the benefits of domestic surveillance conducted by the nsa outweigh the harms

I accept the challenge.---I strongly stand on the affirmation of the resolved—The benefits of domestic surveillance by the NSA outweigh the harms. In order to clarify the round, we offer the following framework: The government exists to protect and maximize the social welfare of the governed. As such, the resolution should be evaluated based upon the success of the government’s attempt to maximize the welfare of society as a whole. Moreover, to best evaluate this standard you should prefer real world impacts to theoretical or hypothetical ones because it allows us to actually compare the benefits and costs. Contention 1: With a real treat such as terrorism, the NSA is necessary in order to increase United States security.Where the citizens of the United States live in a world where they are always threatened by terrorism, whether they know it or not, they must be able to rely on the government and government programs as an source for security. Steve Emerson, on August 15, 2013, explain the actuality of the threat of terrorism. "In 2004, captured Al-Qaeda operative, Sharif al-Masri told interrogators that Al-Qaeda seeks to acquire nuclear materials in Europe and move them to Mexico, and from there, across the border into the United States...the Obama Administration is on record as stating that Al-Qaeda continues to try to acquire nuclear weapons technology and know-how." When our citizens are put are risk, the United States government must always protect them to their greatest extent. In certain situations such as this one, security outweighs the need to the ultimate enforcement of rights. In 2006, Robert Bloom explains "the surveillance satisfies the Fourth Amendment and its requirement for reasonableness because the balance of the governmental interest in protecting against a terrorist attack outweighs the resulting intrusion on privacy interests." The NSA specifically makes it clear that they do not use surveillance domestically to target citizens, but to protect the privacy of them. As concluded by the Supreme Court, it is justifiable in these certain scenarios for rights to be infringed upon. This way, this is determined in the balancing test of government interest and personal intrusion. Contention 2: As we prove terrorism is a threat, the NSA aids in improving our security and preventing terrorism.The NSA program cracks down on terrorism by tracing suspicious activity and communication related to these violent organizations. Although it may not be blatantly clear how much terrorism these programs have stopped, they certainly have served as a deterrent. Therefore, our privacy is protected, unless we are engaging with terrorists. Moreover, without pools of information about activity in the United States, we cannot connect foreign Intel to the intel on our homeland. Marc A. Thiessen, on June 10, 2013, explains that "If you want to connect the dots and stop the next attack, you need to have a "field of dots." That is what the NSA is collecting. But it doesn't dip into that field unless it comes up with a new "dot"—for example, a new terrorist phone number found on a cellphone captured in a raid. It will then plug that new "dot" into the "field of dots" to find out which dots are connected to the new number. If you are not communicating with that terrorist, your dot is not touched. But the NSA needs to have the entire field of dots so it can unravel the network connected to that terrorist." Therefore, the NSA needs this information from domestic surveillance and moreover, have even thwarted more than 50 incidents of potential terrorism. The Heritage Foundation explains on June 18, 2013, "more than 50 incidents of potential terrorism were stopped by the set of programs under scrutiny. They emphasized that they were working to declassify these incidents so they could be shared with the American people. Heritage research has noted 54 foiled terrorist plots since 9/11. Given that we know of only three that were not stopped by intelligence, this means that the NSA programs might well have played a significant role in thwarting dozens of uncovered plots. With this, terrorists know they can't communicate by phone and email now, making it harder to be a terrorist, while also acting as a deterrent to joining terrorist activity. Logically, the system works, and the reported results match up with disruptions in terrorist activities. Contention 3: While it is shown true that security outweighs the need for rights, the morality of these actions extend.Simply, there needs to be a balance between liberty and security. It is impossible to have absolute liberty or absolute security. Richard A. Epstein, on June 18, 2013, explains, "No amount of government ingenuity will guarantee the American people 100 percent security, 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience...answering a burst of more heated responses from left and right alike to the "news" that for years the National Security Agency has been collecting metadata about Americans' phone calls and certain foreign Internet communications." But, in the instance that you have absolute liberty, terrorism will be impossible to stop. Richard A. Epstein continues, "The question is: Are the means chosen reasonably adapted to the stated ends? Any effort to squelch all government abuse will result in a field day for terrorists and criminals. It is never easy to set the right balance of government power versus individual liberty given that we have to contend with two kinds of error—letting terrorists and criminals escape or infringing upon the rights of innocent individuals." Upsetting this balance will further disrupt the balance of justice in America. But on top of this, while the Con may argue that we infringe upon rights, however this is simply wrong. Roger Pilon explains, "In domestic and foreign affairs, the basic function of government is to protect our liberty, without unnecessarily violating that liberty in the process. The text of the Fourth Amendment grasps that essential trade-off by allowing searches, but not "unreasonable" ones." Therefore, when looking at this round, you need to understand that liberty violation is trivial compared to the national security benefit.For those reasons, I urge a vote for the con side.Thank you.---~ThyAnchor