Fears Of Gun Registry Prompt NRA To Back Lawsuit Against US Surveillance

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.

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