women and children. The 50:1 statistic is awful—but it gets worse. Even putting

aside the dubious classification of many male victims, US drone strikes also kill a high percentage of women and children. Our government has even deliberately targeted wedding celebrations, and it has also hit weddings by mistake. And the most horrifying part? There’s a technique called “double-tap droning,” which is where the drone bombs a target, waits a few minutes, and then circles back to kill the first responders as they rush to help the victims. 6. Drones are creating a culture of fear and hatred. “We live in fear day and night,”said a Yemeni man whose area has suffered drone strikes. “Our children and women cannot sleep.” Their fear is more than justified: In 2013 the Pentagon actually got rid of its ban on civilian casualties. Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl who survived an al-Qaida attack for her pro-education activism, says of drone strikes: “It is true that when there’s a drone attack the terrorists are killed…But 500 and 5,000 more people rise against it and more terrorism occurs.” 7. In fact, drone strikes make Americans less safe. Unmanned drones can seem like a good way to keep US soldiers safe, but they ultimately put more Americans in danger in the long run. In places like Pakistan and Yemen, “Drone strikes are causing more and more [people] to hate America and join radical militants; they are not driven by ideology but rather by a sense of revenge and despair.” In other words, when we send drones to kill terrorists, we actually radicalize people who otherwise had no ill will toward our country. Our drone policy is making terrorists out of ordinary people. Miya Jan is an Afghan man whose family, including his 18-month-old nephew, was killed by US drone strike. He said: “There were pieces of my family all over the road. I picked up those pieces from the road and from the truck and wrapped them in a sheet to bury them. Do the American people want to spend their money this way, on drones that kill our women and children?” Surely our answer can only be “No

Drones in the U.S have done nothing to stop terrorism (domestic) Washington Times 5/15 (Washington Times Http 15, 5-21-2015, "FBI admits Patriot Act snooping powers didn’t crack any major terrorism cases," Washingtion Times, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/21/fbi-admits-patriot-act-snooping-powers-didnt-crack/?page=1 CCC)FBI agents can’t point to any major terrorism cases they’ve cracked thanks to the key snooping powers in the Patriot Act, the Justice Department’s inspector general said in a report Thursday that could complicate efforts to keep key parts of the law operating. Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz said that between 2004 and 2009, the FBI tripled its use of bulk collection under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows government agents to compel businesses to turn over records and documents, and increasingly scooped up records of Americans who had no ties to official terrorism investigationsThe FBI did finally come up with procedures to try to minimize the information it was gathering on nontargets, but it took far too long, Mr. Horowitz said in the 77-page report, which comes just as Congress is trying to decide whether to extend, rewrite or entirely nix Section 215. PHOTOS: Bang for your buck: Best handguns under $500. Backers say the Patriot Act powers are critical and must be kept intact, particularly with the spread of the threat from terrorists. But opponents have doubted the efficacy of Section 215, particularly when it’s

used to justify bulk data collection such as in the case of the National Security Agency’s phone metadata program, revealed in leaks from former government contractor Edward Snowden. The new report adds ammunition to those opponents, with the inspector general concluding that no major cases have been broken by use of the Patriot Act ’s records- snooping provisions. “The agents we interviewed did not identify any major case developments that resulted from use of the records obtained in response to Section 215 orders,” the inspector general concluded — though he said agents did view the material they gathered as “valuable” in developing other leads or corroborating information. PHOTOS: 21 best guns for home protection. The report said agents bumped their number of bulk-data requests under Section 215 from seven in 2004 to 21 in 2009 as a result of technological advances and legislative changes that the intelligence community believed expanded the reach of the law. Increasingly, that meant scooping up information on those who weren’t targets of a terrorism investigation, Mr. Horowitz said. He said that while Section 215 authority allows the government to do that, the FBI needed more checks to make sure it was using the power properly. “While the expanded scope of these requests can be important uses of Section 215 authority, we believe these expanded uses require continued significant oversight,” he concluded. The report was an update to a previous study done in 2008 that urged the department to figure out ways to minimize the amount of data it was gathering on ordinary Americans even as it was targeting terrorists. In Thursday’s report Mr. Horowitz said the administration finally came up with procedures — five years later. He said it never should have taken that long but that he considers that issue solved. The report was heavily redacted, and key details were deleted. The entire chart showing the number of Section 215 requests made from 2007 through 2009 was blacked out, as was the breakdown of what types of investigations they stemmed from: counterintelligence, counterterrorism, cyber or foreign intelligence investigations. Section 215 of the Patriot Act is slated to expire at the end of this month. The House, in an overwhelming bipartisan vote, passed a bill to renew it but also to limit it so the government could no longer do bulk collection such as the NSA phone data program. That legislation is known as the USA Freedom Act. But Senate Republican leaders have balked, insisting the NSA program and Section 215 should be kept intact as is. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is leading the fight to protect the NSA program, is counting on his opponents not being able to muster the 60 votes needed to pass the bill, leaving them with the choice of either extending Section 215 or seeing all of the powers expire — including those that would go after specific terrorist suspects. Mr. McConnell believes that, faced with that choice, enough of his colleagues will vote to extend all of the powers

Border surveillance drone programs are poorly organized, expensive, and ineffective in border patrol surveillance operations (Domestic) Michel, journalist and editor for the Center for the Study of the Drone, 1/7/15 (Arthur Holland, Center for the Study of the Drone, Bard College, January 7, 2015,“Customs and Border Protection Drones” http://dronecenter.bard.edu/customs-and-border-protection-drones/, accessed 7/15/15 JH @ DDI)

In a report published on May 30, 2012, the DHS Office of Inspector General concluded that the CBP drone program was poorly organized and needed to be better planned to maximize its resources. The report noted that the CBP needed to improve its coordination efforts with other agencies, especially with regards to obtaining reimbursements for costs incurred during operations in which CBP drones were used by other agencies. On December 24, 2014, the Department of Homeland Security published a report based on an audit of the CBP’s drone operations. The report concludes that the CBP drone program does not perform to expectations and is not worth the cost. The report notes that: The CBP drones are supposed to be airborne for 16 hours every day. In 2013, the aircraft were only airborne for about 3.5 hours per day, on average. The CBP notes that it does not fly its drones in severe weather, high winds, or when there is cloud cover. The CBP could only attribute “relatively few” apprehensions of illegal border crossers to its unmanned aircraft operations. The CBP could not demonstrate to the auditors that the use of drones has reduced the cost of border surveillance. The CBP had predicted that the use of drones would reduce the cost of border surveillance by 25% to 50% per mile. The CBP drones did not prove that they were able to reduce the need for Border Patrol agents to respond to incidents on the ground. The CBP drones focused primarily on just 170 miles of the the 1,993-mile Southwest border. The audit found that in 2013 the CBP drone program cost $62.5 million. The authors write in the conclusion of the report, “Given that, after 8 years of operations, the UAS program cannot demonstrate its effectiveness, as well the cost of current operations, OAM should reconsider its planned

Bullrun Link turn- Continuation of Bullrun increases the likelihood of terrorism – backdoors can be exploited to gain access to US communication and facilitate cyber terror and hacks Larson, Perlroth, and Shane, 9/5/13 (Jeff, Data Editor at ProPublica; Nicole, The New York Times; Scott, The New York Times; ProPublica, the organization that Snowden gave his leaks, ” Revealed: The NSA’s Secret Campaign to Crack, Undermine Internet Security” http://www.propublica.org/article/the-nsas-secret-campaign-to-crack-undermine-internet-encryption, accessed 7/14/15) But some experts say the N.S.A.’s campaign to bypass and weaken communications security may have serious unintended consequences. They say the agency is working at cross-purposes with its other major mission, apart from eavesdropping: ensuring the security of American communications. Some of the agency’s most intensive efforts have focused on the encryption in universal use in the United States, including Secure Sockets Layer, or SSL, virtual private networks, or VPNs, and the protection used on fourth generation, or 4G, smartphones. Many Americans, often without realizing it, rely on such protection every time they send an e-mail, buy something online, consult with colleagues via their company’s computer network, or use a phone or a tablet on a 4G network. For at least three years, one document says, GCHQ, almost certainly in close collaboration with the N.S.A., has been looking for ways into protected traffic of the most popular Internet companies: Google, Yahoo, Facebook and Microsoft’s Hotmail. By 2012, GCHQ had developed “new access opportunities” into Google’s systems, according to the document. “The risk is that when you build a back door into systems, you’re not the only one to exploit it,” said Matthew D. Green, a cryptography researcher at Johns Hopkins University. “Those back doors could work against U.S. communications, too.”

BackdoorsCurrent cryptographic backdoors aren’t sufficient to access communications.Comey 7/8 ( James, FBI Director, “Going Dark:¶ Encryption, Technology, and the Balance Between Public Safety and Privacy” Senate Judiciary Committee, http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/07-08-15%20Grassley%20Statement.pdf)

The core of the Fourth Amendment is the requirement that, with limited exceptions, when a law¶ enforcement officer is investigating a crime, the officer must obtain an individualized warrant or¶ court order to conduct a search that would violate a person’s reasonable expectation of privacy.¶ And that order must be issued by a neutral and detached judge based on facts that demonstrate¶ probable cause. Through this brilliant framework, for over 200 years, our constitutional system¶ has preserved the rule of law, ensured our public safety is maintained, and protected our¶ individual privacy and civil liberties in part through the separation of powers. But recently,¶ prominent law enforcement officials have been questioning whether the laws Congress has¶ enacted over the years to adapt that framework to changing technology, such as the¶ Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA, are adequate to the task¶ today.¶ What they have been telling us is that increasingly, even after they have obtained authority from¶ a judge to conduct a search for evidence of a crime, they lack the technical means to do so.¶ Director Comey and Deputy Attorney General Yates have recently spoken out about this issue,¶ and I’ve heard about it from state and local officials in Iowa as well. They describe two distinct¶ but related components to the problem. First, they report a decreasing ability to intercept realtime¶ communications, such as phone calls, email, texts, and other kinds of so-called “data in¶ motion.” And second, they relate a similar concern regarding their inability to execute search¶ warrants on encrypted phones, laptops, and other devices, which store what they refer to as “data¶ at rest.”¶ Companies are increasingly choosing to encrypt these devices in such a way that the company¶ itself is unable to unlock them, even when presented with a lawful search warrant. These¶ encrypted devices, they fear, are becoming the equivalent of closets and safes that can never be¶ opened, even when a judge has expressly authorized a search for evidence inside them. In their¶ view, this development has the potential to impact the fair and impartial application of our laws¶ by effectively placing certain places, and therefore certain people, outside the law. These¶ officials describe the cumulative effect of these changes on their ability to do their jobs as¶ “Going Dark.” It’s not a new issue. But according to them, it’s a problem that’s getting¶ dramatically worse, and it’s having a real effect on their ability to protect the public and to bring¶ criminals to justice.

TSA

TSA has no way to detect thermite and respond to a thermite explosionJana Winter, 2-25-2015, "Exclusive: TSA Issues Secret Warning on ‘Catastrophic’ Threat to Aviation," Intercept, https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/25/tsa-issues-secret-warning-catastrophic-threat-aviation/The Transportation Security Administration said it is unlikely to detect and unable to extinguish what an FBI report called “the greatest potential incendiary threat to aviation,” according to a classified document obtained by The Intercept. Yet despite that warning, sources said TSA is not adequately preparing to respond to the threat.¶ Thermite — a mixture of rust and aluminum powder — could be used against a commercial aircraft, TSA warned in a Dec. 2014 document, marked secret [PDF here]. “The ignition of a thermite-based incendiary device on an aircraft at altitude could result in catastrophic damage and the death of every person onboard,” the advisory said.¶ TSA said it is unlikely to spot an easy-to-assemble thermite-based incendiary device during security screening procedures, and the use of currently available extinguishers carried on aircrafts would create a violent reaction. The TSA warning is based on FBI testing done in 2011, and a subsequent report.¶ A thermite device, though difficult to ignite, would “produce toxic gasses, which can act as nerve poison, as well as a thick black smoke that will significantly inhibit any potential for in-flight safety officers to address the burn.”¶

TSA warned federal air marshals not to use customary methods of extinguishing fires — the water or halon fire extinguishers currently found on most aircraft — which would make the reaction worse, creating toxic fumes. Instead, air marshals are told to “recognize a thermite ignition” — but TSA has provided no training or guidance on how to do so, according to multiple sources familiar with the issue.¶ TSA circulated these Dec. 2014 materials through briefings, according to sources familiar with the issue, but did not offer up guidance on what to do with this information, and equipment that could mitigate this threat, like specific dry chemical extinguishers, has not been provided. According to the TSA advisory, federal air marshals and other on-flight officers should: recognize a thermite ignition, advise the captain immediately, ensure the individual who ignited the device is “rendered inoperable,” and move passengers away from the affected area.¶ “We’re supposed to brief our [federal air marshals] to identify a thermite ignition — but they tell us nothing,” said one current TSA official, who asked not to be named because the official is not authorized to speak to the press. “So our guys are Googling, ‘What does thermite look like? How do you extinguish thermite fires?’ This is not at all helpful.”¶ Several aviation officials, who also asked not be named, confirmed they had been briefed on the threat, but given no information or training on identifying thermite ignition. “They say to identify something we don’t know how to identify and say there is nothing we can do,” one federal air marshal said. “So basically, we hope it’s placed somewhere it does minimal damage, but basically we’re [screwed].”¶ Aviation security officials who spoke with The Intercept said TSA floods its employees with intelligence products from other agencies on various types of threats, but does not tell its employees what, if anything, to do about this threat. “You’re signing off on this saying you’ve received this briefing,” a former transportation security official said. “This covers their ass in case something happens, they can say, ‘We shared our

intel.’”¶ “As a general matter, DHS, the FBI and other partners in aviation security regularly share information on potential threats affecting air travel safety,” S.Y. Lee, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, told The Intercept in a statement. “This information is shared in a timely and consistent fashion. When relevant and actionable information is developed, we work to identify countermeasures to mitigate the threat.”¶ The TSA bulletin was distributed by the agency’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis in response to a Dec. 10 classified 29-page FBI Intelligence Assessment titled, “Threat Assessment of Viable Incendiary Devices to Passengers and Aircraft.” A copy of that report was also obtained by The Intercept.¶ According to the FBI’s description of their tests, thermite devices “spew molten metal and hot gasses” and can potentially “burn through steel and every other material” on the aircraft.¶

