Resolved: A just government ought to prioritize civil liberties over national security.

I. INTROThank you to JonBonBon for instigating the debate and Solon for hosting the tournament. Though this topic is an LD resolution, we have agreed not to do value structure or anything like that. Hopefully this'll be a good debate!II. OBSERVATIONSObs 1: Though this definition does not pertain exclusively to the United States, the debate will likely focus on the United States, as post-9/11 America is a great example of a nation struggling to find the right balance between the two.Obs 2: The affirmative (me) has to prove that a government should prioritize civil liberties. The negative (Jonbonbon) must prove that the government should *not* prioritize civil liberties. This means that Con can either advocate the two being completely balanced or that national defense should take priority. However, it is important to recognize that in order to win, Con must prove that the sacrifice is not made in vein.III. DEFINITIONSHopefully these definitions are fair to both parties, and ideally we won’t get hung up on definitional debate.Just: “Right; in accordance with law and justice.” [1] When this word modifies government, therefore, it implies that such a government is doing what is right in accordance with justice.Ought: “This word, though generally directory only, will be taken as mandatory if the context requires it.” [2] In this case, it will be directory, since the outcome of this debate will not mandate anything.Priority: “A preferential rating; especially: one that allocates rights to goods and services usually in limited supply.” [3] Prioritize is to make a priority, i.e. to *give* a preferential rating.Civil liberties and national defense I believe we can use common sense.IV. THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENTIn morally just interactions between two parties that are capable of consent, consent must be given. Neither participant should be forced into doing what they do not wish to. A just government exists with the consent of the governed to protect the rights of the governed. To achieve this goal, the government must identify rights that deserve protection, as well as certain rights to be held above all else. These rights should not be infringed upon no matter the circumstances, or the government ceases to be just. Therefore, if these rights are sacrificed at the altar of national security, the resolution is inherently negated. The contract is broken, and the government ceases to be just. Surely, there are exceptions to this, such as when a criminal has violated the law, and police have legally acquired evidence compelling enough to be given a warrant. However, what is happening today is far different. I’ll begin by analyzing what governments (primarily that of the United States) has done in the past, and work my way to our modern tribulations.IV. A HISTORY OF CONFLICTThroughout history, various governments have used the guise of national defense to violate civil liberties, whether it be to consolidate power and silence opposition, a legitimate attempt to protect the nation, or a combination thereof.One example of this is the American internment of Japanese residents, when citizens and foreign nationals residing in the United States were gathered up and placed in internment camps following the attack on Pearl Harbor. The actions of the United States government clearly violated the right to freedom of existence by detaining citizens who had done nothing wrong. This was justified by stating that these people of Japanese descent posed a threat to national security. Eminent domain was used to seize the land of some of those detained, stripping them of their private and/or personal property rights as well. [4]This clearly shows that in the example of Japanese internment, the United States’ government prioritized national security over civil liberties. However, this is *not* an example of what a *just* government would do. This was made obvious decades later, when the United States paid out reparations to the living survivors of internment.Another example is the Red Scare, during which America attempted to purge communism from its ranks. Once again, the reasoning behind it was national security. The threat of communism was a dark and mysterious force that the government didn’t know how to deal with. It decided the best way to do so was to silence all proponents or suspected proponents of communism.“FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was quick to equate any kind of protest with communist subversion, including the civil rights demonstrations led by Martin Luther King Jr. Hoover labeled King a communist and covertly worked to intimidate and discredit the civil rights leader.” [5]This assault on free speech left us without any real benefits in increased security, and discouraged individuals from thinking critically about forms of government, whether America was in the right, and many other issues that should be called into question regularly. The government was again using the guise of national defense to do nothing more than consolidate power and weaken peaceful dissent, an important tool in any democracy.V. CIVIL LIBERTIES IN THE DIGITAL AGEPost-9/11, there has been a dramatic change in our daily lives. Technology has evolved, and governments have too. Due in large parts to fear of terrorism, there has been a drastic increase in the government’s interaction with its citizens’ daily lives.A. IneffectivenessAs I said before, it’s Con’s BoP to show that when civil liberties are compromised in the name of national defense, it actually works. However, I’m going to start by proving that it is not the case. The new era of the civil liberties/national security debate started after 9/11, with the passing of the Patriot Act. A very simple description is that the Patriot Act gave extensive and controversial powers to the federal government to combat terrorism. Many of these powers involve collection of metadata, including information about emails, phone calls, texts, etc. More detail on the Patriot Act is provided here [6]. The NSA is one of the most frequent users of such programs, and when Edward Snowden revealed the existence of the extent to which these programs went, it stirred mixed emotions among Americans. However, in 2013, it was revealed that NSA programs, which routinely violated civil liberties (most frequently the 4th Amendment) had done absolutely nothing to promote national security. [7] Therefore, when analyzing the resolution in a cost-benefit analysis, we are sacrificing civil liberties (a harm) and receiving no benefit. However, it doesn’t stop there.B. AbusesWhat happens when these extensive powers to circumvent the 4th Amendment are given to humans, who are fallible by nature? Abuse of power. In the most prominent example, known as LOVEINT (Love Intelligence), twelve NSA employees used the technology they had at their fingertips to spy on current or former love interests. I’ll get into the harms momentarily, but first we need to look at what happened once these employees were disciplined. Five of the twelve stayed with the NSA, and received punishments as insignificant as a written warning. [8] Now for the harms. Cyberstalking comes with all the harms of physical stalking, but also exacerbates the harms and adds others.“While both groups of victims reacted to harassment and threats with fear and self-protective measures, a larger proportion of cyberstalking victims took time off from work, quit their jobs, dropped out of school or avoided family and friends. The changes didn't come cheap. Costs, including legal fees, child care costs and moving expenses averaged $1,200 for a cyberstalking victim, compared with $500 for traditional stalking victims. Over time, people who have been stalked in their own environs returned to their normal living patterns, but cyberstalking victims continued to add self-protective measures. The researchers suggested that a stalking episode may provoke an immediate reaction for many victims, while the cyberstalking condition tends to build and become more severe over time.” [9]Another example is Operation MUSCULAR. In this operation, NSA employees broke into Yahoo and Google servers by creating a backdoor and exporting sensitive data to NSA servers . [10] Now on top of the clear violation of the 4th Amendment and the chance of internal abuse, the backdoor the NSA created would be open to hackers as well. This means that all personal data users give to Google and Yahoo could have been accessed by hackers and led to more instances of cyberstalking, blackmail, and the like. Once again, the NSA is creating clear, impactful harms, while giving no benefits. VII. CONCLUSION The tradeoff between civil liberties and national security is effectively nonexistent. When civil liberties are sacrificed, national security does not improve. Thank you and now over to JonBonBon! VIII. SOURCES [1] http://thelawdictionary.org... [2] http://thelawdictionary.org... [3] https://www.merriam-webster.com... (second definition) [4] http://www.history.com... [5] http://www.history.com... [6] https://freedomhouse.org... [7] http://www.nbcnews.com... [8] https://www.cnet.com... [9] http://www.nbcnews.com... [10] https://www.washingtonpost.com...