The Fourth Amendment reads: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." However, surveillance is becoming more prevalent in everyday life, from GPS chips in virtually every cell phone to cameras on every street corner. Additionally in the digital world, the government is requisitioning our data in the name of national security. Almost all of the digital surveillance that occurs nowadays involves metadata, the "non-content" data of one's public/private life, and much of this metadata is stored in large databases within agencies such as the National Security Agency (NSA).
Open talk about these sorts of reconnaissance projects has revived because of recent exposures and breaks of such operations happening in nations, such as, the United States, Canada and the European Union. Much of this examination has been centered upon whether an individual can assume a certain measure of protection as to their metadata and whether access to said metadata ought to be liable to elevated legal limitations. In this paper, I will contend that on the grounds that metadata observation could be exceedingly intrusive to individual privacy and that since metadata is linked to our lives, the laws that structure the limit between real substance and metadata is lacking to ensure protection. In spite of the fact that metadata does not give understanding into real words per say, it can uncover associations between two people and along these lines be more useful to NSA experts who search for said associations and examples. Yet, the high worth of metadata for the government is a conceivable counter point. Without it they might be unable to do their job.
