
We need an NRA for privacy - plg
A software company shuts its secure email service pre-emptively so that they wouldn&#x27;t be forced to comply with government orders to ... what? insert back doors? hand over encryption keys?<p>What country did this happen in? Soviet Russia? Cuba? Iran?<p>No the United States of America. Truly chilling.<p>I&#x27;m talking about Silent Circle. see:<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=6183059<p>and<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=6183352<p>If this had been about a gun-making&#x2F;selling company shutting down its operation because they were afraid the government come to them and force them to violate the privacy of their customers, or for example insert, surreptitiously, some sort of tracking device into the guns themselves, the country (and the mainstream media, by the way) would be UP IN ARMS.<p>What we need is a &quot;National Privacy Association&quot; like the &quot;National Rifle Association&quot;. Celebrity spokespeople, tons of money, lobbying congress, etc.
======
rayiner
Privacy advocates need to get their act together and form a single-issue
organization. I need to be seeing teenagers coming to my house peddling
privacy the way they do for churches and baby seals. The tech industry needs
to sack up and realize that their business interests are at stake, and put
some serious money in PACs behind the whole effort. It needs to have a focused
mission, no getting distracted in related issues (e.g. copyright reform or
reform of hacking laws), but be a big tent (don't care what else your other
viewpoints are). There needs to be a diversity of messages, targeted at
different demographics. There has to be something in it not just for techie
yuppies in San Francisco, but also church-going grandmothers in small-town
Iowa (any political movement that can't capture at least some old people is
dead on arrival). That's a key strength of the NRA: it has vigorous support
across a wide diversity of voting demographics.

The EFF and the ACLU are fine for what they are, but they've got too broad of
a mandate to have the kind of focused impact you want. You can't be an
effective mainstream advocacy organization when you're off defending
unsympathetic people for principled purposes. That's an important thing too,
but it's a different thing.

For people interested in effecting real political change, I seriously
recommend watching this documentary on the Prohibition:
[http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition](http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition).
One group of people got a nation that until (and during and after!)
prohibition drank 140 million gallons of liquor a year to outlaw alcohol. The
money wasn't on their side (the government made 1/3 of its revenues from
liquor taxes and the beer makers had tremendous power), but they accomplished
their goal by masterful politicking:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Wheeler](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Wheeler).

"Under Wheeler's leadership, the League focused entirely on the goal of
achieving Prohibition. It organized at the grass-roots level and worked
extensively through churches. It supported or opposed candidates based
entirely on their position regarding prohibition, completely disregarding
political party affiliation or other issues. Unlike other temperance groups,
the Anti-Saloon League worked with the two major parties rather than backing
the smaller Prohibition Party."

~~~
the_watcher
The problem I see with the ACLU and EFF is exactly what you mention - you've
got to get older people involved. Fairly or unfairly (generally unfairly, in
my opinion), both of those organizations have pretty negative connotations
with the church going grandmother you reference. The ACLU's sometimes mindless
pursuit of "civil rights" (which I think they do a good job of generally, but
it does grate when everything is compared to the plight of African Americans,
something that is almost becoming the Goodwin's Law of civil rights). The EFF
trying to save "hackers" and "pirates" \- which is completely unfair, but it's
what the small town older people without computers hear and fear. A new
organization that could start from scratch would make a huge difference, and
could focus on educating people that this is seriously the equivalent of the
government reading snail mail.

~~~
rayiner
Note that you rarely see the NRA coming to the defense of hardened inner-city
thugs getting railroaded with felon-in-possession type charges. It's careful
to craft an image, and that image is centered on one set of people who use
guns and not the other sets of people who use guns.

~~~
the_watcher
The NRA is also very careful to support people who don't actually violate gun
laws (whether because they are just normal people with guns for
hunting/protection or people exploiting loopholes that - regardless of your
feelings towards them - are codified by law), or who are at least making some
attempt at a credible argument (trying to phrase this as politically neutral
as possible. I'm not here to debate their policy, just observe their actions)
for the legitimate need for it. The way the NRA gets support is from people
who want to make it easier to legally own guns. If we are being honest,
"hardened inner city thugs" are not people who care whether the gun they have
is legal or not, just whether or not it's easy to get. The NRA's explicit
mission is more specific than make guns easy to get. It's make them easier to
get legally. Again, this supports the need for a hyperspecific single issue
organization that focuses on privacy. The NRA gets a lot of traction by
focusing on freedom and the Constitution. A privacy organization would be wise
to take note of what plays with the NRA - worries about government databases
of guns should be very easy to relate to actual government databases of
communications.

~~~
damoncali
_worries about government databases of guns should be very easy to relate to
actual government databases of communications._

Bingo. There is a strong ally for privacy advocates in the NRA. This hasn't
blown up in the media yet, but you can be sure it will next time discussions
of gun registration/background checks comes up.

~~~
hga
It will seldom if ever blow up in the media---did you hear about the
publishing of gun owner names and addresses in various parts of New York, let
alone a big media backlash???---but it is something we gun owners know about.

For both causes we're going to have to depend a lot on other methods of
publicity. E.g. I'll bet you haven't heard that the Democratic administration
running Missouri illegally gave the Social Security Administration the entire
list of the state's concealed carry licensees.