702All of our section 702 links apply- its domestic component is keyThe Guardian 2014 [Pulitzer Prize winning journalism site, “NSA loophole allows warrantless search for US citizens' emails and phone calls”, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/09/nsa-loophole-warrantless-searches-email-calls, Accessed 7/3/15, AX]The intelligence data is being gathered under Section 702 of the Fisa Amendments Act (FAA), which gives the NSA authority to target without warrant the communications of foreign targets, who must be non-US citizens and outside the US at the point of collection. The communications of Americans in direct contact with foreign targets can also be collected without a warrant, and the intelligence agencies acknowledge that purely domestic communications can also be inadvertently swept into its databases. That process is known as "incidental collection" in surveillance parlance. But this is the first evidence that the NSA has permission to search those databases for specific US individuals' communications. A secret glossary document provided to operatives in the NSA's Special Source Operations division – which runs the Prism program and large-scale cable intercepts through corporate partnerships with technology companies – details an update to the "minimization" procedures that govern how the agency must handle the communications of US persons. That group is defined as both American citizens and foreigners located in the US. "While the FAA 702 minimization procedures approved on 3 October 2011 now allow for use of certain United States person names and identifiers as query terms when reviewing collected FAA 702 data," the glossary states, "analysts may NOT/NOT [not repeat not] implement any USP [US persons] queries until an effective oversight process has been developed by NSA and agreed to by DOJ/ODNI [Office of the Director of National Intelligence]."

Requiring surveillance agencies to request individualized warrants risks tipping off terroristsClarke et al 2013 [Report and Recommendations of the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Surveillance Technologies, “Liberty and Security in a Changing World”, https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2013-12-12_rg_final_report.pdf, Accessed 7/3/15, AX]In some instances, over-reporting can also be a problem. This might occur when there are duplicative reports, which burden agencies with redundant requirements. To address this concern, the government should catalog the current reporting requirements on FISA, NSLs, and other intelligence-related statistics, and document how frequently these reports are made and to whom. As shown in Appendix C, multiple oversight mechanisms exist for reporting to Congress and within the Executive Branch. A catalog of existing reports would create a more informed basis for deciding what changes in reporting might be appropriate. Moreover, in some instances public reports can unintentionally harm the national security by inadvertently revealing critical information. For instance, detailed reports by small Internet service providers about government requests for information might inadvertently tip off terrorists or others who are properly under surveillance. To reduce this risk, reporting requirements should be less detailed in those situations in which reporting about a small number events might reveal critical information to those under surveillance.1

Mass data failsMass data collections undermines efforts to find terroristsMaass 15 (Peter, has written about war, media, and national security for The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, and The Washington Post. He has taught writing at Princeton and Columbia universities, and he has been awarded fellowships at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard and the American Academy in Berlin. He is on the advisory boards of the Solutions Journalism Network, and the Program for Narrative and Documentary Practice at Tufts University. A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, “INSIDE NSA, OFFICIALS PRIVATELY CRITICIZE "COLLECT IT ALL" SURVEILLANCE,” The Intercept, 5-28-15, https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/28/nsa-officials-privately-criticize-collect-it-all-surveillance/)//MJ

AS MEMBERS OF CONGRESS   struggle to agree on which surveillance programs to re-authorize before the Patriot Act expires, they might consider the unusual advice of an intelligence analyst at the National Security Agency who warned about the danger of collecting too much data. Imagine, the analyst wrote in a leaked document, that you are standing in a shopping aisle trying to decide between jam, jelly or fruit spread, which size, sugar-free or not, generic or Smucker’s. It can be paralyzing. “We in the agency are at risk of a similar, collective paralysis in the face of a dizzying array of choices every single day,” the analyst wrote in 2011. “’Analysis paralysis’ isn’t only a cute rhyme. It’s the term for what happens when you spend so much time analyzing a situation that you ultimately stymie any outcome …. It’s what happens in SIGINT [signals intelligence] when we have access to endless possibilities, but we struggle to prioritize, narrow, and exploit the best ones.” The document is one of about a dozen in

which NSA intelligence experts express concerns usually heard from the agency’s critics: that the U.S. government’s “collect it all” strategy can undermine the effort to fight terrorism . The documents , provided to The Intercept by NSA whistleblower

Edward Snowden, appear to contradict years of statements from senior officials who have claimed that pervasive surveillance of global communications helps the government identify terrorists before they strike or quickly find them after an attack. The Patriot Act, portions of which expire on Sunday, has been used since 2001 to conduct a number of dragnet surveillance programs, including the bulk collection of phone metadata from American companies. But the documents suggest that analysts at the NSA have drowned in data since 9/11, making it more difficult for them to find the real threats. The titles of the documents capture their overall message: “Data Is Not Intelligence,” “The Fallacies Behind the Scenes,” “Cognitive Overflow?” “Summit Fever” and “In Praise of Not Knowing.” Other titles include “Dealing With a ‘Tsunami’ of Intercept” and “Overcome by Overload?”

Mass surveillance has failed in preventing terrorist attacks—empirics prove intelligence agencies are never able to connect the dotsPatrick Eddington, 7-15-2015, Patrick Eddington is a policy analyst in homeland security and civil liberties at the Cato Institute. He was formerly a senior policy advisor to Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) and a military imagery analyst at the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center, "No, Mass Surveillance Won't Stop Terrorist Attacks," Reason,

http://reason.com/archives/2015/01/27/mass-surveillance-and-terrorism#.xp9hnd:U8Io//SZBut would more mass surveillance have prevented the assault on the Charlie Hebdo office? Events from 9/11 to the present help provide the answer: 2009: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab—i.e., the "underwear bomber"—nearly succeeded in downing the airline he was on over Detroit because, according to then-National Counterterrorism Center (NCC) director Michael Leiter, the federal Intelligence Community (IC) failed "to connect, integrate, and fully understand the intelligence" it had collected. 2009: Army Major Nidal Hasan was able to conduct his deadly, Anwar al-Awlaki-inspired rampage at Ft. Hood, Texas, because the FBI bungled its Hasan investigation. 2013: The Boston Marathon bombing happened, at least in part, because the CIA, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), FBI, NCC, and National Security Agency (NSA) failed to properly coordinate and share information about Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his family, associations, and travel to and from Russia in 2012. Those failures were detailed in a 2014 report prepared by the Inspectors General of the IC, Department of Justice, CIA, and DHS. 2014: The Charlie Hebdo and French grocery store attackers were not only known to French and U.S. authorities but one had a prior terrorism conviction and another was monitored for years by French authorities until less than a year before the attack on the magazine. No, mass surveillance does not prevent terrorist attacks. It’s worth remembering that the mass surveillance programs initiated by the U.S. government after the 9/11 attacks—the legal ones and the constitutionally-dubious ones—were premised on the belief that bin Laden’s hijacker-terrorists were able to pull off the attacks because of a failure to collect enough data. Yet in their subsequent reports on the attacks, the Congressional Joint Inquiry (2002) and the 9/11 Commission found exactly the opposite. The data to detect (and thus foil) the plots was in the U.S. government’s hands prior to the attacks; the failures were ones of sharing, analysis, and dissemination. That malady perfectly describes every intelligence failure from Pearl Harbor to the present day. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (created by Congress in 2004) was supposed to be the answer to the "failure-to-connect-the-dots" problem. Ten years on, the problem remains, the IC bureaucracy is bigger than ever, and our government is continuing to rely on mass surveillance programs that have failed time and again to stop terrorists while simultaneously undermining the civil liberties and personal privacy of every American. The quest to "collect it all," to borrow a phrase from NSA Director Keith Alexander, only leads to the accumulation of masses of useless information, making it harder to find real threats and costing billions to store. A recent Guardian editorial noted that such mass-surveillance myopia is spreading among European political leaders as well, despite the fact that "terrorists, from 9/11 to the Woolwich jihadists and the neo-Nazi Anders Breivik, have almost always come to the authorities’ attention before murdering." Mass surveillance is not only destructive of our liberties, its continued use is a virtual guarantee of more lethal intelligence failures. And our continued will to disbelieve those facts is a mental dodge we engage in at our peril.

Three reasons why mass surveillance cannot prevent terrorist attacks—empirics prove—in fact, mass surveillance has reduced safety of the nationBruce Schneier, 3-24-2015, Bruce Schneier is an internationally renowned security technologist and author. Described by The Economist as a "security guru", "Why Mass Surveillance Can't, Won't, And Never Has Stopped A Terrorist," No Publication, http://digg.com/2015/why-mass-surveillance-cant-wont-and-never-has-stopped-a-terrorist//SZData mining is offered as the technique that will enable us to connect those dots. But while corporations are successfully mining our personal data in order to target advertising, detect financial fraud, and perform other tasks, three critical issues make data mining an inappropriate tool for finding terrorists. The first, and most important, issue is error rates. For advertising, data mining can be successful even with a large error rate, but finding terrorists requires a much higher degree of accuracy than data-mining systems can possibly provide. Data mining works best when you’re searching for a well-defined profile, when there are a reasonable number of events per year, and when the cost of false alarms is low. Detecting credit card fraud is one of data mining’s security success stories: all credit card companies mine their transaction databases for spending patterns that indicate a stolen card. There are over a billion active credit cards in circulation in the United States, and nearly 8% of those are fraudulently used each year. Many credit card thefts share a pattern — purchases in locations not normally frequented by the cardholder, and purchases of travel, luxury goods, and easily fenced items — and in many cases data-mining systems can minimize the losses by preventing fraudulent transactions. The only cost of a false alarm is a phone call to the cardholder asking her to verify a couple of her purchases. Similarly, the IRS uses data mining to identify tax evaders, the polic e use it to predict crime hot spots, and banks use it to predict loan defaults. These applications have had mixed success, based on the data and the application, but they’re all within the scope of what data mining can accomplish. Terrorist plots are different, mostly because whereas fraud is common, terrorist attacks are very rare. This means that even highly accurate terrorism prediction systems will be so flooded with false alarms that they will be useless. The reason lies in the mathematics of detection. All detection systems have errors, and system designers can tune them to minimize either false positives or false negatives. In a terrorist-detection system, a false positive occurs when the system mistakenly identifies something harmless as a threat. A false negative occurs when the system misses an actual attack. Depending on how you “tune” your detection system, you can increase the number of false positives to assure you are less likely to miss an attack, or you can reduce the number of false positives at the expense of missing attacks. Because terrorist attacks are so rare, false positives completely overwhelm the system, no matter how well you tune. And I mean completely: millions of people will be falsely accused for every real terrorist plot the system finds, if it ever finds any. We might be able to deal with all of the innocents being flagged by the system if the cost of false positives were minor. Think about the full-body scanners at airports. Those alert all the time when scanning people. But a TSA officer can easily check for a false alarm with a simple pat-down. This doesn’t work for a more general data-based terrorism-detection system. Each alert requires a

lengthy investigation to determine whether it’s real or not. That takes time and money, and prevents intelligence officers from doing other productive work. Or, more pithily, when you’re watching everything, you’re not seeing anything. The US intelligence community also likens finding a terrorist plot to looking for a needle in a haystack. And, as former NSA director General Keith Alexander said, “you need the haystack to find the needle.” That statement perfectly illustrates the problem with mass surveillance and bulk collection. When you’re looking for the needle, the last thing you want to do is pile lots more hay on it. More specifically, there is no scientific rationale for believing that adding irrelevant data about innocent people makes it easier to find a terrorist attack, and lots of evidence that it does not. You might be adding slightly more signal, but you’re also adding much more noise. And despite the NSA’s “collect it all” mentality, its own documents bear this out. The military intelligence community even talks about the problem of “drinking from a fire hose”: having so much irrelevant data that it’s impossible to find the important bits. We saw this problem with the NSA’s eavesdropping program: the false positives overwhelmed the system. In the years after 9/11, the NSA passed to the FBI thousands of tips per month; every one of them turned out to be a false alarm. The cost was enormous, and ended up frustrating the FBI agents who were obligated to investigate all the tips. We also saw this with the Suspicious Activity Reports —or SAR — database: tens of thousands of reports, and no actual results. And all the telephone metadata the NSA collected led to just one success: the conviction of a taxi driver who sent $8,500 to a Somali group that posed no direct threat to the US — and that was probably trumped up so the NSA would have better talking points in front of Congress. The second problem with using data-mining techniques to try to uncover terrorist plots is that each attack is unique. Who would have guessed that two pressure-cooker bombs would be delivered to the Boston Marathon finish line in backpacks by a Boston college kid and his older brother? Each rare individual who carries out a terrorist attack will have a disproportionate impact on the criteria used to decide who’s a likely terrorist, leading to ineffective detection strategies. The third problem is that the people the NSA is trying to find are wily, and they’re trying to avoid detection. In the world of personalized marketing, the typical surveillance subject isn’t trying to hide his activities. That is not true in a police or national security context. An adversarial relationship makes the problem much harder, and means that most commercial big data analysis tools just don’t work. A commercial tool can simply ignore people trying to hide and assume benign behavior on the part of everyone else. Government data-mining techniques can’t do that, because those are the very people they’re looking for. Adversaries vary in the sophistication of their ability to avoid surveillance. Most criminals and terrorists — and political dissidents, sad to say — are pretty unsavvy and make lots of mistakes. But that’s no justification for data mining; targeted surveillance could potentially identify them just as well. The question is whether mass surveillance performs sufficiently better than targeted surveillance to justify its extremely high costs. Several analyses of all the NSA’s efforts indicate that it does not. The three problems listed above cannot be fixed. Data mining is simply the wrong tool for this job, which means that all the mass surveillance required to feed it cannot be justified.

