Novice Tournament Finals: NSA Spying is Beneficial to the US.

Extent of Surveillence My opponent concedes in his opening paragraph that the "NSA is not seeing actual content" of phone conversations or internet activity. Instead, he agrees, NSA agents have access to civilian metadata, or length of calls, numbers invlolved, and relative locations of the callers. However, my opponent fails to address my source from the New Yorker, which indicates that NSA agents rarely even see the details of this metadata, as the information only appears when a caller is flagged as potentially posing a national security threat [1]. My opponent then argues that the NSA's access to metadata can actually harm civil liberties. In support of this, he references an article about the National Defence Authorization Act, a bill which has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence gathering or the NSA. His source doesn't even mention the NSA once.Furthermore, my opponent's own source agrees that the NSA's access to metadata is legally restricted. According to my opponent's source, "When NSA analysts have reasonable and articulable suspicion that a particular phone number is associated with a person involved in terrorist activity, they can "query" the database to determine what phone numbers the suspect phone number has been in touch with. This is the only purpose for which the NSA may access metadata... There are rigorous safeguards in place both internally through the NSA's Office of General Counsel and externally pursuant to oversight by the Department of Justice, the congressional intelligence committees, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to ensure that no one accesses the database for any other purpose." [2]So, in short, my opponent is intentionally being misleading when he contends that judges aren't even a part of the surveillence proccess, and that NSA's access to metadata is "unchecked." Occasionally, when red flags have been raised, NSA analysts can view metadata about phone numbers and the length of their conversations. And, even then, a FISA Court must authorize a warrant if NSA analysts wish to listen to the content of these phone conversations, in all circumstances. That much is fact [3][4].Once again, the slippery slope argument that my opponent presents his flawed. He continues to assert that some event must inevitably follow from another, without any argument for the inevitability of the event in question. Also, it has been established that the NSA needs a warrant to listen to the records of domestic phone coversations. My opponent's claims that the NSA does not need warrants are in direct contradiction with what he has said previously. And, with regards to the argument about unwarranted foriegn spying through XKeyScore, I specifically stated in the Round 1 rules of this debate that we would be debating the NSA's domestic surviellence program, not its foriegn one. My opponent agreed to these rules by accepting the debate. Therefore I will not address this particular argument.EffectivenessMy opponent attempts to dispute the validity of the 54 terrorist attacks that the NSA has been involved in thwarting, despite the fact that the FBI, CIA, and the National Counterterrorism Center have all confirmed their validity [5]. Then, he argues that the four cases that the NSA has publicly released details on, did not actually require NSA involvement. Well, allow me to go through the four cases individually.1) David Coleman Headley, an American, was sentenced to 35 years in prison for his role in terrorist plots that killed 168 people in Mumbai, and for being invlolved with other attacks around the globe. At the time of his arrest, he had been planning to bomb a Danish store. According to journalist Sebastian Rotella, "Officials involved with the investigation said that information lawfully gathered under the Foriegn Intelligence Surviellence Act was integral to disrupting the attempted attacks." [6]2) Basaaly Moalin was the San Diego man convicted of financially supporting Al Shabab, the terrorist group responsible for the attack on a Kenyan mall last month. Officials have stated that the NSA's gathering of metadata and flagging of potential national security threats was "crucial" in determining that a U.S. phone was in contact with a Shabab, which in turn led them to Moalin. [7]3) Najibullah Zazi was a Pakistani man who, in 2009, plotted to bomb the New York subway system. An email intercepted by the NSA to an account of a known Al Qaeda figure in Pakistan allowed authorities to identify and ultimately capture Zazi. The National Counterterrorism Center evaluated the case and determined it was through the metadata program that authorities identified Zazi as being in contact with an al-Qaeda affliate, and ultimately arrested him. [8]4) Three Americans, including Khalid Ouazzani, were charged in 2010 with conspiracy to provide material support to Al Qaeda. According to the FBI report, NSA surveillance allowed officials “to detect a nascent plotting to bomb the New York Stock Exchange.”So clearly, NSA surviellence and metadata collection has played a significant role in preventing terrorist attacks and saving American lives. The other 50 plots prevented by the NSA have been declared classified, but once again, have been confirmed.And yes, law enforcement officials did know that 9/11 hijacker Khalid Muhammad Abdallah al-Mihdhar was living in San Francisco, and he was listed as a potential threat. However, pre-9/11 intelligence capabilities did not show that Mihdhar was in contact with a known al-Qaeda safehouse in Yemen [9]. If intelligence capabilities had been what they are now, metadata about phone numbers and their relative locations would have been indicitive of this fact, and a red-flag probably would have been raised. At this point, the NSA would have been able to obtain a warrant from a FISA court, and understand Mihdhar's plans before he was able to kill 2,700 innocent Americans.With regard to the "too much data issue," I fail to see any merit to my opponent's argument. According to my opponent's own source, only 288 phone numbers were actually quieried for further review in 2012, and that number has been even lower in previous years [2]. Is my opponent arguing that the metadata of 288 individuals is "too much" for analysts to review in a year? Certainly, there is an adequate amount of analysis capability and "human intuition" to evaluate 288 phone numbers, and considering 54 of these led directly to the prevention of terror attacks, I think that the NSA's methods are pretty effective.SummationIn the words of president Barack Obama, "The lives of countless Americans depend on our ability to monitor these communications through the NSA and other intelligence agencies." These programs have played a role in a significant number of terrorist convictions since 9/11, saving thousands American lives and protecting our security. Furthermore, these programs have been operated in a legal manner with ample oversight to ensure preservation of the Constitution. NSA spying is a benefit to the US. Thank you.Sources[1]http://www.newyorker.com...[2]http://www.huffingtonpost.com...[3]http://epic.org...[4]https://www.fas.org...[5]http://www.washingtonpost.com...[6]http://www.fbi.gov...[7]http://www.fbi.gov...[8]http://www.fbi.gov...[9]http://www.washingtonspectator.org...