NRA backs ACLU anti-spying lawsuit...

[Missourian]

The National Rifle Association on Wednesday filed an amicus brief in federal court supporting an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit challenging a government phone-tracking program that collects the telephone records of millions of Americans.


The brief argues that the National Security Agency's phone records collection program could "allow identification of NRA members, supporters, potential members, and other persons with whom the NRA communicates, potentially chilling their willingness to communicate with the NRA."


The ACLU's lawsuit — which names as defendants the heads of national intelligence as well as the agencies they lead, including the National Security Agency, the FBI, the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice — argues the phone record collection program disclosed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden is unconstitutional.


The suit, filed in federal court in New York in June, asks the court to halt the datamining effort and purge phone records collected under the program, claiming the government action violates the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution.


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."

Read more: NRA backs ACLU spying lawsuit over gun registry fears | Fox News
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[C_Clayton_Jones]

Interesting from a politics and strange bedfellows standpoint; but pointless per Clapper v. Amnesty International (2013):

The ACLU claims standing as a former customer of Verizon, adding that the government likely has much of its metadata stored in its databases.

“Likely” doesn’t constitute standing, one can’t sue the Federal government concerning the surveillance programs because there ‘might’ be a privacy rights violation.

Moreover, there is no expectation of privacy when personal information is willingly provided to a third party entity, in this case Verizon.

The surveillance programs are both legal and Constitutional, they exist at the behest of the American people, authorized by Congress reflecting the will of the American people.