When he was NSA director, General Keith Alexander argued that ubiquitous surveillance would have enabled the NSA to prevent 9/11. That seems unlikely. He wasn’t able to prevent the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013, even though one of the bombers was on the terrorist watch list and both had sloppy social media trails — and this was after a dozen post-9/11 years of honing techniques. The NSA collected data on the Tsarnaevs before the bombing, but hadn’t realized that it was more important than the data they collected on millions of other people. This point was made in the 9/11 Commission Report. That report described a failure to “connect the dots,” which proponents of mass surveillance claim requires collection of more data. But what the report actually said was that the intelligence community had all the information about the plot without mass surveillance, and that the failures were the result of inadequate analysis. Mass surveillance didn’t catch underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in 2006, even though his father had repeatedly warned the U.S. government that he was dangerous. And the liquid bombers (they’re the reason governments prohibit passengers from bringing large bottles of liquids, creams, and gels on airplanes in their carry-on luggage) were captured in 2006 in their London apartment not due to mass surveillance but through traditional investigative police work. Whenever we learn about an NSA success, it invariably comes from targeted surveillance rather than from mass surveillance. One analysis showed that the FBI identifies potential terrorist plots from reports of suspicious activity, reports of plots, and investigations of other, unrelated, crimes. This is a critical point. Ubiquitous surveillance and data mining are not suitable tools for finding dedicated criminals or terrorists. We taxpayers are wasting billions on mass-surveillance programs, and not getting the security we’ve been promised. More importantly, the money we’re wasting on these ineffective surveillance programs is not being spent on investigation, intelligence, and emergency response: tactics that have been proven to work. The NSA's surveillance efforts have actually made us less secure.

Targeted Surveillance > Mass SurveillanceThe NSA can’t filter as much data as they are collecting in the squoN.N. Taleb, http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/07/the-fact-that-mass-surveillance-doesnt-keep-us-safe-goes-mainstream.html, 2013

Because of excess data as compared to real signals, someone looking at history from the vantage point of a library will necessarily find many more spurious relationships than one who sees matters in the making; he will be duped by more epiphenomena. Even experiments can be marred with bias, especially when researchers hide failed attempts or formulate a hypothesis after the results — thus fitting the hypothesis to the experiment (though

the bias is smaller there). This is the tragedy of big data: The more variables, the more correlations that can show significance. Falsity also grows faster than information; it is nonlinear (convex) with respect to data (this convexity in fact resembles that of a financial option payoff). Noise is antifragile.

Without relevant data, acting is hardBOB SULLIVAN, COLUMNIST, NBC NEWS, http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/privacy-vs-security-false-choice-poisons-debate-nsa-leaks-6C10536226, 2013

Casting such wide nets is also ineffective, [security researcher Ashkan Soltani] argues. Collecting mountains and

mountains of data simply means that when the time comes to find that proverbial needle in a haystack, you’ve simply created a bigger haystack.”Law enforcement is being sold bill of goods that the more data you get, the better your security is. We find that is not true,” Soltani said. Collecting data is a hard habit to break, as many U.S.

corporations have discovered after years of expensive data breaches. The NSA’s data hoard may be useful in future investigations, helping agents in the future in unpredictable ways, some argue. Schneier doesn’t buy it. “The NSA has this fetish for data, and will get it any way they can, and get as much as they can,” he said. “But old ladies who hoard newspapers say the same thing, that someday, this might be useful.” Even worse, an overreliance on Big Data surveillance will shift focus from other security techniques that are both less invasive and potentially more effective, like old-fashioned “spycraft,” Soltani says.

***Aff Impact Answers***

A2 Terror-GenericAsserting that the risk of terrorism is higher now than ever is a tired trick of fear-mongerers.Glenn Greenwald, 6-2-2015, "For Terrorist Fearmongers, It's Always the Scariest Time Ever," Intercept, https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/02/fear-mongers-always-scariest-time-ever/

Earlier this month, NSA chief Michael Rogers made the same claim when discussing Patriot Act reauthorization: “‘It just can’t be the government doing this all by itself’ because the number of threats has never been greater.” For the fearmongers in the West and their allies, it’s always the scariest time ever; that “the threat has never been greater” is basically a slogan they reflexively spew. In March, the right-wing Canadian defense minister, Jason Kenney, arguing for new surveillance powers, announced: “While few believe full-scale conventional war is likely any time soon, the threat of terrorism has never been greater.” In February, former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morrell, arguing for renewal of the Patriot Act, warned that “the ‘lone wolf’ terrorist threat to the United States has never been greater.” In January, an anonymous senior aide to U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron argued for a new “snooper” bill by saying that “the terrorist threat has never been greater.” In mid-2014, U.K. Prime Minister Cameron himself raised the threat level to “severe” and announced that “Britain faces the ‘greatest and deepest’ terror threat in the country’s history.” In September of last year, chief of New York state’s Homeland Security department, Jerome Hauer, warned New Yorkers: “I think the threat has never been greater since prior to 9/11.” When discussing ISIS in June of last year, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer told viewers that “the jihadist threat has never been greater.” Prior to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Rep. Mike McCaul shrieked on Fox News: “Something will detonate . . . I’ve never seen a greater threat in my lifetime.” In June 2014, CNN quoted an anonymous “EU counter-terrorism official” as saying: “The threat of attacks has never been greater — not at the time of 9/11, not after the war in Iraq — never.” In early 2013, Daily Telegraph’s national political editor, Simon Bensen, warned against cutting intelligence spending on the ground that “the truth, as demonstrated in Boston, is the array of threats has never been greater.” At the same time, India’s Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai gave a speech warning “that terrorism is and will remain a pre-eminent security challenge … and the nature of the threat in our region has never been greater.” In 2010, “the U.S. government issued a warning Sunday that said al-Qaeda might target transport infrastructure and the British raised the terrorist threat level in its advice for citizens travelling to France and Germany” while “Bernard Squarcini, chief of the French internal intelligence agency, told reporters that the threat ‘has never been greater.’” In 2007, “the UK’s new Security Minister warned that the threat against the UK has never been greater. . . . He said the current threat from terrorism was greater now than six months ago when the former head of the intelligence agency MI5, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, warned her office was tracking 30 terror plots and 200 networks totalling more than 1,600 individuals.” In 2006, German Interior Minster Wolfgang Schäuble told his country that “the threat has never been greater.” In 2004, The Sun’s Senior Crime editor Mike Sullivan warned his readers that “Heathrow has been a major target for terrorists for years — and today the threat has never been greater.” Throughout the Bush years, scaring Americans by telling them that the threat

has never been greater was so routine as to be hard to overstate. As John Mueller wrote in Foreign Affairs back in 2006, in an article entitled “The Myth of the Omnipresent Enemy”: He added that “on the first page of its founding manifesto,” the Department of Homeland Security warns: “Today’s terrorists can strike at any place, at any time, and with virtually any weapon.” Bush officials raised their color-coded terror alerts and issued similar warnings so many times that it became a running joke. It was a particularly beloved tactic in the run-up to the Iraq War: Years later, the face of that joke, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, admitted he was pressured to issue warnings for political gain. Here we are 14 years after 9/11, and it’s still always the worst threat ever in all of history, never been greater. If we always face the greatest threat ever, then one of two things is true: 1) fearmongers serially exaggerate the threat for self-interested reasons, or 2) they’re telling the truth — the threat is always getting more severe, year after year — which might mean we should evaluate the wisdom of “terrorism” policies that constantly make the problem worse. Whatever else is true, the people who should have the least credibility on the planet are the Lindsey Grahams and Dianne Feinsteins who have spent the last 15 years exploiting the terror threat in order to terrorize the American population into doing what they want.

CyberterrorismNo cyberterrorism—terrorists still prefer bombs and physical attacksChen 14

(Thomas, June 2014, Strategic Studies Institute and US Army War College, “Cyberterrorism After Stuxnet,” professor of cybersecurity @ the School of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences at City University London, http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB1211.pdf, 7/15/15, SM)

WHY NOT A MAJOR CYBERATTACK∂ Having established motive, means, and opportunity∂ for terrorists, the natural question

is why a major∂ cyberattack has not happened yet. It seems that al-Qaeda∂ and other terrorist groups still prefer bombs and∂ physical attacks, even after Stuxnet.35 In the absence of∂ an attack, a case could be argued that

cyberterrorism∂ is more of a hypothetical threat than a real one.36 However,∂ there is debate about whether

an actual cyberattack∂ by terrorists has happened.37 No major attacks∂ have occurred, according to the public record, some∂ observers have speculated that attacks have happened∂ but have been kept confidential so as not to disclose∂ weaknesses in the national infrastructure. ∂ 21∂ In 2007, Denning postulated three indicators that∂ could precede a successful cyberterrorism attack:38∂ 1. Failed cyberattacks against critical infrastructures,∂ such as ICS. Unlike the case with the professionally∂ developed Stuxnet, Denning expected that∂ the first cyberterrorist attack would likely be unsuccessful,∂ considering that even terrorist kinetic attacks∂ frequently fail.∂ 2. Research and training labs, where terrorists∂ simulate their cyberattacks against targets, test attack∂ tools, and train people. Israel reportedly had centrifuges∂ at its Dimona complex to test Stuxnet on.∂ 3. Extensive discussions and planning relating∂ to attacks against critical infrastructures, not just∂ websites.∂ So far, none of these indicators has been observed,∂ which would imply that terrorists are not trying hard∂ to prepare for cyberattacks.∂ Conway has argued against the likelihood of cyberterrorism∂ in the near future.39 Her argument consists∂ of these reasons:∂ • Violent jihadis’ IT knowledge is not superior.∂ • Real-world attacks are difficult enough.∂ • Hiring hackers would compromise operational∂ security.∂ • For a true terrorist event, spectacular moving∂ images are crucial.∂ • Terrorists will not favor a cyberattack with the∂ potential to be hidden, portrayed as an accident,∂ or otherwise remaining unknown.∂ Perhaps the most straightforward explanation of∂ the lack of observed cyberattacks is the cost-benefit∂ argument put forth by Giacomello.40 He compared the ∂ 22∂ costs of traditional physical terrorist attacks with cyberattacks∂ of the “break things and kill people” type.∂ Specifically, Giacomello estimated the costs of three∂ cyberterrorism scenarios aimed at the power grid; a∂ hydroelectric dam; and an air traffic control system. If∂ the power grid was viewed as an unlikely target, fatalities∂ will be indirect or accidental. For a hydroelectric∂ dam, the cost is based on a historical incident of an∂ insider sabotaging the controls at the dam. Somewhat∂ arbitrarily, the estimate assumed two proficient hackers∂ with supporting personnel, totaling up to $1.3 million.∂ For an air traffic control system, a higher number∂ of skilled hackers are needed to compromise the∂ system, prevent the air controllers from detecting and∂ responding to the intrusion, and defeat built-in safety∂ mechanisms. Again, it is not explicitly stated, but a∂ year of work seems to be assumed, since the total is∂ based on a year’s salary.

The resulting estimated cost∂ was up to $3 million.∂ For comparison, Giacomello pointed out that the∂ World Trade Center bomb cost only $400 to build,∂ yet, it injured 1,000 people and caused $550 million of∂ physical damages. The March 2004 attacks in Madrid,∂ exploding 10 simultaneous bombs on four commuter∂ trains using mining explosives and cellphones, cost∂ about $10,000 to carry out. The 9/11 Commission Report∂ stated that the 9/11 attacks cost

between $400,000∂ and $500,000 to plan and execute.41∂ An examination of these comparative costs makes∂ it clear that bombs are a much cheaper approach than∂ cyberattacks by orders of magnitude. Stuxnet, estimated∂ to have

cost millions of dollars, does not change∂ the cost-benefit comparison. At the present time and∂ in the near future, cyberattacks of the “break things∂ and kill people” type require an enormous amount of ∂ 23∂ effort by highly skilled experts. In contrast, bombs can∂ be made cheaply and deployed without skilled effort.∂ In addition, physical attacks are appealing because of∂ the higher certainty of success.

