Posted on 09/05/2013 2:08:02 PM PDT by neverdem
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."
The NSA referred questions to the U.S. Justice Department, which declined to comment.
U.S. National Intelligence Director James Clapper declassified some details of the program, acknowledging it existed, after news stories from Snowden's leaks appeared in the Guardian of Britain and the Washington Post.
The ACLU said it welcomed the support from the NRA in its suit against Clapper and other officials filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
"Americans from across the political spectrum value individual privacy," said Jameel Jaffer, one of the ACLU lawyers on the suit. "The philosophical roots may differ, but I think that is a widely shared American value."
Jaffer also pointed to another supportive brief filed on Wednesday by Representative James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, one of the authors of the 2001 Patriot Act that has been cited as part of the rationale behind the NSA's program.
"The defendants attempt to justify their practice...,"
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
The federal government knows who is calling who
and yet they still can’t stop the calls that violate
the “federal do not call” list.
Looks like the American Civil Liberties Union is on the right side on this one.
Where are all the NRA bashing Freepers? You know the ones who say the NRA supports gun registration.
This should be used as how desperately we need a sort of conservative, Christian version of the ACLU and we need it yesterday.
When the NRA and the ACLU say it’s wrong, then you know it’s wrong.
See: ACLJ
This should be used as how desperately we need a sort of conservative, Christian version of the ACLU and we need it yesterday.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.