Dear Future President,

Internet privacy in America is almost non-existent, America is supposed to be the land of the free. Where people may do what they please when they please as long as it is deemed morally ethical. Our government is supposed to protect these freedoms while also making decisions on what is best for the country. These decisions should be public knowledge not done quietly behind our backs. The world is connected through the internet, according to The World Bank over 89% of americans are frequent internet users, that's over 320 million people in the US alone. Unfortunately, most of them are unaware that everything they do on the internet is monitored. Since 2001 the U.S government has been illegally sourcing information from major internet companies. No matter what the information is being used for it is a blatant infringement on our right to privacy granted by the fourth amendment. You as the president of the U.S have the power to change this.

The NSA is wiretapping and stealing people’s information behind our backs. According to the washington post: “President Bush signed a secret order in 2002 authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens and foreign nationals in the United States, despite previous legal prohibitions against such domestic spying, sources with knowledge of the program said last night.” So in 2002 president Bush signed a document that gave authority to spy on americans with the purpose of finding individuals who were working in association with al qaeda or other terrorist groups. The signing was not made public and in fact was done in secret. It was done in secret because they knew what they were doing was illegal and corrupt. The NSA continued spying on americans well into the year 2012. Somehow, the program still exists to this day and needs to be shut down for good.

The cellphone and Internet companies are illegally auctioning Americans private information. As quoted from an CNN article: “What your phone knows about you -- where you are, what you're searching for and what you like -- is mouthwatering for advertisers. Combined with other third-party data, including your age and salary range, marketers are using cell phone customers' information to make decisions about how they advertise.” This is all information that is and can be monitored and stored by cellphone companies. These companies then use this information as a way to add to their revenue. They auction off clumps of information to the government and advertising corporations. They are using the private information of the people for personal and company wide profit. This is illegal in so many ways and must be put to a stop because the private information of your citizens should not be for sale.

The argument for why nothing on the Internet should be private. People on the other side of the argument state that the U.S government should be able to monitor the data of U.S citizens because it can help prevent crimes and terrorism before it happens. According to debate.org 48% of people that visited the site believe: “Yes, the NSA should spy on us. The NSA should do whatever it takes to make sure our country is safe. We have plenty of domestic terrorist threats in our country. Our government should monitor those people and anyone who seems to be sympathetic to their cause. You cannot put a price on the security of our nation.” So people's main argument is that monitoring the people will help catch criminals and terrorists. Another point that people bring up is that you should have nothing to hide and that the government doesn’t care about your private info they just use keywords like “bomb, kill and shoot”.

My proposed solution to this problem would be to shut down spying on private info. I don’t have a problem with the government scanning through social media posts that have keywords, but the purchasing of private information from its own citizens is just wrong. As president of the United States I ask you to remove corrupt organizations like the NSA and to shut down the corporate auctions of information for good.