Resolved: we must remove the patrioct act

I see that Con has forfeited this round. 1. Privacy The PATRIOT Act is a form of deploying secret intelligence on civilians, which violates the basic human right of privacy. 2. Government's Role The PATRIOT Act twists the responsibility of the government. It is the government's role to protect citizens, not spy on them. There are many other ways to prevent crime or terrorism, many alternatives to the immoral act of spying. In almost every place, Information collected by illegal means (spying without a court warrant) is inadmissible in a court of law. This, again, is due to moral issues. If information collected by spying illegally (the PATRIOT Act violates a basic human right!) is not admissible in a court, why should it be allowed? Laws justify this rule because such acts (illegal spying) are immoral. Alternative ways including monitoring select targets after a court warrant has been issued. Spying on citizens will only lead to distrust of the government. 3. Freedom of the Press if governments are able to spy on reporters they will also be able to block certain reports or information and prevent them from reaching the public 4. Opportunity for data theft With the huge collection of data and information inside, the databases of the PATRIOT Act are at high risk from hackers who want to steal confidential information from citizens, such as their bank count information (banks converse with clients via phone too!), address, or even corporate secrets, which I will elaborate on later in point 7. 5. Abuse of power of Government The PATRIOT Act also paves the way for the government to abuse its power. No one wants George Orwell's 1984 to become a reality, and no one wants V for Vendetta to show the future. NSA agents have been reported to be using data for private purposes, such as selling information to others or tracking down lovers. The government is using "crime prevention" as an excuse to violate privacy. 6. Not as efficient as thought The PATRIOT Act has actually not stopped any attacks. Many terrorist attacks, such as the Boston Bombing, were actually not prevented due to many other mishaps. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was already on the FBI's radar screen prior to the bombings. Despite that, the NSA and FBI's tools failed to identify and prevent the incipient plot. AS for Zazi bombing the NY subway, the NSA's secret tools were actually not necessary; Zazi's existing links to terror organizations would have allowed the FBI to use its standard tools. Imagine data to be a haystack, and criminals/terrorists to be a needle. Bruce Schneier, top security expert American cryptographer, computer security and privacy specialist, says that collecting such a mass of information would only expand the haystack and make it too big to actually search for the real terrorists. The database of the PATROT Act demonstrates exactly what Schneier was referring to. According to an unusually blunt Senate investigation of so-called "fusion centers"released last month, the TIDE (i.e. suspected terrorist) database was full of information of innocent people that have nothing to do with terrorism. The report gave examples of: a TIDE profile of a two-year old-boy and even a TIDE profile of Ford Motor Company. And isn"t it absurd that the United States can"t finish a simple border fence to keep out potential terrorists, can"t stop a would-be terrorist in the U.S. army who gives a powerpoint presentation on why he is about to shoot people (Major Nadal Hassan), can"t follow up on Russian intelligence warnings about Chechen terrorist contacts (the Boston bombing), or a dozen similar incidents, and thus must now collect every detail on every civilian? 7. It violates trade principle Spying on corporates/employees of corporates (EVERYONE is included in the PATRIOT Act) will violate the trade principle of promoting fair competition. References: http://www.un.org... http://www.wto.org... http://www.washingtonsblog.com...