An Invasion of Privacy?:
A Look into NSA Domestic Surveillance Policies
Background

Recently, the issue of online privacy has been controversial due to Edward Snowden’s massive data breach on how the NSA conducts its information gathering. Meta data is information such as the time, date, sender and recipient information of a particular communication transaction such as a call, text message or e-mail. It must be noted that, according to The Guardian (2013), “the spy agencies do throw away most of the content they collect” after about three days but keep the Metadata for up to about a year. The NSA now has a database of information that it can use to fight terrorist. According to Price (2014), with the fast pace issuance of the Patriot Act post 9/11, the mining of Metadata has been considered a social norm when it comes to the loss of privacy to Internet and Telephone users. The technology the NSA uses has many positive aspects when it comes to safety and security of American Citizens.