Stoa LDers are currently debating the following topic:

“In Criminal procedure, Truth-Seeking ought to be valued above Individual Privacy.”

With this resolution, Affirmatives have been able to easily harness persuasive momentum by focusing on the practical impact of crime reduction.

“See that bad guy over there? We weren’t able to send him to jail after a mass murder because of some pesky privacy laws. And he’s coming for you next!”

The effects of voting affirmative are impactful and easy to see. However, negative teams have to grapple with impacts that are far more obscure: what are the practical consequences of violating privacy rights? Leading into Nationals, negatives are going to have to do more than wax eloquently about the fourth amendment.

Here are three unique ways to impact privacy violations.

Note: All contention strategies are dependent upon your value framework. These arguments will work best for strategies involving a buffer value like Justice. Always ensure that your applications apply to the value your case is using.

#1: Invoke the Innocent

It’s hard to get excited about protecting the privacy of a criminal. But most negatives simply cite a court case where a privacy violation found incriminating evidence. A known criminal can’t be let go, right?

It’s easy to justify in hindsight. But looking forward, is it feasible for cops to bust the bad guys just by violating their privacy, and never anyone else’s?

Absolutely not.

It’s not just that innocent people might happen to be violated in the process, it’s that the only way to catch a higher volume of criminals is by spying on countless law-abiding civilians.

This argument comes from simple probability. Most people aren’t criminals, so widening police officers to search them will harass even larger numbers of innocent folk to only to strain out a few criminals. You can point this out: how convenient is it that the opponent only brings up truth-seeking when it finds the lottery ticket of evidence?

Voting affirmative requires crushing rights for countless citizens. It isn’t worth it.

#2: Privacy as a Fence

It seems like every day, we learn that some corporation was playing fast and loose with our private information and got hacked. We’re numbed to privacy violations, failing to recognize how crucial privacy is to every right we hold dear.

Do you truly believe that the government wants to keep tabs on you just for fun? Remember, our own intelligence agencies admit that they are willing to use Alexa to listen in on your private conversations. It’s a level of invasion that history’s tyrants could only dream of. We only have to look at other countries to see how that ends up.

The bottom line: privacy violations spill over into others. If we tear down the fence of privacy, there is nothing that will stop the government from taking your property or other precious freedoms. Your opponent will say that these impacts are separate from privacy violations. You’ll say, “Exactly. This is where voting affirmative leads.”

#3: Information Security

Increasingly, governments around the world are using surveillance to make it easier than ever to convict criminals. Let’s talk about that.

In the modern era, privacy is crucial for reasons greater than feeling comfortable. If someone with malicious intentions has access to your bank account number, social security number, or insurance information, they can send your whole world crashing down around you.

But prevention is the best cure. We keep vital information private, and we expect that the people we give it to keep it as secure as possible.

Like the government. Boy, they’ve gotta be real secure. I bet they’re like a giant safe.

That doesn’t have a lock.

Turns out, when you have treasure troves of private information, hackers dive right in. Google “government privacy leak” and let the applications write themselves.

The 21st century is a weird time to be alive. Today, if a criminal knows certain numbers in a certain order, they can crush an innocent person’s livelihood.

Voting affirmative gives the government the ability to gather evidence in any way they see fit: as long as it allows us to catch more criminals, it’s a green light. This should terrify any citizen of the 21st century.

How have you been impacting privacy violations? Have any arguments you’d like us to cover in future blog posts? Let us know for the comments.