No cyberterrorism impact—threats exaggerated Quigley, Burns, and Stallard 15

(Kevin, Calvin, Kristen, 3/26/15, Government Information Quarterly, “‘Cyber Gurus’: A rhetorical analysis of the language of cybersecurity specialists and the implications for security policy and critical infrastructure protection,” http://cryptome.org/2015/05/cyber-gurus.pdf, 7/16/16, SM)

While these are four prevalent types of cybersecurity issues, there is∂ evidence to suggest that the threat is exaggerated and oversimplified for∂ some. Many note the lack of empirical evidence to support the widespread∂ fear of cyber-terrorism and cyber-warfare, for instance∂ (Cavelty, 2007; Hansen & Nissenbaum, 2009; Lewis, 2003; Rid, 2013;∂

Stohl, 2007).∂ According to Stohl (2007), there is little vulnerability in critical infrastructure∂ that could lead to violence or fatalities. Secondly, there are few∂ actors who would be interested in or capable of exploiting such vulnerabilities.∂ Thirdly, and in relation to cyber-terrorism in particular, the∂ expenses necessary to carry out cyber-attacks are greater than traditional∂ forms of terrorism, limiting the utility of cyber-attacks compared∂ to other available measures (Stohl, 2007). Instead, technology is most∂ often used by terrorists to provide information, solicit financial support,∂ network with like-minded terrorists, recruit, and gather information; in other words, “terrorist groups are simply exploiting modern tools to∂ accomplish the same goals they sought in the past” (Stohl, 2007, p. 230).

No cyberterrorism—technological complexity, not enough fear createdCovert 15

(Edwin, 1/13/15, InfoSec Institute, “Cyber Terrorism: Complexities and Consequences,” Edwin is a cybersecurity professional and works for Booz Allen Hamilton, http://resources.infosecinstitute.com/cyber-terrorism-complexities-consequences/, 7/17/15, SM)

While a terrorist using the Internet to bring down the critical infrastructures the United States relies on makes an outstanding Hollywood plot, there are flaws in the execution of this storyline as an actual terrorist strategy. Conway (2011) calls out three limitations on using cyber-related activities for terrorists: Technological complexity, image, and accident (Against Cyberterrorism, 2011, p. 27).∂ Each is important to consider. While critical infrastructures may make a tempting target and threat actor capabilities are

certainly increasing (Nyugan, 2013), it is a complicated process to attack something of that magnitude. It is precisely the interconnectedness of these two disparate parts that make them a target, however.∂ Nyugan (2013) calls them cyber-physical systems (CPS): “A physical system monitored or controlled by computers. Such systems include, for example, electrical grids, antilock brake systems, or a network of nuclear centrifuges” (p. 1084).∂ In Verton’s (2003) imaginary narrative, the target of the Russian hackers, the SCADA system, is a CPS. However, Lewis (2002) argues the relationship between vulnerabilities in critical infrastructures (such as MAE-East) and computer network attacks is not a clear cut as first thought (p. 1). It is not simply a matter of having a computer attached to a SCADA system and thus the system is can now be turned off and society goes in a free fall of panic and explosions and mass chaos.∂ The first idea Conway (2011) posits reduces to the notion that information technology is difficult in most cases. There are reasons it takes veritable armies of engineers and analysts to make these complex systems interact and

function as intended. However, there are a limited number of terrorists with the necessary computer skills to conduct a successful attack (pp. 27-28).∂ Immediately the argument turns to hiring external assistance from actual computer hackers (as most journalists and Hollywood scriptwriters do). Conway (2011)

dismisses that idea, correctly, as a significant compromise of operational security (p. 28).∂ The US Department of Defense as defines operational security, or OPSEC:∂ A process of identifying critical information and analyzing friendly actions attendant to military operations and other activities to: identify those actions that can be observed by adversary intelligence systems; determine indicators and vulnerabilities that adversary intelligence systems might obtain that could be interpreted or pieced together to derive critical information in time to be useful to adversaries, and determine which of these represent an unacceptable risk; then select and execute countermeasures that eliminate the risk to friendly actions and operations or reduce it to an acceptable level (US Department of Defense, 2012).∂ In the context of this paper, letting outside profit-motivated technicians into the planning and execution phase of a terrorist plot would be risky for conservative-minded individuals such a religious terrorists

(Hoffman, 2006). As the number of people who are aware of a plot increases, the potential number of people who can leak operational details of the plot increases exponentially.∂ It is for this reason Verton’s (2003) scenario is most improbable.∂ The second concern Conway (2011) notes is one of audience. Recalling the definition

of terrorist put forth by Hoffman (2006), terrorists need to generate publicity to achieve their goals: they need to create a climate of fear through violence or the threat of violence. Simply attacking something and having no one notice it is not an operational success for a terrorist . Terrorists need to have their grievances known (Nacos, 2000, p. 176).∂ The terrorist act needs to be witnessed, such as the planes crashing into the World Trade Center or the hostage taking in Munich. in order to generate the necessary level of discourse to affect the goals the

terrorist has in mind. Unfortunately, injecting code into a DNS server or shutting down Amazon.com does not generate the required intensity of chaos modern terrorists require (Conway, Against Cyberterrorism, 2011, p. 28).∂ This leads to Conway’s (2011) third point: the accident. The United States relies heavily on computer and information

systems. However, if a system goes offline in today’s world, users are just as likely to suspect a system failure or accident as anything else is (p. 28).

No cyberterrorism threat—easy to prevent, they’re using the Internet only for promotional purposesCluley 14

(Graham, 10/20/14, The State of Security, “GCHQ Spokesperson Says Cyber Terrorism Is ‘Not a Concern’,” former employee of Sophos, McAfee, Dr. Solomon’s, inducted into the InfoSecurity Europe Hall of Fame, http://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/security-data-protection/gchq-spokesperson-says-cyber-terrorism-is-not-a-concern/, 7/17/15, SM)

Yes, a terrorist could launch a denial-of-service attack, or write a piece of malware, or hack into a sensitive system, just as easily as

the next (non-terrorist), but there is no reason to believe that an attack launched by a terrorist living in his

secret HQ in the mountain caves of Afghanistan would be any harder to stop than the hundreds of thousands of other attacks launched each day.∂ That’s not to say that launching an Internet attack wouldn’t have attractive aspects for those behind a terror campaign. Put bluntly, it’s a heck lot easier (and less physically dangerous) to write a Trojan horse to infect a computer on the other side of the world, than to drive a lorry loaded up with Semtex outside a government building’s front door.∂ Furthermore, terrorists are often interested in making headlines, to focus the world’s attention on what they believe to be their plight. If innocent people die during a terrorist action that certainly does help you make the newspapers, but it’s very bad for public relations, and is going to make it a lot harder to convince others to sympathise with your campaign.∂ The good news about pretty much all Internet attacks, of course, is that they don’t involve the loss of life. Any damage done is unlikely to leave individuals maimed or bleeding, but can still bloody the nose of a government that should have been better protected or potentially disrupt

economies.∂ But still, such terrorist-initiated Internet attacks should be no harder to protect against than the financially-motivated and hacktivist attacks that organisations defend themselves against every day.∂ So, when a journalist asks me if I think cyber terrorism is a big concern, I tend to shrug and say “Not that

much” and ask them to consider why Al Qaeda, for instance, never bothered to launch a serious Internet attack in the 13 years since September 11.∂ After all, if it is something for us all to fear – why wouldn’t they have done it already?∂ So, I was pleased to have my views supported last week – from a perhaps surprising source.∂ GCHQ, the UK intelligence agency which has become no stranger to controversy following the revelations of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, appears to agree that cyber terrorism is not a concern. Or at least that’s what they’re saying behind closed doors, according to SC Magazine.∂ Part of SC Magazine story on cyber terrorism∂ The report quoted an unnamed GCHQ spokesperson at a CSARN (City Security And Resilience Networks) forum held last week in London, debunking the threat posed by cyber terrorists:∂ “Quite frankly we don’t see cyber terrorism. It hasn’t occurred…but we have to guard against it. For those of you thinking about strategic threats, terrorism is not [a concern] at this point in time,” although he added that the agency was ‘very

concerned’ on a possible attack at the time of the 2012 London Olympics.∂ ∂ He said that while it is clear that terrorism groups – such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda – are technically-adept, there’s been no sign of them venturing to cyber beyond promotional purposes.∂ ∂ “For some reason, there doesn’t seem intent to use

destructive cyber capability. It’s clearly a theoretical threat. We’ve not seen – and we were very worried around London Olympics – but we’ve never seen it. We’ll continue to keep an eye on it.”∂ In a time when the potential threat posed by terrorism is often used as an excuse for covert surveillance by intelligence agencies, such as GCHQ, and the UK government raising the “threat level” to “Severe” at the end of August due to conflict in Iraq and Syria, one has to wonder if the spokesperson quoted was speaking entirely “on-message.”

BioterrorismNo large-scale bioterrorism—7 key barriersYet the reality of these weapons suggests a more lackluster outcome. Attacks like those of the Rajneeshees cult in Oregon, which infected hundreds of people with salmonella, are considered success stories, but cults like Aum Shinrikyo, which had the monetary means to employ these weapons, never experienced that kind of success. Indeed, because it is impossible to completely defend against all attacks, threat assessment is crucial. The disputed degree of U.S. vulnerability has become even more heated among scientists, with some arguing that the U.S. may have over-assessed the threat (Thompons, 2006).∂ Many subject matter experts have pointed to the instantaneous wave of federal support that biodefense received after the Amerithrax attacks, and that while this support was needed, there was little assessment into the realities of the bioterrorist threat. Relatively little effort has been made to determine the threat of terrorist use of bioterrorism; instead, the U.S. has focused on internal vulnerabilities. Dr. Leitenberg points out that “within 4 years, almost $30 billion in federal expenditure was appropriated to counter the anticipated threat. This response took place in the absence of virtually any threat analysis” (Leitenberg, 2005). Vulnerability is an ongoing reality,

but one must also consider whether the threat of bioweapons is as great as the U.S. government previously estimated.∂ Thesis Argument∂ While there is an undeniable U.S. vulnerability to bioweapons

attack, the lack of capabilities to carry out such attacks has perhaps created a hypersensitivity to such threats. Non-state actors have in the past, and will continue in the future, to consider and employ the use of bioweapons . However, through an analysis of past, small-scale attacks in the U.S., the barriers to successful large-scale bioterrorism can be identified . Diffusion-of-innovation studies address why and

