Fears of gun registry prompt NRA to back lawsuit against surveillance

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Fears of gun registry prompt NRA to back lawsuit against surveillance

NEW YORK | Wed Sep 4, 2013 8:44pm EDT

(Reuters) - The National Rifle Association said on Wednesday it supports a lawsuit brought by civil rights groups to strike down the U.S. government's broad telephone surveillance program, citing potential violations of gun owners' privacy rights.

In a brief backing the American Civil Liberties Union's lawsuit against senior U.S. government officials, the NRA said the collection of vast communications threatens privacy and could allow the government to create a registry of gun owners.

Civil rights groups filed the lawsuit earlier this year after documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed a massive government program to collect and store phone and Internet records from major telecommunications companies.

The surveillance potentially provides "the government not only with the means of identifying members and others who communicate with the NRA," the brief said, "but also with the means of identifying gun owners without their knowledge or consent."

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/05/us-usa-legal-nra-idUSBRE98401920130905

[Eleanors38]

1. Not the first time the ACLU & NRA have been on the same page.

[safeinOhio]

2. The largest registry of gun owners

is the list of NRA members. It is and always has been for sale.

[gejohnston]

3. It's even bigger than their membership

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1172130556

[ileus]

4. and if the NRA has it the NSA does also.

[ileus]

5. I figure Smith, Ruger ect...all have pretty big registries also.

Considering new firearms are registered for their warranty.

[krispos42]

6. Reasonably believing that somebody has a gun...

...based on organization membership, or magazine subscriptions, is a far cry from mandating that a branch of government have a current list of all firearms, including makes, models, chamberings, and serial numbers.

[safeinOhio]

7. In the worst case,

I'd rather have the invading army or out of control government know I had a rifle or hand gun, than know I was a gun activist. They could narrow it down to the 4 million that are most likely to fight back.