BREAKING: ACLU and NRA Join Forces to Investigate Possible NSA Gun Registry
Gun rights and politics can sometimes make for strange bedfellows.
That is the case in a recent announcement that the NRA is joining the ACLU’s lawsuit to stop the current NSA data gathering operation on American citizens.
The NRA claims that by querying calls to and from gun shops, shooting ranges, known gun owners, and gun rights organizations (such as the NRA itself), the NSA could make a type of gun registry.
The NRA further speculates that the NSA could be using the same clause it claims allows it to collect phone records, Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows for the collection of business records “relevant” to terrorism, to collect other information about gun sales, such as sales records from licensed gun dealers.
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“Under the government’s reading of Section 215, the government could simply demand the periodic submission of all firearms dealers’ transaction records, then centralize them in a database indexed by the buyers’ names for later searching,” the NRA writes.
The group claims that Congress could never have meant to authorize such a vast surveillance operation because it has repeatedly rejected proposals to create a national gun registry.
The NRA voiced its concerns in a brief filed under the ACLU’s lawsuit.