at what rate new ideas (such as technologies) spread throughout a culture or society. The most popular example Rogers points to is the unsuccessful attempt to improve sanitation and health in Peru during a health two-year health campaign. The project focused on boiling water and the link between sanitation and illness but was largely deemed a failure because campaign workers failed to identify the social norms and beliefs that saw boiled water as diseased. Rogers pointed out that the societal habits and norms within a society will outweigh the innovation regardless of its benefit to them (Rogers, 1983). In effect, this theory discusses the question of why certain ideas become popular while others never take off. With this concept in mind, analyzing why bioweapons have proven their efficacy, yet have not been utilized on a large-scale by non-state actors, reveals substantial barriers to utilization∂ This thesis seeks to point out the substantial hurdles non-state actors face when attempting to use bioweapons. It will do this by addressing several key points in the process of using bioweapons, from procuring the agent to dissemination and even to the impact of environmental conditions. An analysis of specific historical cases of bioterrorism through such a capabilities assessment will demonstrate the prevalent deterrents terrorists face when considering and deploying bioweapons.∂ In the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission’s 2006 Bioterrorism and Threat Assessment, threat assessment is broken down into a diagram as shown in Figure 1 (Ackerman, 2006). The diagram in Figure 1 and equation in Figure 2 address the role of threat, likelihood of attack, motivation, capability, vulnerability of assets, hazard posed, and value. In the past, assessments of bioterrorism have focused on only a small section of these variables, mainly the consequences of attacks, value of assets being defended, and vulnerabilities.∂ This analysis will focus on the capabilities and motivations of potential bioterrorists and assess their impact on actual usage of bioweapons.∂ Bioterrorism Threat Assessment∂ Figure 1. Bioterrorism Threat Assessment (Ackerman, 2006)∂ Figure 1 presents these components, indicating the relationship between the intention and capability of an attacker. The equation demonstrated in Figure 2 also relays the importance of capabilities and motivation in the equation regarding threat of attack. This equation points to the role of intent, vulnerability, and capabilities in regards to the threat of an attack (Thompson, 2006). Previous analyses have focused on the vulnerability component of this equation. The emphasis on capabilities and motivation is the driving force behind this analysis in order to provide a better understanding of terrorist capabilities when pursuing bioterrorism. This thesis will attempt to do this through an analysis of the hurdles that inhibit utilization.∂ Figure 2 Bioterrorism Threat Equation∂ Figure 2. (Thompson 2006)∂ BACKGROUND∂ Bioterrorism has several definitions, but the most prevailing understanding is, “the use by non-state actors of microorganisms (pathogens) or the products of living organisms (toxins) to inflict harm on a wider population” (Ackerman, 2006). Bioterrorism employs bioweapons (BW) as a means of inflicting harm, morbidity and mortality, economic loss, psychological distress, and general turmoil upon a group of people.∂ Biological Weapons∂ The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has categorized biological agents based on several variables including their “ease of dissemination or transmission from person to person”, the degree to which they “result in high mortality rates and have the potential for major public health impact” and the degree to which they might “cause public panic and social disruption, and require special action for public health preparedness” (CDC, n.d.). By using this categorization, health agencies around the world are able to help first responders and public health personnel to identify and understand biological agents that pose an increased risk for use in terrorism. The categories defined by the CDC are:∂ Category A agents can be easily disseminated or transmitted from person to person, result in high mortality rates and have the potential for major public health impact. They might cause public panic and social disruption, and they require special action for public health preparedness. Examples: Anthrax, botulism, plague, smallpox, tularemia, and viral hemorrhagic fevers (VHF).∂ Category B agents are moderately easy to disseminate, result in moderate morbidity rates and low mortality rates, and require specific enhancements of CDC’s diagnostic capacity and enhanced disease surveillance. Examples: Q fever, glanders, typhus, and ricin toxin.∂ Category C agents include emerging pathogens that could be engineered or disseminated in the future due to their availability, ease of production and dissemination, and potential for high morbidity and mortality rates and major health impacts. Examples: emerging infectious diseases like Nipah virus and hantavirus.∂ Food or Waterborne Agents/Food Safety Threat – Salmonella species, Shigella dysenteria – Shigella, Escherichia coli 0157:H7 –E. coli, Vibrio cholerae – Cholera, Cryptosporidium – Crypto, Norviruses – Noro, Clostridium botulinum neurotoxin – botulism, and typhus (typhoid fever).∂ CDC Prioritized Pathogens for Bioterrorism Agents∂ CDC Category A Agents (Category Agents, n.d. Nania, 2013. Heymann, 2008).∂ Effects of Bioweapons ∂ Biological weapons are unique in their capacity not only to cause delayed morbidity and mortality as a result of their incubation periods, but also to spread disease. Unlike a bomb, bioweapons can cause delayed illness and transmission of infection among people. A delay in illness due to an extended incubation period might allow an infected person to travel and potentially expose hundreds or thousands of people, as some illnesses allow a host to be infectious before they are symptomatic. On the other hand, the ability to spread disease from person to person is a wholly unique component of bioweapons. Consider the Category A agents: several of them are highly contagious, such as pneumonic plague and smallpox. Bioweapons like plague are both endemic (naturally occurring) and transmissible through droplets, creating an exposure within six feet of the infected individual. These pathogens are incapacitating but also take several days to cause illness.∂ Should the motive be to inflict injury and create a drain upon the medical system, all of these agents are especially effective in causing physical harm, but two in particular cause substantial damage. Organisms like anthrax and botulism that cause respiratory failure pose a particularly large burden, as they often require mechanical ventilation and specialist medical care. These pathogens are capable of causing an incapacitating illness and preventing individuals from performing their daily duties, but only a few are communicable between people. Organisms like anthrax, tularemia, and botulism are not known to spread between individuals beyond bloodborne pathogen exposure. Plague, VHF, and smallpox however, are extremely communicable, making their ability to cause downstream effects substantially more significant.∂ The Category A agents are all unique in their manifestation, but several of them initially manifest like influenza, which can delay treatment and increase the risk of exposure and death. Several studies have revealed the inability of physicians to correctly diagnosis cases of Category A agents, compounding their effects that much more (Cosgrove, 2005). Overall, the pathogens considered as possible bioweapons all pose devastating health consequences to the infected person, and some of them create unique challenges for clinicians regarding both diagnosis and treatment. The ability to transmit disease and have delayed presentation makes these weapons especially sinister and potentially all the more appealing to terrorists.∂ Historical Use of Bioweapons∂ Bioterrorism is by no means a novel concept. While Hercules is noted to be the first Western literary example, the reality dates back just as far. The Greek historian Herodotus in the 5th century BCE described Scythian archers using poison-tipped arrows against their enemies. The Scythians would also create a mixture of decomposed venomous snakes and dung, sealed and made especially potent over time, that they would cover their arrows in. This potent concoction would infect victims with a dangerous mixture of bacteria like tetanus and gangrene (Johnson, n.d.). The most commonly acknowledged case of bioweapons use is from the late 14th Century CE, in the city of Kaffa. During their besieging of the city, the Tartar army catapulted the bodies of plague victims over the city walls. Inhabitants and travelling merchants became infected with plague, bringing the deadly disease back to Italy and sparking the spread of the Black Death, killing an estimated 30-60% of the European population (Alchon, 2003).∂ More recently, in 1763 European settlers gave smallpox-laden linens to Native Americans in America, wiping out entire communities due to of a lack of immunity (Oldstone, 2010). Covert missions during World War I by the Germans infected Romanian sheep with anthrax, intending to infect their Russian purchasers (Carus, 2002). After several other experiments and cases during World Wars I and II, the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), also called Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), was negotiated. As the first multilateral disarmament treaty, it banned the “development, production, and stockpiling of an entire category of mass destruction” (UN, n.d.). Signed in 1972, it entered into force in 1975 and worked to end state-sponsored bioweapons programs. The Second Review Conference in 1986 “agreed that the States Parties were to implement a number of confidence building measures (CBM) in order to prevent or reduce the occurrence of ambiguities, doubts and suspicions and in order to improve international co-operation in the field of peaceful biological activities” (UN, n.d.). Signatory states were to provide annual reports related to BWC data, research centers and vaccine production.∂ While the BWC has helped prevent states’ use of bioweapons, a few individuals and groups have continued seeking bioweapons to use for their purposes. Seth Carus, in a 2002 study, extensively addressed the cases of biocrimes worldwide since 1990, citing the use of bioweapons by terrorists, criminals (those motivated by personal revenge or financial gain objectives), and other/uncertain (cases where the perpetrator was unknown). Carus provides the most extensive review of biocrime cases from 1990-2002. If bioterrorism has occurred since Carus’s analysis, there has been little to no unclassified information to document it. The few recent ricin cases that have been received media attention involved individuals sending castor beans (non-weaponized ricin) to federal officials and gun control organizations. Several experts have pointed to the over-hyped attention these cases have received, especially since these attempts yielded no illness and were using non-toxic substances (Garza, 2013).∂ Carus in his study noted that, “to date, few terrorists have demonstrated an interest in bioterrorism, and fewer still tried to acquire biological agents. Unclassified accounts mention at least 54 cases in which a terrorist group allegedly had an interest in bioweapons, but there is little evidence to confirm most of these cases” (Carus, 2002). Of these 54 cases, only 27 have more than minimal evidence that a terrorist group actually acquired, attempted to acquire, or threatened to use a bioweapon. Eight of these cases produced evidence that the terrorist group actually acquired the agent, but in only five cases did terrorists confirm the use or attempted use of biological weapons (Carus, 2002). The five cases of bioterrorists Carus mentions are the Rajneeshees, Aum Shinrikyo, Dark Harvest, Mau Mau, and the Polish Resistance. The most prominent cases are the Rajneeshees and Aum Shinrikyo, which experienced the most success. To understand the roadblocks they nonetheless encountered, it is crucial to understand how these two organizations functioned and attempted to employ bioweapons.∂ Rajneeshees – In 1984, the Rajneeshees cult carried out one of the largest bioterrorist actions in U.S. History. Attempting to sway local elections in Oregon, they contaminated several restaurants with Salmonella typhimurium, which was responsible for infecting 751people

with gastroenteritis (Carus, 2002). The Rajneeshees were originally an Indian cult that moved to Oregon to distance itself from notoriety in India. Upon settling in Oregon, they had a fractured relationship with local inhabitants. The cult would routinely bring in homeless people from all over the country to vote in local elections, hoping to sway land laws in their favor.∂ After several defeated electoral attempts, two of the prominent female members, Sheela and Puja, began to consider the use of biological weapons as a means to alter voter turnout. Puja, a registered nurse nicknamed “Dr. Mengeles”, controlled the Rajneesh Foundation International medical facilities and pharmacy. While Puja considered many biological agents, she chose S. typhimurium, a strain of salmonella most commonly associated with food poisoning. Other cult members stated that she also considered more severe bioweapons like HIV and giardia (Carus, 2002). Having purchased S. typhimurium from a commercial supplier, the Rajneeshees were able to produce more in covert laboratories within the Rajneeshees town, Rajneeshpuram.∂ Puja field-tested the pathogen on August 29, 1984 by contaminating the water of three county commissioners, all of whom fell ill. A second field test involved an unknown liquid that Puja employed cult members to spread on doorknobs and handles, but no infections were noted to occur. During August of 1984, the cult attempted several times to contaminate the water system, however, none were successful. In early September of 1984, the Rajneeshees poured vials containing S. typhimurium into different restaurant foods throughout their targeted town, The Dalles. The CDC estimates that 751 people became ill after eating at salad bars within these restaurants (Carus, 2002).∂ The Rajneeshees salmonella outbreak is considered by the FBI to be the only confirmed case of bioterrorism by a terrorist group operating in the U.S. until the 2001 Amerithrax attack (Carus, 2002). The uniqueness of this case is that it went unknown as an intentional outbreak. Even after wide public attention, this outbreak was not associated with bioterrorism until late 1985, when Rajneesh, the cult leader, emerged and stated he believed Sheela and 19 other leaders (including Puja) were responsible for crimes including the salmonella outbreak (Carus, 2002). Indeed, food terrorism is perhaps the most difficult form of bioterrorism to identify as intentional, as the pathogens are commonly occurring and biocrimes can easily be masked as large outbreaks. Overall, the Rajneeshees salmonella event is considered to be one of the largest case studies in biocrime history. Prior to the Amerithrax attacks, “this was the only confirmed instance of chemical or biological terrorism to occur in the U.S., according to the FBI” (Carus, 2002).∂ Aum Shinrikyo – Aum Shinrikyo was a Japanese group that is most famous for their release of sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subway system. While this attack made them famous, few know that sarin gas was just one of dozens of chemical and biological weapons they were developing. From 1990 to 1995, Aum Shinrikyo worked to develop biological agents to support their apocalyptic religious goals. Believing that war with the U.S. was imminent, the cult felt that arming themselves with bioweapons would provide better protection. The leader, Asahara, was a highly charismatic man, establishing a cult of roughly 40,000 members worldwide. Many members were wealthy citizens and included several scientists and engineers. It is estimated that at their peak in 1995, Aum had roughly $1 billion in net worth, making it one of the most well funded terrorist groups (Tucker, 2000). The Armageddon mentality further pushed the group to develop weapons at a rapid pace, with an increasingly violent attitude as a result of growing paranoia they became increasingly dependent on narcotics.∂ Aum’s use of bioweapons started in 1990, with their attempts to develop the botulinum toxin that could be used to infect state officials and others they deemed enemies. Aum had a substantial research facility, allowing them to perform advanced microbiology and even to disseminate biological materials from the roof of the facility they owned. During this time period, they worked on botulinum toxins, Bacillus anthracis, and Ebola. Ebola is considered one of the world’s deadliest viruses and was such a prize item for Aum that members traveled to Zaire in 1992 on a “humanitarian mission” during a local outbreak to supposedly acquire the virus in the wild (Thompson, 2006).∂ While they did extensive research, Aum actually made several attempts to field test and attack enemies with their manufactured weapons. In April 1990, they attempted to disseminate botulinum toxin by spraying the toxins from three vehicles when driving through central Tokyo, one of the international airports, and a naval base (Thompson, 2006). In 1993, they also tried the drive-by method at a royal wedding in Tokyo (Carus, 2002). Later that year, they attempted to spread anthrax using a sprayer system on the roof of a building they owned, as well as trying to contaminate the area around the Diet using the similar truck methods (Carus, 2002). The truck drive-by method was also employed again in mid 1993 during an attempted attack around the Imperial Palace in Tokyo (Carus, 2002). Lastly, in March 1995, Aum planted three briefcases in the Tokyo subway to release botulism. Interestingly, the individual responsible for preparing the suitcases had moral trepidation and replaced the contents with a placebo (Thompson, 2006).∂ This particular failure pushed Aum to use sarin nerve gas, which is not a bioweapon but a chemical warfare agent (Carus, 2002). The 1995 sarin attack was carried out in morning rush hour by placing the liquid sarin in punctured packages that looked like bottled drinks onto five cars, across three separate subway lines. The sarin attack was deemed successful by Aum, as it killed 12 people and caused over 6,000 to seek medical attention (Fletcher, 2012). Despite all of these bioweapon attempts (10 in total), they were all met with failures (Tucker, 2000). The sarin nerve gas attack was their only source of success, pointing to the unanticipated difficult nature of bioterrorism. Whether the result was a failure of dissemination, the virulence of the pathogen, or internal collapse within the group, Aum is a prime example of the dedication some organizations have to employing bioweapons, but also the roadblocks that prevented their success. Despite the resources Aum Shinrikyo had, in most cases they were unable to effectively use biological agents.∂ Amerithrax Attacks of 2001– After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, letters containing anthrax spores were sent through the United States Postal System (USPS). Coined the “Amerithrax” attacks, this case is noted to be the “worst biological attack in U.S. history” (FBI, n.d.). An estimated 10,000 people were exposed and 22 people experienced illness, of which five died. Anthrax is an extremely potent pathogen when inhaled, and with approximately 20 billion total spores released in the letters, this attack cost an estimated $6 billion in response measures (Thompson, 2006). Bacillus anthracis exists in roughly 89 known strains, but this particular strain was known as Ames (Thompson, 2006). What is unique about the Ames strain is that it is naturally occurring the U.S. (originally isolated in Ames, Iowa), highly virulent, and very resistant to existing vaccines.∂ From the beginning, the perpetrator was suspected to be an adult male who worked in a laboratory or had extensive scientific experience. Barbara Rosenberg of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), who works on biological weapons, “believes the individual to be an American scientist with access to anthrax or at least instructed to make it by an expert” (Thompson, 2006). Dr. Rosenberg, as Thompson noted, “falls into what some call the ‘Bioevangelist Camp’, believing an American scientist with experience in the realm of bioweapons thought the U.S. was failing to give BW risk adequate attention. The attacker demonstrated bioterrorism’s potential and blamed it on a large threat – Al Qaeda. The scientist brought attention to the problem, finally summoning sufficient assets to focus on the issue” (Thompson, 2006).∂ Richard Spertzel, a researcher working on bioweapons at Fort Detrick, Maryland, and Head of the Biological Weapons Inspections from 1994 to 1998, testified to the House Committee on International Relations in 2001 that the anthrax used in these attacks had to have been produced by a non-state group with ties to a state-sponsored weapons program. He stated that the complexity of the attack pointed to a pathogen that was at least as pure and concentrated as those found in state bioweapons programs, specifically the U.S., Soviet, or Iraqi programs (Thompson, 2006). The largest source of the Ames strand in the U.S. is found in the United States Army Military Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID).∂ While the culprit in the Amerithrax attack is still unknown, in 2008 the Department of Justice and the FBI brought charges against Dr. Bruce Ivins. Despite his suicide in 2008, evidence continues to mount against Dr. Ivins. A biodefense expert whose personal emails stated his willingness to hurt, kill, and terrorize, he was a microbiologist who worked with anthrax for decades at USAMRIID (Shane, 2010). Dr. Ivins was specifically working on vaccines for anthrax, revealing his extensive knowledge and access to the pathogen. While the Amerithrax attack does not have an obvious terrorist culprit and motive like those by Aum Shinrikyo or Rajneeshees, it continues to worry biodefense experts regarding apparent U.S. vulnerability.∂ Additional cases – There are three additional cases that are worth mentioning, but not heavily analyzed as there is little evidence available (Carus, 2002). Dark Harvest was a group that protested anthrax military testing by the British military during WWII and attempted to contaminate research facilities with anthrax-contaminated soil. Studies revealed that the soil had low levels of anthrax spores that were unable to cause illness. The Mau Mau African independence movement group was believed to be responsible for poisoning livestock with a plant toxin, but little information is available. Lastly, there are reports that during WWII, Polish resistance organizations used biological weapons to produce a claimed 200 German deaths.∂ METHODOLOGY∂ Case Selection ∂ The cases addressed in this thesis reflect those that have substantial data and background information to truly determine hurdles encountered in bioweapon utilization. The primary cases for discussion are the Aum Shinrikyo attacks from 1990-1995 and those by the Rajneeshees cult. While this thesis will refer to other non-state terrorist organization attempts, there is insufficient evidence that they represent actual attempts to use bioweapons. Carus categorizes cases according to terrorist, criminal, or other purposes.∂ For the rationale of this analysis, attention will be spent on the terrorist activity involving bioweapons. While criminals can be considered non-state actors, the cases associated with such action typically involve small clusters of poisoning (for example, employees poisoning doughnuts to infect coworkers and spouses infecting in-laws) and are not deemed terrorist incidents. According to Carus, motives of criminal cases were narrow and primarily involved targeting individuals or extremely small groups, not on instigating fear or social disruption on a large scale. The Amerithrax attacks will not be as heavily analyzed as those of Aum and Rajneeshees. The reasoning for this general exclusion is the debated classification of the Amerithrax attacks as truly terrorist attacks. Carus’s 2002 assessment does not include the Amerithrax attacks, most likely a result of the limited information at the time of print, and its classification as a terrorist action is disputed (Carus, 2002).∂ Many in the scientific community believe that the lone-wolf nature of the Amerithrax attacks and general intent behind them do not match terrorist habits (Thompson, 2006; Leitenberg, 2006). While there are valid points to both sides, the attacks will be referenced, but the lack of information regarding the perpetrator and attack methodology is not conducive for this analysis. The discussion will include some general information regarding the complexity of the Amerithrax case, since despite its disputed motives, this biological attack is nonetheless considered the largest in U.S. history.∂ Analysis Criteria∂ The analysis of these cases,

