NRA, Fearing Gun Registry, Joins ACLU in Opposing NSA Phone Records Sweep...

[Indi Guy]

Source: NBC News

Leaders of the National Rifle Association plan to press members of Congress in the coming weeks to block the National Security Agency’s controversial program to collect records of Americans’ phone calls, arguing that the surveillance efforts can be used as a “backdoor” to construct a national gun registry.

“We will be up there and we will be making our feelings known,” David Keene, a member of the NRA’s executive board who served until this spring as the group’s president, told NBC News. “Our members are concerned about this. This metadata can be used to construct a list” of every gun owner.

Keene’s comments signaled a new determination by the gun lobby to take up opposition to the NSA surveillance efforts as a political cause, joining with civil liberties groups and others on the left who have been lobbying against the program for months, and potentially complicating the Obama administration’s efforts to preserve the phone surveillance program.

The comments came as NRA board members gathered this weekend in Arlington, Va., for a quarterly meeting and to celebrate the gun lobby’s latest political coup: Its defeat of two state senators in Colorado — including the state Senate president — in a special recall election pushed by the NRA as payback for the lawmakers’ support of gun control measures...

Read more: http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/15/20483283-nra-fearing-gun-registry-joins-aclu-in-opposing-nsa-phone-records-sweep

[BainsBane]

1. The NRA keeps it's own gun registry

hypocrites.

[EV_Ares]

13. Yes it does

How The NRA Built A Massive Secret Database Of Gun Owners

While the National Rifle Association has publicly fought against a national gun registry, the organization has gone to incredible lengths to compile information on “tens of millions” of gun owners — without their consent.

http://bit.ly/18l2gCg

[Blue_Tires]

28. +1

[Thinkingabout]

2. The NRA worked hard to defeat a bill which made it illegal to have a gun registery, they cant make

Up their minds but then what else is new to the NRA.

[gopiscrap]

3. If I was the ACLU I'd tell the NRA to go fuck themselves!

[NYC_SKP]

6. Nope, bad idea. Actually, the ACLU asked the NRA to help them in this effort because...

...the NRA has better access to the Republicans.

Smart move, ACLU.

[gopiscrap]

7. No I know, my head agrees with you

but I was writing from my heart!

[L0oniX]

4. O boy ...now if your against the NSA spying then you are with the NRA. pffft

[iandhr]

15. Almost makes me reconsider.

But I suppose a broken clock is right twice a day.

[dixiegrrrrl]

23. Only if you live in an either/or, yes/no/black/white world

It is entirely possible to be against NSA spying
AND
to understand NRA concerns about gun registry being mis-used ( as has happened in history)
without being for all or some of the NRA's other ideas.

We booed Bush when he said " you are either for us or against us"
and yet I see that same limited thinking all over issues on DU.

[mbperrin]

5. OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! NRA hooks up with the godless ACLU!!!!!

[DeSwiss]

14. 1000000000000000000000+

[onehandle]

8. The ACLU is often teamed up on by dumbshits.

Makes me rethink our annual dues.

[NutmegYankee]

17. Politics makes strange bedfellows. nt

[awoke_in_2003]

20. The ACLU fights for freedoms...

and in this case they are fighting for the right of privacy. It is unfortunate that the NRA got involved, but broken clocks are right twice a day.

[Skinner]

9. Almost made me rethink my opposition to mass collection of phone metadata.

For a moment.

[HockeyMom]

10. Aaaawww, poor gunners

Know what? If anybody asked me about about my husband's guns, I would gladly tell them. They aren't mine. No skin off my back.

[NickB79]

26. And if they didn't ask?

If they just collected your phone data until they could make a reasonable conclusion instead, would you still be OK with that?

That's the point: no one in the NSA is ASKING you for information. They are taking it, without your consent.

This isn't a case of "aaww, poor gunners"; it's a case of "aaww, poor anyone-who-cares-about-personal-privacy".

[Indi Guy]

27. +1

The issue of privacy rights is never solely about a single group. Everyone is affected when the constitution is trampled on.

[HockeyMom]

29. They don't have to ask

I have already posted it online voluntarily on gun control sites.

[Autumn]

11. Damn. Fuck the NRA but I sure do appreciate their help.

What a fucking ride this week has been. Just go on ahead and call me a NRA lover and get it out of the way.

[SlipperySlope]

16. Politics makes strange bedfellows

Not completely surprising as both organizations are focused on "rights", even if they have disagreement about the nature of those rights.

[OnyxCollie]

12. The ACLU are racist, libertarian, Paulbot gun nuts. nt

[Earth_First]

21. Surely you jest! nt

[OnyxCollie]

22. HATER!

You want Putin to win.

[quadrature]

18. welcome news. the first step in fighting the NSA

is awareness.

[soryang]

19. the NSA minimization procedures are both a joke and a fig leaf...

...to cover dragnet recording of data on millions of Americans. it reminds me of so called "Chinese walls" that lawyers construct for crooked fiduciary institutions and other unethical organizations to give them a legal excuse to conduct unlawful activities. Every citizen and every institution should be against this practice.

[jsr]

24. Every bit helps in this fight against the surveillance machine.

[durablend]

25. So now the important question

How many NRA members resign because of their organization "co-opting" with the 'enemy'?