Yesterday, an unusual alliance of two organizations emerged in a major battle unfolding in federal court. The NRA, normally associated with conservative causes, teamed with the ACLU, a notoriously liberal organization. They are indeed strange bedfellows in the fight for our constitutional rights – albeit for different reasons. The NRA filed an amicus brief supporting the ACLU’s challenge of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) phone tapping and surveillance programs. The NRA agrees with the ACLU that the NSA surveillance programs are unconstitutional. But the NRA takes the argument one step further: They contend that if the government has the right to use this method of unwarranted surveillance, they will at some point use a similar justification to create a national gun owner registry. According to a Fox News report… “The mass surveillance program threatens the First Amendment rights of the NRA and its members. The NRA argues in the brief that it would be ‘absurd’ to think that Congress would take steps to prevent the creation of a national gun registry while simultaneously allowing the NSA to gather records that ‘could effectively create just such a registry.’ ‘If programs like those currently justified by the government’s interpretation are allowed to continue and grow unchecked, they could also—contrary to clear congressional intent—undo decades of legal protection for the privacy of Americans in general, and of gun owners in particular,’ the brief states.” ++It’s all about the power grab!
Posted on: Fri, 06 Sep 2013 02:32:31 +0000