specifically the Aum and Rajneeshees attacks, focuses on 7 key roadblocks to successful use of biological weapons by terrorist groups:∂ Accessibility/availability of the biological agent∂ Difficulty of weaponizing∂ Dissemination∂ Environmental Conditions∂ Communicability and Incubation Period∂ Response Measures∂ Attitude and Intent of Potential Users

No impact to bioterrorism—attack won’t happen because no resourcesBurton and Stewart 08(Fred, Scott, 7/30/08, Stratfor Global Intelligence, “Busting the Anthrax Myth,” Fred is the VP of Stratfor, former deputy chief of counterterrorism at the Diplomatic Security Service, former counterterrorism agent with the US State Department, Scott is the VP of tactical analysis at Stratfor, former special agent with the US State Department involve din terrorism investigations, lead State Department investigator assigned to investigate 9/11, https://www.stratfor.com/node/154114, 7/16/15, SM)

We must admit to being among those who do not perceive the threat of bioterrorism to be as significant as that posed by a nuclear

strike. To be fair, it must be noted that we also do not see strikes using chemical or radiological weapons rising to the threshold of a true weapon of mass destruction either. The successful destonation of

a nuclear weapon in an American city would be far more devastating than any of these other forms of attack.∂ In fact, based on the past history of nonstate actors conducting attacks using biological weapons, we remain skeptical that a nonstate actor could conduct a biological weapons strike capable of creating as many casualties as a large strike using conventional explosives — such as the October 2002 Bali bombings that resulted in 202 deaths or the March 2004 train bombings in Madrid that killed 191.∂ We do not disagree with Runge's statements that actors such as al Qaeda have demonstrated an interest in biological weapons. There is ample evidence that

al Qaeda has a rudimentary biological weapons capability. However, there is a huge chasm of capability that separates intent and a rudimentary biological weapons program from a biological weapons program that is capable of killing hundreds of thousands of people.∂ Misconceptions About Biological Weapons∂ There are many misconceptions involving biological weapons. The three most common are that they are easy to obtain, that they are easy to deploy effectively, and that, when used, they always cause massive casualties.∂ While it is certainly true that

there are many different types of actors who can easily gain access to rudimentary biological agents, there are far fewer actors who can actually isolate virulent strains of the agents, weaponize them and then effectively employ these agents in a manner that will realistically pose a significant threat of causing mass casualties. While organisms such as anthrax are present in the environment and are not difficult to obtain,

more highly virulent strains of these tend to be far more difficult to locate, isolate and replicate. Such efforts require highly skilled individuals and sophisticated laboratory equipment.∂ Even incredibly deadly biological substances such as ricin and botulinum toxin are difficult to use in mass attacks. This difficulty arises when one attempts to take a rudimentary biological substance and then convert it into a weaponized form — a form that is potent enough to be deadly and yet readily dispersed. Even if this weaponization hurdle can be overcome, once developed, the weaponized agent must then be integrated with a weapons system that can effectively take large quantities of the agent and evenly distribute it in lethal doses to the intended

targets.∂ During the past several decades in the era of modern terrorism, biological weapons have been used very infrequently and with very little success. This fact alone serves to highlight the gap between the biological warfare misconceptions and reality. Militant groups desperately want to kill people and are constantly

seeking new innovations that will allow them to kill larger numbers of people. Certainly if biological weapons were as easily obtained, as easily weaponized and as effective at producing mass casualties as commonly

portrayed, militant groups would have used them far more frequently than they have.∂ Militant groups are generally adaptive and responsive to failure. If something works, they will use it. If it does not, they will seek more effective means of achieving their deadly goals. A good example of this was the rise and fall of the use of chlorine in militant attacks in Iraq.∂

Anthrax∂ As noted by Runge, the spore-forming bacterium Bacillus anthracis is readily available in nature and can be deadly if inhaled, if ingested or if it comes into contact with a person's skin. What constitutes a deadly dose of inhalation anthrax has not been precisely quantified, but is estimated to be somewhere between 8,000 and 50,000 spores. One gram of weaponized anthrax, such as that contained in the letters mailed to U.S. Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy in October 2001, can contain up to one trillion spores — enough to cause somewhere between 20 and 100 million deaths. The letters mailed to Daschle and Leahy reportedly contained about one gram each for a total estimated quantity of two grams of anthrax spores: enough to have theoretically killed between 40 and 200 million people. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the current population of the United States is 304.7 million. In a worst-case scenario, the letters mailed to Daschle and Leahy theoretically contained enough anthrax spores to kill nearly two-thirds of the U.S. population.∂ Yet, in spite of their incredibly deadly potential, those letters (along with an estimated five other anthrax letters mailed in a prior wave to media outlets such as the New York Post and the major television networks) killed only five people; another 22 victims were infected by the spores but recovered after receiving medical treatment.

This difference between the theoretical number of fatal victims — hundreds of millions — and the actual number of victims — five — highlights the challenges in effectively distributing even a highly virulent and weaponized strain of an organism to a large number of potential victims.∂ To summarize: obtaining a biological agent is fairly simple. Isolating a virulent strain and then weaponizing that strain is somewhat more difficult. But the key

to biological warfare — effectively distributing a weaponized agent to the intended target — is the really difficult part of the process. Anyone planning a biological attack against a large target such as a city needs to be concerned about a host of factors such as dilution, wind velocity and direction, particle size and weight, the susceptibility of the disease to ultraviolet light, heat, dryness or even rain. Small-scale localized attacks such as the 2001 anthrax letters or the 1984 salmonella attack undertaken by the Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh cult are far easier to commit.∂ It is also important to remember that anthrax is not some sort of untreatable super disease. While anthrax does form hardy spores that can remain inert for a period of time, the disease is not easily transmitted from person to person, and therefore is unlikely to create an epidemic outside of the area targeted by the attack. Anthrax infections can be treated by the use of readily available antibiotics. The spores' incubation period also permits time for early treatment if the attack is noticed.∂ The deadliest known anthrax incident in recent years occurred in 1979

when an accidental release of aerosolized spores from a Soviet biological weapons facility in Sverdlovsk affected some 94 people — reportedly killing 68 of them. This facility was one of dozens of laboratories that were part of the Soviet Union's massive and well-funded biological weapons program, one that employed thousands of the country's brightest scientists. In fact, it was the largest biological weapons program in history.∂ Perhaps the largest attempt by a nonstate actor to cause mass casualties using anthrax was the series of attacks conducted in 1993 by the Japanese cult group Aum Shinrikyo in Tokyo.∂ In the late 1980s, Aum's team of trained scientists spent millions of dollars to develop a series of state-of-the-art biological weapons research and production laboratories. The group experimented with botulinum toxin, anthrax, cholera and Q fever and even tried to acquire the Ebola virus. The group hoped to produce enough biological agent to trigger a global Armageddon. Its first attempts at unleashing mega-death on the world involved the use of botulinum toxin. In April 1990, the group used a fleet of three trucks equipped with aerosol sprayers to release liquid botulinum toxin on targets that included the Imperial Palace, the National Diet of Japan, the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, two U.S. naval bases and the airport in Narita. In spite of the massive quantities of toxin released, there were no mass casualties, and, in fact, nobody outside of the cult was even aware the attacks had taken place.∂ When the botulinum operations failed to produce results, Aum's scientists went back to the drawing board and retooled their biological weapons facilities to produce anthrax. By mid-1993, they were ready to launch attacks involving anthrax; between June and August of 1993, the group sprayed thousands of gallons of aerosolized liquid anthrax in Tokyo. This time, Aum not only employed its fleet of sprayer trucks but also used aerosol sprayers mounted on the roof of their headquarters to disperse a cloud of aerosolized anthrax over the city. Again, the attacks produced no results and were not even noticed. It was only after the group's successful 1995 subway attacks using sarin nerve agent that a Japanese government investigation discovered that the 1990 and 1993 biological attacks had occurred.∂ Biological Weapons Production∂ Aum Shinrikyo's team of highly trained scientists worked under ideal conditions in a first-world country with a virtually unlimited budget. They were able to travel the world in search of deadly organisms and even received technical advice from former Soviet scientists. The team worked in large, modern laboratory facilities to produce substantial quantities of biological weapons. They were able to operate these facilities inside industrial parks and openly order the large quantities of laboratory equipment they required. Yet, in spite of the millions of dollars the group spent on its biological weapons program — and the lack of any meaningful interference from the Japanese government — Aum still experienced problems in creating virulent biological agents and also found it difficult to dispense those agents effectively.∂ Today, al Qaeda finds itself operating in a very different environment than that experienced by Aum Shinrikyo in 1993. At that time, nobody was looking for Aum or its biological and chemical weapons program. By contrast, since the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States and its allies have actively pursued al Qaeda leaders and sought to dismantle and defang the organization. The United States and its allies have focused a considerable amount of resources in tracking and disassembling al Qaeda's chemical and biological warfare efforts. The al Qaeda network has had millions of dollars of its assets seized in a number of countries, and it no longer has the safe haven of Afghanistan from which to operate. The chemical and biological facilities the group established in the 1990s in Afghanistan — such as the Deronta training camp, where cyanide and other toxins were used to kill dogs, and a crude anthrax production facility in Kandahar — have been found and destroyed by U.S. troops.∂

Operating in the badlands along the Pakistani-Afghan border, al Qaeda cannot easily build large modern factories capable of producing large quantities of agents or toxins. Such fixed facilities are expensive and consume a lot

of resources. Even if al Qaeda had the spare capacity to invest in such facilities, the fixed nature of them means that they could be compromised and quickly destroyed by the United States.∂ If al Qaeda could somehow create and hide a fixed biological weapons facility in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas or North-West Frontier Province, it would still face the daunting task of transporting large quantities of biological agents from the Pakistani badlands to targets in the United States or Europe. Al Qaeda operatives certainly can create and transport small quantities of these

compounds, but not enough to wreak the kind of massive damage it desires.∂ Al Qaeda's lead chemical and biological weapons expert, Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri, was reportedly killed on July 28, 2008,

by a U.S. missile strike on his home in Pakistan. Al-Sayid, who had a $5 million dollar bounty on his head, was initially reported to have been one of those killed in the January 2006 strike in Damadola. If he was indeed killed, his death should be another significant blow to the group's biological warfare efforts.

