Leaks - Michigan 2024 HHRS

Leaks---2AC
It’ll leak.
Olga Oliker et al. 23, Adjunct Professor, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies; Franziska Stärk, Researcher, Institute for Peace Research & Security Policy, University of Hamburg; Dmitry Stefanovich, Research Fellow, Center for International Security, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy & International Relations; Maren Vieluf, Policy Consultant, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, "Truth or Dare: Transparency, Ambiguity, and Prospects for New International Commitments in The Nuclear Realm," Deep Cuts, No. 15, January 2023, pg. 5.
Moreover, information on nuclear postures may leak (perhaps intentionally to help strengthen deterrence) or be stolen. Intelligence collectors gather data about other states’ arsenals using a variety of tools, many of which are growing ever-more capable as surveillance technology improves. If this information is rarely if ever shared with the public, civil society and academic researchers combine what governments provide with what they and others observe, including data gathered from leaks, open-source intelligence, and other materials to estimate arsenals and strategies.11 Indeed, the capacity for open source estimations has become even more robust as monitoring and verification technologies have become more and more accessible. The difficulty of keeping at least some information confidential can encourage states to be more transparent themselves, for instance to reduce the bureaucratic costs of classification and to better control the message when information makes it out regardless.12
Leaks---1AR
Leaks are guaranteed---empirics prove.
Keren Yarhi-Milo 13, Assistant Professor, Politics & International Affairs, School of Public & International Affairs, Princeton University, "Tying Hands Behind Closed Doors: The Logic and Practice of Secret Reassurance," Security Studies, Vol. 22, Issue 3, pg. 417-418, August 2013, T&F.
Both parties might engage in secret reassurance in the face of domestic political opposition. This scenario resembles “mutual assured destruction” (MAD) in which the risk of punishment deters both sides from defecting. From the perspective of the initiator, this scenario is preferable to one in which he alone faces domestic punishment. Nevertheless, according to my proposed mechanism, the adversary should not see the secret channel as credibly revealing the initiator’s cooperative intentions, as the adversary is likely to be self-deterred from exposing. Yet, even in these MAD-like situations, the secret channel may be credible because a third party, such as journalists, mediators, or disgruntled insiders, can reveal the secret negotiations. The risk of such a disclosure, in other words, “must come from somewhere outside the threatener’s control . . . [I]t is an ingredient in the situation” that neither side can “entirely control.”40 Third-party actors may intentionally reveal information about secret talks and concessions because of ideological or political convictions, or they may unintentionally leak information without realizing the potentially adverse consequences. The level of risk may be higher for democratic initiators because they have less control over the media and their countries likely contain more players with access to the secret information.
The analogous situation in deterrence theory seems to be what Schelling calls the “threat that leaves something to chance” that creates what Robert Powell describes as “autonomous risk.” This element of risk exists beyond the control of the parties involved, suggesting that the magnitude of the chance taken affects the credibility of the action. As Powell explains, “[t]he expected cost of taking a step-that-leaves-something-to-chance varies with the level of the autonomous risk that taking the step creates. If, therefore, the risk is sufficiently small, the expected cost of taking the step may be less than the expected cost of submitting.”41 When the risk of undesirable disclosure is high, the credibility of the initiator’s signal for cooperation is stronger. Accordingly, leaders who undertake secret reassurance do so when their intentions to cooperate are sincere. Indeed, the risk of revelation from such exogenous actors is absolutely necessary in these MAD-like situations in order to make the logic of secret reassurance work from the perspective of the adversary. Incurring such risks reveals leader types because an insincere leader will not risk the costs of secret reassurance, given that other actors beyond his control can impose significant political costs on him at any point through revelation.42
The danger of autonomous leak is real. As a recent example, in May 2011, the Arabic language news network Al Jazeera released 1,600 leaked documents detailing nearly a decade’s worth of secret negotiations between Israel and the PLO. These papers, according to Al Jazeera, “show the PLO offering concessions that would have been overwhelmingly rejected by the Palestinian public, and receiving nothing in return from an Israeli government that budged little on core issues.”43 That episode significantly embarrassed the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, and the PLO more generally, leading the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, to resign. To be sure, Hamas officials hailed the release of the papers, calling the negotiations treason, “a betrayal of precious and long-held national goals.”44 Similarly, the recent WikiLeaks revelations of numerous State Department cables pointing to the existence of secret agreements led to increased fears that foreign leaders may no longer enter secret negotiations with the United States in the future. Nevertheless, from a signaling perspective, if an adversary and the initiator both prefer private negotiations to preserving the status quo (and both share significant opposition to negotiations), the autonomous risk of a leak may not only reveal cooperative intentions, but may also incentivize both sides to reach swift settlements in order to avoid revelation by exogenous actors.
It gets leaked.
Aftergood 19, Director of the Project on Government Secrecy at FAS (Steven Aftergood, April 8, 2019, “Leaks of Classified Info Surge Under Trump,” FAS, https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2019/04/leaks-surge/)
The number of leaks of classified information reported as potential crimes by federal agencies reached record high levels during the first two years of the Trump Administration, according to data released by the Justice Department last week.
Agencies transmitted 120 leak referrals to the Justice Department in 2017, and 88 leak referrals in 2018, for an average of 104 per year. By comparison, the average number of leak referrals during the Obama Administration (2009–2016) was 39 per year.
There are a “staggering number of leaks,” then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions said at an August 4, 2017 briefing about efforts to prevent the unauthorized disclosures.
“Referrals for investigations of classified leaks to the Department of Justice from our intelligence agencies have exploded,” AG Sessions said at that time. He outlined several steps that the Administration would take to combat leaks of classified information, including tripling the number of active leak investigations by the FBI.
“We had about nine open investigations of classified leaks in the last 3 years,” he told the House Judiciary Committee at a November 2017 hearing. “We have 27 investigations open today.” (Some of those investigations pertain to leaks that occurred before President Trump took office.)
“We intend to get to the bottom of these leaks. I think it reached—has reached epidemic proportions. It cannot be allowed to continue,” Sessions said then, “and we will do our best effort to ensure that it does not continue.”
But it has continued. Despite preventive efforts, the 2018 total of 88 leak referrals was still higher than any reported pre-Trump figure. (The previous high in recent decades had been 55 referrals in 2013 and in 2007. The lowest was 18 in 2015.)