Kelsey Summey9201 University City Blvd, Lynch Hall, 307 DCharlotte, NC, 28223336-555-5555Ksummey2@uncc.edu

United States CongressCongressEast Capitol Street Northeast & First St SEWashington, DC, 20004

Dear :

I am an eighteen year old college student at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and I am writing to express my concern with the NSA’s Metadata Program. I strive to get you all to rule/vote against the constitutionality of the Metadata Program. My main concerns are its violation of the Fourth Amendment, the fact that it’s not proven effective, and that it was kept a secret from many Americans.

The Metadata program is a system that is run solely through cell phone providers, and it forces these providers to give the NSA all the calling records of the clients. This information includes the phone numbers that an individual has called and the numbers that have called this particular individual . All this information is then stored into a large database in the middle of nowhere, where it is store for five years. How is this possibly constitutional? The Fourth Amendment promises to protect the people against unreasonable searches and seizures, and from my understanding, any search without a warrant is unreasonable. It just doesn’t make sense that the FBI and other departments have to go through so much to get warrants to conduct appropriate searches, yet the NSA continuously has Americans under surveillance without any consent.

The next concern I have is that this Metadata program is not proven to be effective. The government has claimed multiple times that this program has found and stopped many terrorist attacks, but the proof is hidden from the American eye. Federal Judge Richard Leon feels the same exact way. He stated that the government “does not cite a single instance in which analysis of the NSA’s bulk metadata collection actually stopped a forthcoming attack or otherwise aided the government in achieving any objective that was time-sensitive in nature.” If there is no actual proof that it’s working, then why have the program in the first place?

The last concern I have is that the government kept the NSA’s Metadata program a secret from American citizens. It wasn’t until 2013 when Edward Snowden decided to leak the NSA. Before this, no American knew that their data was being taken and stored away. The government could’ve avoided a lot of this controversy by letting Americans know what was going on and why. The fact that Edward Snowden had to tell American citizens about what is being done to them on a daily basis is ridiculous.

United States Congress

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In conclusion, the Metadata program should either be terminated of or revised to make it constitutional and ethical. The striking of the whole program would do a lot of justice, but it would risk the rise of terrorists behind the government’s backs. This brings me to the thought of the revision of the program. The revision would have the same idea with some restrictions. It could require that the NSA use warrants when conducting searches or even allow the NSA to conduct specific searches instead of taking everyone’s information. American citizens don’t want to take the risk of the government overstepping their boundaries and using our metadata against us. Both the revision and the striking would better the nation as a whole. There is no reason we should be going through this right now. Do the right thing and make it illegal.

Sincerely,

Kelsey Summey