No risk of bioterrorism—success too unreliableKeller 13

(Rebecca, 3/7/13, Stratfor Global Intelligence, “Bioterrorism and the Pandemic Potential,” Rebecca is a science and technology analyst @ Stratfor, holds a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Washington University, https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/bioterrorism-and-pandemic-potential, 7/16/16, SM)

The use of the pathogen as a biological weapon requires an assessment of whether a non-state actor would have the capabilities to

isolate the virulent strain, then weaponize and distribute it. Stratfor has long held the position that while terrorist organizations may have rudimentary capabilities regarding biological weapons, the likelihood

of a successful attack is very low. ∂ Given that the laboratory version of H5N1 — or any influenza virus, for that matter — is a contagious pathogen, there would be two possible modes that a non-state actor would have to instigate an attack. The virus could be refined and then aerosolized and released into a populated area, or an individual could be infected with the virus and sent

to freely circulate within a population.∂ There are severe constraints that make success using either of these

methods unlikely. The technology needed to refine and aerosolize a pathogen for a biological attack is beyond the capability of most non-state actors. Even if they were able to develop a weapon, other factors such as wind patterns and humidity can render an attack ineffective. Using a human carrier is a less expensive method, but it requires that the biological agent be a contagion. Additionally, in order to infect the large number of people necessary to start an outbreak, the infected carrier must be mobile while contagious, something that is doubtful with a serious disease like small pox. The carrier also cannot be visibly ill because that would limit the necessary human contact.

Ag Terror- AT: Food ShortagesThere is not a shortage of food; there is a shortage of justice. A slight increase in the price of food has no impact on the wide-spread hunger problem facing the world. Rather, large agricultural corporations and income disparity are why people go hungry. Stopping agro-terrorism won’t stop that.Jim Goodman, dairy farmer from Wonewoc, Wisconsin., 7-17-2015, "The Food Crisis is Not About a Shortage of Food," Common Dreams, http://www.commondreams.org/views/2010/09/17/food-crisis-not-about-shortage-food

The food crisis of 2008 never really ended, it was ignored and forgotten. The rich and powerful are well fed; they had no food crisis, no shortage, so in the West, it was little more than a short lived sound bite, tragic but forgettable. To the poor in the developing world, whose ability to afford food is no better now than in 2008, the hunger continues. Hunger can have many contributing factors; natural disaster, discrimination, war, poor infrastructure. So why, regardless of the situation, is high tech agriculture always assumed to be the only the solution? This premise is put forward and supported by those who would benefit financially if their “solution” were implemented. Corporations peddle their high technology genetically engineered seed and chemical packages, their genetically altered animals, always with the “promise” of feeding the world. Politicians and philanthropists, who may mean well, jump on the high technology band wagon. Could the promise of financial support or investment return fuel their apparent compassion? The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) an initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation supposedly works to achieve a food secure and prosperous Africa. While these sentiments and goals may be philanthropy at its best, some of the coalition partners have a different agenda. One of the key players in AGRA, Monsanto, hopes to spread its genetically engineered seed throughout Africa by promising better yields, drought resistance, an end to hunger, etc. etc. Could a New Green Revolution succeed where the original Green Revolution had failed? Or was the whole concept of a Green Revolution a pig in a poke to begin with? Monsanto giving free seed to poor small holder farmers sounds great, or are they just setting the hook? Remember, next year those farmers will have to buy their seed. Interesting to note that the Gates Foundation purchased $23.1 million worth of Monsanto stock in the second quarter of 2010. Do they also see the food crisis in Africa as a potential to turn a nice profit? Every corporation has one overriding interest--- self-interest, but surely not charitable foundations? Food shortages are seldom about a lack of food, there is plenty of food in the world, the shortages occur because of the inability to get food where it is needed and the inability of the hungry to afford it. These two problems are principally caused by, as Francis Moore Lappe' put it, a lack of justice. There are also ethical considerations, a higher value should be placed on people than on corporate profit, this must be at the forefront, not an afterthought. In 2008, there were shortages of food, in some places, for some people. There was never a shortage of food in 2008 on a global basis, nor is there currently. True, some countries, in Africa for example, do not have enough food where it is needed, yet people with money have their fill no matter where they live. Poverty and inequality cause hunger. The current food riots in Mozambique were a result of increased wheat prices on the world market. The UN Food and Agriculture organization, (FAO) estimates the world is

on course to the third largest wheat harvest in history, so increasing wheat prices were not caused by actual shortages, but rather by speculation on the price of wheat in the international market. While millions of people go hungry in India, thousands of kilos of grain rot in storage. Unable to afford the grain, the hungry depend on the government to distribute food. Apparently that's not going so well. Not everyone living in a poor country goes hungry, those with money eat. Not everyone living in rich country is well fed, those without money go hungry. We in the US are said to have the safest and most abundant food supply in the world, yet even here, surrounded by an over abundance of food, there are plenty of hungry people and their numbers are growing. Do we too have a food crisis, concurrent with an obesity crisis? Why is there widespread hunger? Is food a right? Is profit taking through speculation that drives food prices out of the reach of the poor a right? Is pushing high technology agriculture on an entire continent at that could feed itself a (corporate) right? In developing countries, those with hunger and poor food distribution, the small farmers, most of whom are women, have little say in agricultural policy. The framework of international trade and the rules imposed by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank on developing countries, places emphasis on crops for export, not crops for feeding a hungry population. Despite what we hope are the best intentions of the Gates Foundation, a New Green Revolution based on genetically engineered crops, imported fertilizer and government imposed agricultural policy will not feed the world. Women, not Monsanto, feed most of the worlds population, and the greatest portion of the worlds diet still relies on crops and farming systems developed and cultivated by the indigenous for centuries, systems that still work, systems that offer real promise. The report of 400 experts from around the world, The International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), is ignored by the proponents of a New Green Revolution, precisely because it shows that the best hope for ending hunger lies with local, traditional, farmer controlled agricultural production, not high tech industrial agriculture. To feed the world, fair methods of land distribution must be considered. A fair and just food system depends on small holder farmers having access to land. The function of a just farming system is to insure that everyone gets to eat, industrial agriculture functions to insure those corporations controlling the system make a profit. The ultimate cause of hunger is not a lack of Western agricultural technology, rather hunger results when people are not allowed to participate in a food system of their choosing. Civil wars, structural adjustment policies, inadequate distribution systems, international commodity speculation and corporate control of food from seed to table--- these are the causes of hunger, the stimulus for food crises. If the Gates Foundation is serious about ending hunger in Africa, they need to read the IAASTD report, not Monsanto's quarterly profit report. Then they can decide how their money might best be spent.

AT: Anti-Black TerrorStatistics that claim that right-wing terror is more threatening than Islamic Extremists are based off of skewed conceptions of what a right-wing terrorist is and misrepresent the actual data.Megan Mcardle, 6-30-2015, "Tallying Right-Wing Terror vs. Jihad," BloombergView, http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-06-30/tallying-right-wing-terror-vs-jihad

How much should we worry about Islamic terrorism? How much should we worry about other kinds? There's no exact right answer to this question. Who is out there in dark places plotting murder most foul? We can only guess, using imperfect information. Of course, there's "imperfect" and then there's downright distorted. The New York Times highlighted one data set recently, in an article headlined "Homegrown Extremists Tied to Deadlier Toll Than Jihadists in U.S. Since 9/11." "Since Sept. 11, 2001," the article says, "nearly twice as many people have been killed by white supremacists, antigovernment fanatics and other non-Muslim extremists than by radical Muslims: 48 have been killed by extremists who are not Muslim, including the recent mass killing in Charleston, S.C., compared with 26 by self-proclaimed jihadists, according to a count by New America, a Washington research center." The article goes on to cite a nationwide survey of police and sheriffs departments, noting that "74 percent listed antigovernment violence, while 39 percent listed 'Al Qaeda-inspired' violence, according to the researchers." Well, I guess that settles that, then. Ah, no. You've been reading this column too long to believe that. Statistics are useful, but fragile. How you handle them makes a big difference. The most obvious thing to note is the choice of start date: Sept. 12, 2001. That neatly excludes an attack that would dwarf all those homegrown terror attacks by several orders of magnitude. Ah, you will say, but that was a one-time event. Sort of. It is no longer possible to destroy the World Trade Center, but we can't be certain to never again have a large-scale terror attack that kills many people. If you have high-magnitude but low-frequency events, then during most intervals you choose to study, other threats will seem larger -- but if you zoom out, the big, rare events will still kill more people. We don't say that California should stop worrying about earthquake-proofing its buildings, just because in most years bathtub drownings are a much larger threat to its citizens. The other thing to ask is how we're defining a terror event and classifying the motivation. I took a little stroll through the underlying data, and on the "jihadist violence" side, the definition is pretty clear: with the exception of one case in which a Muslim who seemed fond of jihadist propaganda beheaded a coworker for reasons that are not entirely clear, the rest of the attacks involved someone with an ideological commitment to radical Islam trying to kill a bunch of people in a way that made it clear that this was about U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Counting the other types of extremist terrorism is a little murkier. Some of them are fairly obvious: When a white supremacist starts shooting people at a Sikh temple, I don't think we need to wonder too hard what his motives were. On the other hand, the data set The Times relies on also includes Andrew Joseph Stack, who you may remember piloted a small plane into an IRS building in Austin. Stack left a manifesto behind, and it doesn't exactly read like an anarcho-capitalist treatise. Oh, he's mad at the government, all right, but he's mad about ... the 1986 revision to Section 1706 of the tax code, which governs the treatment of technical contractors. Here are

some other things Andrew Stack was angry about: The bailouts of GM and Wall Street Drug companies and health insurers (Obamacare was then stalled in Congress) The Catholic Church and the "monsters of organized religion" The Pennsylvania steel bankruptcies that gutted steelworker pensions Now-defunct accounting firm Arthur Andersen Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (because of Section 1706) The California base closings of the early 1990s The 1980s S&L crisis Government aid to airlines after 9/11 His accountant George W. Bush Its closing lines are "The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed." Labeling this as a "deadly right-wing attack" is beyond a stretch; it's not even arguably correct. Nor is this the only questionable inclusion. Consider Raymond Peake, who was convicted of shooting someone at a firing range, apparently in the course of stealing his gun (it was not the first time Peake had stolen a gun, but it was the first time he'd shot anyone); he appears to be on the list on the basis of a single vague statement from law-enforcement that Peake had been stealing guns for an unidentified organization aimed at overthrowing the United States government. His "co-conspirator," whose lawyer denied that he had any knowledge of Peake's alleged crimes, ultimately plead guilty not to conspiracy to overthrow the government, but to receiving stolen property. Maybe there was a shadowy plot to overthrow the U.S. government with the four guns they found in the co-conspirator's home. On the other hand, maybe a suspect just started rambling when he was arrested for murder. Then there was Joshua Cartwright of Ft. Walton Beach, Florida, who shot two deputies when his wife called the cops to stop him from hitting her. This was elevated to a "deadly right-wing attack" because, according to New America, "Cartwright had a history of non-compliance with the police and Cartwright’s wife told police that he held anti-government views and was 'severely disturbed' by President Obama’s election." All this may be true. But it's dangerous to profile so that every person with vaguely stated right-wing views, or even not-so-right-wing views, becomes an avatar of that group, rather than an individual who happens to be a member of that group, and also happens to have done something bad. The case of Robert Poplawski is similarly questionable. He ambushed three officers who responded when his mother called the police on him. He also frequented white supremacist websites and espoused anti-government racist views, according to the database. He also wrote his grandmother's name in his own blood on a bedroom wall on the day of the shooting, and told the police negotiator "You know, I'm a good kid, officer. ... This is really an unfortunate occurrence, sir." Which does not exactly sound like a crazed right-wing terrorist determined to take down the government By Any Means Necessary. Add to the list of "not clear what he was thinking, but probably not domestic terrorism" Curtis Wade Holley, who set fire to his own home and then shot at the first responders. The timeline suggests he was upset because his ex-girlfriend finally had his utilities shut off and he was worried about being evicted or losing his car, something he'd vowed not to endure without a fight. The evidence for him as a "right-wing attacker," rather than just a paranoid and broke marijuana grower, seems to be that someone, possibly the ex-girlfriend, had called police to say that he had anti-government views and would shoot cops if they came to his place. Would a similar situation with someone known to be an Irish nationalist be an example that The Troubles had crossed the Atlantic to the United States? I find it very hard to understand why these cases were included, except to pad out the count of "deadly right-wing attacks." Presumably we are looking for political terror for a political purpose, not every violent crime by a Muslim or a right-

winger. This means the acts must include some amount of premeditation, some intent to pursue an ideology, not a flash shootout precipitated by a completely unrelated event, like beating your wife or getting your utilities shut off. Restricting the count to attacks that seem to have had a political purpose, and an ideology that could be convincingly described as "right wing," drops the tally of right-wing terror to 41 or less. I'm also somewhat dubious about Albert Gaxiola, Shawna Forde and Joshua Bush, who killed a man and his 9-year-old daughter while robbing their house. The database says "The three conducted the robbery to help fund their anti-immigrant organization." But prosecutors told jurors that "it was Gaxiola who suggested Forde and Bush ought to rob and kill Flores. Gaxiola wanted Flores dead because he was a rival drug smuggler." Forde and Bush were, according to prosecutors, seeking money to fund their Minutemen organization, but once you start to bring black-market assassinations into this, things start looking a little murkier than a case of "deadly right-wing attacks." To be generous and round up the numbers for right-wing terror, I could argue for including the Gaxiola trio and Peake. However, once you start throwing in the gray cases on the right-wing side, shouldn't we be similarly permissive on the Islamic terror side? In prison, one of the Beltway snipers penned rambling anti-American screeds in which the Baltimore Sun said that "the most recurring theme is that of jihad - or holy war - against America." The Beltway snipers killed 10 people, which all by itself would bring the number of jihadist killings up to 36. Then the story becomes less "right-wing terror is much more dangerous than jihad" and more "Muslim terrorists have killed some people in the United States, and other kinds of ideological murderers have too." What's the takeaway? Never think that because you have a nice, hard-sounding number, that number tells you what you want to know. Numbers don't just grow in the wild; they are chosen, by parameters that the researchers decide. The parameters these particular researchers chose might not be the criteria you would use; they are certainly not the ones that I would have chosen. And even if you agree that these are absolutely the right and proper numbers, that still doesn't tell us that right-wing terror is more dangerous to us, the living, than to the people during the time period they studied. To know that, you would need to know who remains out there, plotting dark things.

