Senators Ask if NSA Collected Gun Data: Potential to construct gun database, senators say

The Washington Free Beacon ^ | June 28, 2013 | C.J. Ciaramella

[2ndDivisionVet]

Senators are questioning whether the National Security Agency collected bulk data on more than just Americans’ phone records, such as firearm and book purchases.

A bipartisan group of 26 senators, led by Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) asked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to detail the scope and limits of the National Security Agency’s surveillance activities in a letter released Friday.

“We are concerned that by depending on secret interpretations of the PATRIOT Act that differed from an intuitive reading of the statute, this program essentially relied for years on a secret body of law,” the senators wrote in the letter.

The NSA’s surveillance program has come under intense scrutiny following a leak revealing the agency harvested the phone metadata of millions of American citizens.

The senators noted that the federal government’s authority under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act is broad and rife with potential for abuse. Among the senators’ concerns was whether the NSA’s bulk data harvesting program could be used to construct a gun registry or violate other privacy laws.

“It can be used to collect information on credit card purchases, pharmacy records, library records, firearm sales records, financial information, and a range of other sensitive subjects,” the senators wrote. “And the bulk collection authority could potentially be used to supersede bans on maintaining gun owner databases, or laws protecting the privacy of medical records, financial records, and records of book and movie purchases.”

The senators asked Clapper in the letter whether the NSA used PATRIOT Act authorities to conduct bulk collection of other types of records, and whether there are any instances of the agency violating a court order in the process of such collections.....

[BipolarBob]

They wouldn’t lie to you Mr. Senator, would they?

[Malone LaVeigh]

Senators are questioning whether the National Security Agency collected bulk data on more than just Americans’ phone records, such as firearm and book purchases.

Geez, ya' think? /sarc

[Erik Latranyi]

This administration has no hesitation in lying to Congress, so what makes anyone think they will answer these questions honestly?

Until the registry is discovered, the mantra is deny, deny, deny.

[basil]

Yeah—like this will lead to the truth.........../s

[jiggyboy]

They will say no, but not say that with a couple of clicks in the database program, they can find any credit card purchases from any of a thousand places like Cabela’s or dirtcheapammo.com etc. and start from there.

[tumblindice]

If Congress were serious they would serve them with a subpoena duces tecum (look it up) and if they produced nothing, an analyst team with security clearance shows up unannounced with a court order.

That’s really cute, isn’t it? I was actually thinking Congress might be serious about protecting the American people from one of their overreaching fellow feral agencies. Never mind .......... heh.

[TBP]

Short answer: Of course they did. What do you intend to do about it?

[2ndDivisionVet]

What Good Can a Handgun Do Against An Army?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/2312894/posts

[JPG]

Clapper is researching how to give the least untruthful answer.

[NFHale]

They never fail to amaze me with the depths they’re going to to mess with us.

B*stards.

[ConservativeInPA]

Thank you for posting that. I wanted to post that the other day in a different thread, but I didn’t have time to search for it. Now it is book marked ... to be used regularly.

[dagogo redux]

I think Congress has to start water boarding these idiots.

[Smokin' Joe]

NICS checks by phone?

Got 'em

Ammo orders by web?

Got 'em.

Magazines? Parts? optics? Cases? Tactical stuff? Holsters?

Check, check, check, check, check, and... Check! Got 'em!

Any communication that has traveled by phone, involved a credit/debit card, etc. The 4473 was just a formality.

Got the gun private sale, cash? good start. Ordered the 'stuff' and ammo on line? that leaves a trail. (Perhaps best to have one on paper, one (or more) not--the one on paper will be the one they look for, but will hide the traceable ammo buy for the other--unless you paid cash for that in person also.

But then, the same goes for most anything.

[Red in Blue PA]

If he says no, you can be sure he is telling the truth/s

[Red in Blue PA]

If there was a Like button, I would hit it for your post.

[TheBigJ]

The organs of tyranny can collect all the info they want, makes little difference or can stop razors to the throat of such architects in the shadows. The fomenting rage in this country will only last so long til the damn bursts.

[2ndDivisionVet]

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

[Whenifhow]

Ohio Ping

A bipartisan group of 26 senators, led by Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) asked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to detail the scope and limits of the National Security Agency’s surveillance activities in a letter released Friday.

SNIP

Among the senators’ concerns was whether the NSA’s bulk data harvesting program could be used to construct a gun registry or violate other privacy laws.

[Thane_Banquo]

When they finally decide to use the NSA data to confiscate guns, all the databases in the world won’t be able to save them from the blowback.