Eekonomics

We Negate the Resolved. Contention 1 is Preventing Terrorism. Right now, Pew ‘13 notes that “A majority of Americans – 56% – say the NSA’s program tracking the telephone records of millions of Americans is an acceptable way for the government to investigate terrorism. These views are largely unchanged since 2002, shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.” Luckily, the NSA protects us from these attacks as “The director of the National Security Administration told Congress that more than 50 potential terrorist attacks have been thwarted by programs tracking more than a billion phone calls and vast amounts of Internet data each day.” Importantly, the data used by the NSA to uncover terrorist attacks doesn’t violate citizen’s privacy as they use metadata. Hines ‘13 explains that “Metadata does not give the NSA and 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.” The impact is stopping the next 9/11. The HM finds that 3000 people died in 9/11. Contention 2 is Solving Pandemics. Helds ‘20 finds that industrial factory farms are breeding grounds for novel flu-like viruses, making pandemics not a matter of if, but when. Luckily, Mientka’ 14 finds that future pandemics can be spotted through the analysis of online information collected by the NSA. More specifically, Rozenshtein ‘20 furthers that thermal-imaging cameras that scrape and process data can help detect the spread of disease, thus allowing for faster and more precise contact-tracing. Governments can then use location data to monitor and enforce quarantines. The impact is stopping deadly pandemics. Mandal ‘20 finds that the next pandemic from industrial farming would be 100 times worse than the Coronavirus and kill half the globe. Our Contention 3 is Cyber Security. Ranger ‘17 notes that “More than 30 countries are developing offensive cyber attack capabilities, according to US intelligence chiefs.” Crucially, surveillance is key for protecting us against any possible attacks. Goldsmith ‘13 explains that the “Most truly harmful cyber-operations require “malware”—that enables the monitoring, exfiltration, or destruction of information inside a computer. The supply of all of these resources has been growing fast for many years—in governmental labs devoted to developing these tools and on sprawling black markets on the Internet.” “To keep these computers and networks secure, the government needs powerful intelligence capabilities so that it can learn about cyber-intrusions” and the NSA does just that. He furthers that a strong NSA is needed to defend against these attacks “as cyber-theft and cyber-attacks continue to spread (and they will), and especially when they result in a catastrophic disaster (like a banking compromise that destroys market confidence, or a successful attack on an electrical grid), the public will demand government action to remedy the problem.” There are two impacts for stopping cyber attacks. The first impact is a recession. Moon ‘19 finds that state sponsored cyber attacks on financial institutions around the world are also on the rise from countries like Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea. Ungarino ‘19 furthers that a cyber attack on financial systems is 300 times more likely than that of any other sector due to its deregulation and its increasingly weak cybersecurity protection. Pisani ‘18 furthers that an attack on a central bank could cause a ripple effect on all financial institutions in which services shut down and key data is damaged or destroyed, leading to a U.S. recession. Mauldin ‘19 writes that a U.S. recession could trigger a domino effect and go global, which Blanchard ‘13 quantifies to over 900 million people pushed into poverty. The second impact is American death. Smith ‘14 explains that an attack on just 9 of the US’s 55,000 power grids would cause a coast to coast blackout. As time progresses, the US grids are sitting time bombs as Revesz of The Independent contextualizes an attack from a rogue nation on the US power grid could kill up to 90% of the US population. Thus we urge you to negate.