The neg’s statistics are misconstrued propaganda that doesn’t understand how domestic terrorism works. These are not large groups plotting massive attacks, they are small lone wolf actors.John Fund, 1-18-2013, "A New Anti-Terror Front? Yes, the Government Thinks It's ‘Right-Wing Extremists’," National Review Online, http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/338049/new-anti-terror-front-yes-government-thinks-its-right-wing-extremists-john-fund

The world is beset by terrorists — witness the American hostages taken in Algeria this week — but portions of our federal government continue to obsess about alleged home-grown threats from the “far right.” The Combating Terrorism Center, which is based at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, has issued a new report on its website entitled “Challengers from the Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far-Right.” Normally, the center’s activities are focused on al-Qaeda and other violent Islamic groups seeking to topple governments around the world. But the latest report looks inside America itself, and if the center is to be judged by the quality of its analysis in this report, it might be wise for all of us to be skeptical of its other work.

The Center’s report lumps together entirely legitimate tea-party-style activists with three groups it says represent “a racist/white supremacy movement, an anti-federalist movement and a fundamentalist movement.” Together all these forces are said to have engaged in 350 “attacks initiated by far-right groups/individuals” in 2011, although the report never specifies what makes an attack a “far right” action. The report’s author is Arie Perliger, who directs the Center’s terrorism studies and teaches social sciences at West Point. I can only imagine what his classes are like as his report manages to lump together every known liberal stereotype about conservatives between its covers. As Rowan Scarborough of the Washington Times, who broke news of the report on Thursday, recounts: [The Center’s report] says anti-federalists “espouse strong convictions regarding the federal government, believing it to be corrupt and tyrannical, with a natural tendency to intrude on individuals’ civil and constitutional rights. Finally, they support civil activism, individual freedoms, and self government. Extremists in the anti-federalist movement direct most their violence against the federal government and its proxies in law enforcement.” The report also draws a link between the mainstream conservative movement and the violent “far right,” and describes liberals as “future oriented” and conservatives as living in the past. “While liberal worldviews are future- or progressive -oriented, conservative perspectives are more past-oriented, and in general, are interested in preserving the status quo,” the report says. “The far right represents a more extreme version of conservatism, as its political vision is usually justified by the aspiration to restore or preserve values and practices that are part of the idealized historical heritage of the nation or ethnic community.” The report adds: “While far-right groups’ ideology is designed to exclude minorities and foreigners, the liberal-democratic system is designed to emphasize civil rights, minority rights and the balance of power.” The Times quotes a congressional staffer who has served in the military calling the report a “junk study.” The staffer then asked: “The $64,000 dollar question is when will the Combating Terrorism Center publish their study on real left-wing terrorists like the Animal Liberation Front, Earth Liberation Front, and the Weather Underground?” This is not the first time elements of the federal government have tried to smear conservatives with sloppy work and a broadbrush analysis.#more# In 2009, liberals in the Department of Homeland Security prepared a report defining “rightwing extremism in the United States” as including not just hate groups, but also groups that reject federal authority in favor of federalism or local control. “It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration,” a footnote in the report warned. The DHS report bore the ominous title: “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.” Sent to hundreds of local-law-enforcement officials, the report claimed that “right wing extremists have capitalized on the election of the first African-American president, and are focusing their efforts to recruit new members, mobilize existing supporters, and broaden their scope and appeal through propaganda, but they have not yet turned to attack planning.” A casual reader might have concluded that “attack planning” by said groups is inevitable. But the report is silent on just how the groups will attack, and indeed since 2009 there has been precious little evidence any of them ever did. After much public ridicule, the DHS report vanished from public view as did a similar effort at the same time by the Missouri Highway Patrol, which had to retract its own report linking conservative groups with militia activity and mentioning 2008 presidential candidates Ron Paul and Bob Barr. No one doubts the existence of racist and hate-filled groups that require monitoring. But both the DHS and West

Point reports read as if they were laying the groundwork for a rhetorical attack on mainstream conservatism of the sort that President Clinton launched in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995, when he blamed talk radio for stirring up anti-government passions. No one should be surprised if supporters of new gun-control measures begin justifying them by referring to the West Point report. The Obama administration raised eyebrows back in 2009 when Janet Napolitano’s DHS substituted the phrase “man-made disasters” for the dangers posed by Islamic terrorism. My sources inside Congress tell me they continue to worry that efforts to monitor domestic Muslim extremists as well as interdiction efforts against radical Islamists crossing the U.S. border are sometimes put on the back burner. The government denies this, but it seems to me its protestations would be more persuasive if it spent less time producing half-baked warnings about the danger of “right-wing extremists.”

AT: EconTerrorism attacks will ultimately benefit the US economy—increased spending in other areas Anderson 01 (William L. Anderson, adjunct scholar of the Mises Institute, teaches economics at Frostburg State University., 9-17-2001, "Is Terrorism Good for the Economy?," Mises Institute, https://mises.org/library/terrorism-good-economy)

Hazlitt bases much of his book on a simple lesson given by the great French economist Frederic Bastiat, the lesson of the "broken window." In this "parable," a hoodlum throws a brick through a bakery window. At first, the crowd that has gathered after the vandalism is full of sympathy for the poor baker, who now must shell out $200 to the glazier for the new window. But then, someone in the crowd reminds everyone that the glazier now will have $200 that he did not possess before. He will spend it, thereby beginning a new circle of prosperity. The crowd thus concludes that, far from being a criminal, this lad who threw the brick through the baker’s window is a public benefactor. One would think that anyone with any sense at all could see through the crowd’s misguided interpretation of the events

and know that breaking windows does not bring prosperity. Yet Timothy Noah wrote in Slate (September 12, 2001): We live in a very wealthy nation that responds to horrible disasters by spending large sums of money . . . . Why will the

entire U.S. economy benefit, as opposed to just New York's? Because the money will be spent in the nerve center of American finance, which is having a rough time of it these days. . . . [T]he mere presence of construction activity

around Wall Street will have a beneficial psychological effect on bankers and brokers. It will also provide a meaningful Keynesian stimulus to a national economy that, let's face it, was tottering on the brink of recession well before Sept. 11. The recession may still come, but the countercyclical spending should help shorten it. Mr. Noah is a reliable promoter of economic fallacy, but one certainly would not expect to see economists espousing such a ridiculous point of view. Yet, just days after the

tragedy, a New York Post article quoting economist Lawrence Kudlow and his associates declared the following: Initially, this could provide a significant boost to an economy that had been slumping. The construction industry could benefit from the rebuilding process. There may also be a boon for slumping tech sales, in replacing lost equipment. "Tenants are going out to rent and develop new spaces, and will buy a ton of technology from companies that

have been stagnant," said economist Larry Kudlow. "In economics, it's called the ‘broken windows' effect—we may lose money and wealth in one way but we gain it back many times over when the rebuilding is done."

No impact—empirics prove—the US markets are resilient and can withstand the shocks of major terrorist attacksChen 03 (Andrew H. Chen, 2003, "The effects of terrorism on global capital markets," ResearchGate, http://www.researchgate.net/publication/222534216_The_effects_of_terrorism_on_global_capital_markets)

In conclusion, global capital markets today are tightly inter-linked; news spreads rapidly (especially bad news), with quick spillover,

or contagion, effects. We find evidence that suggests that modern U.S. capital markets are more resilient than they were in the past and that they recover sooner from terrorist/military attacks than other global capital markets. We also find evidence that suggests the possibility that this increased market resilience can be at least partially explained by a banking/financial sector that provides adequate liquidity to promote market stability and squelch panic . Fig. 6. Global capital markets’ and banking/financial sector 11-day cumulative average abnormal returns following the September 11th terrorist attacks. The policy implications of this research should not be overlooked. First, because global capital markets are closely and tightly inter-related, policymakers and regulators around the world must always be aware of what is going in other parts of the world. Today’s real-time information economy means that news spreads rapidly and has the potential to have serious negative consequences in a very short time. Thus, it is important for regulators and policymakers to cooperate and communicate more with each other on a regular basis. This includes sharing important information—like unusual stock trading or large dollar trans-actions—that might have consequences elsewhere, and developing disaster recovery plans that can be quickly put into place in case of a cataclysmic event. Second, the importance of a healthy and stable banking and financial sector and the efficient execution of monetary policies seems paramount

to growing economies. The foundations and regulations that underlie U.S. banking and financial markets appear to function efficiently and effectively with the ability to absorb tremendous shocks. For the most part, the payments system in the U.S. kept functioning normally with few reported problems. We suggest that capital markets and banking/financial sectors in growing economies model themselves after those in the United States. This includes, of course, a quick, effective, flexible and responsive monetary authority.

Empirics—the US economy has the ability to withstand and even rebound to major terrorist attacksSandler 10 (Todd Sandler, Professor of International Relations and Economics at the University of Southern California, Walter Enders, Bidgood Chair of Economics and Finance at the University of Alabama, July 2010, http://www.utdallas.edu/~tms063000/website/Econ_Consequences_ms.pdf)

An economy as rich and diverse as that of the United States is anticipated to withstand most terrorist events with little macroeconomic consequences. During most years, the United States experienced few terrorist events on its own soil – e.g., in 1998, 2000, and the years following 2001, there were no terrorist events in the United States

(Sandler and Enders, 2004; US Department of State, 1999-2004). Moreover, the breadth of US economic activities is sufficiently diverse to absorb the impact of an attack by shifting activities to unaffected sectors . 8

The immediate costs of typical terrorist acts, such as kidnappings, assassinations, or bombings, are localized, not unlike ordinary crimes. Currently, crimes such as identity thief have far greater potential economic consequences than terrorism to developed countries. In most developed countries, terrorism generally causes a substitution from sectors vulnerable to terrorism into relatively safe areas and, thus, does not affect the entire macroeconomy.3 If airlines become risky, factors of production will shift from the airline sector to other relatively safer sectors. Of course, a terrorist act of the magnitude of 9/11 can shake confidence and influence sufficiently many sectors to have macroeconomics repercussions. But as we show below, developed countries are positioned to take actions to limit these impacts. This representation is in marked contrast to small economies in which terrorism is prevalent and affects daily activities as in Colombia, Israel, and the Basque region of Spain. For these economies, terrorism can reduce GDP and curb development, especially during prolonged campaigns (e.g., Israel since September 27, 2000). Protracted terrorism leads to the anticipation of future events, which create risk premiums that limit activities in terrorism-prone sectors. Investors, both at home and abroad, may decide to direct their assets to safer activities in other countries. If terrorists succeed in scaring away investments, they may be emboldened to take

further actions to cause economic losses. US experience in light of 9/11 Figure 1 provides strong evidence for the view that the US economy quickly rebounded from 9/11. The vertical line in the center of each panel of Figure 1 represents the third quarter of 2001 (i.e., 2001:Q3) corresponding to 9/11. Panel 1 shows that real GDP was virtually unchanged throughout 2000 and fell slightly in the first and third quarters of 2001. The key feature is that real GDP began to grow sharply beginning in the fourth quarter of 2001 following 9 9/11. Panel 2 shows that the Conference Board’s measure of consumer confidence plummeted right

before the onset of the 2001 recession; however, immediately following 9/11, confidence actually soared. Some of this increase might be attributed to the patriotism of the American public . As displayed in Panel 3, the rebound in economic activity was buoyed by strong consumer demand for durables. These “big-ticket” items are the most volatile component of total consumption, which jumped in the fourth quarter of 2001. Panel 4 indicates that the unemployment rate was rising prior to 9/11, and rose dramatically after the attack. Because the unemployment rate is a lagging indicator of economic activity, this rate would likely have increased even without 9/11. Thus, we must wonder what would have

happened to unemployment in the absence of 9/11 – i.e., the unemployment rate may have risen even faster.