~~~
the_watcher
This is damoncali's point. There is a huge opportunity here for both sides.
The NRA gets to shine a light on illegal surveillance (or whatever you want to
call it) without having to simultaneously fight the battle over guns. They can
fight that battle separately, while at the same, any major wins for privacy
are generally wins for the NRA in general. It goes both ways too. The NRA is
extremely influential (imagine the impact the NRA announcing it would score
the vote on Amash Amendment?) and are possibly the most savvy group of
lobbyists in the history of democratic politics.

~~~
hga
It may be his point (not going to parse that), but it's not going to happen.
As I've described elsewhere in this thread the NRA is not going to stray from
its single issue unless something _directly_ impinges on it, like McCain-
Feingold's prohibitions on its core political speech. It's a very critical
part of why we're even discussing it's effectiveness; asking it to be less
effective because you'd like having its muscle in your corner is not to the
point.

~~~
the_watcher
My point is that there is a large constituent in the NRA that is very
receptive to the idea that government databases of private citizen actions
represent a slippery. I'd also argue that courts finding it lawful (or
tolerably unlawful or whatever euphemism we'll be fed) would directly impinge
on the NRA's mission as much as McCain-Feingold. A lot of card carrying NRA
members still remember being grouped in with "domestic terrorists" for owning
guns back in the early Napolitano tenure.

------
danso
The NRA actually does stand up for privacy: of its members, anyway. You've
probably heard of those stances being used _against_ the NRA sometimes, for
example, when they've fought to prevent the Feds to deny gun rights to people
who have been placed on terrorism-related suspicions list (which, by some
reports, was as inaccurate as the no-fly lists).

If you hate the NRA, it's easy to paint this political stance as nothing but a
move of pure-gun-lust...however, such stances set precedent for other privacy
related rights. To put it another way, just because the ACLU defends
pornographers, it doesn't mean the ACLU is doing it purely out of love for
pornography.

edit: In any case, there will never be a "NRA for Privacy". Pause and think
about it. What does the average person experience in terms of privacy
invasion? Not too much, and not at a constant clip. Would that average person
be able to discern between heavy privacy protections versus some privacy
protections, on a daily basis? Not really, you mostly only know your privacy
is being invaded when it's too late.

Compare that with how your life as a gun owner changes if, say, conceal and
carry is revoked. Or AR15 rifles are banned. You experience that
_immediately_.

Also, good luck getting celebrities on board. They are used to having their
privacy violated as a matter of routine. For them to experience a real change
in privacy would involve infringing on certain First Amendment rights (look up
the difference between public and private figures)

------
lambda
It's called the EFF.

The problem is, it's mostly supported by individuals, not the industry. And
there are a lot more individuals interested in gun rights than electronic
rights. It has a budget that's a tiny fraction of the NRA's.

~~~
mtgx
In the sense that they're defending our rights, yes you could say it's EFF.

But I'm a little worried about the idea of EFF having to lobby Congress the
way NRA does (by paying them). I wouldn't want EFF to become a corrupted
organization because it starts receiving a ton of money from the industry
instead of the users.

~~~
protomyth
> I wouldn't want EFF to become a corrupted organization

I don't think any NRA member thinks they are corrupted. They are doing the
exact job they are supposed to given the rules of Washington DC. Like the ACLU
and other rights organization they know to defend the extremes because the
first compromise will not be the last. Sadly, there is no room for reasonable
where rights are concerned.

I don't think any House or Senate member fears the EFF during election time.
If we want the 4th amendment to be defended, then we need an organization they
do fear.

------
oinksoft
There's a reason the NRA can do what they do: Guns are a >$30B/year industry.

[http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-03-14/the-nras-
cor...](http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-03-14/the-nras-corporate-
donors)

~~~
jstalin
According to the NRA's 2010 form 990[1], total revenue in that year was $227
million. According to your link, only one corporate donor gave the NRA between
$5 million and $10 million and four gave between $1 million and $4.9 million,
etc.

$100 million alone was from membership fees, $11 million from royalties, $11
million from sales of goods, $20 million from advertising, etc.

Those who claim that the NRA is just an arm of the firearms industry don't
understand the fervency of gun owners in the US.

EFF needs to be the NRA of privacy and electronic freedom and everyone needs
to get as fervent about privacy as gun owners are about the 2nd amendment.

1:
[http://ia601205.us.archive.org/32/items/NationalRifleAssocia...](http://ia601205.us.archive.org/32/items/NationalRifleAssociation2010IrsForm990/2010_NRA_IRS990.pdf)

~~~
stfu
_$11 million from sales of goods_

In related news the EFF should definitly clean up their merch offerings.
Especially their fashion section looks like crap. I would definitely leave
more money there for apparel that appeals beyond a DefCon crowd. With a single
blog post "submit t-shirt designs" and a followup with a bit of voting would
fix that problem. Or just having one getting design by somebody like Fairey.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Your post made me think that the EFF logo is pretty cool, and I would totally
wear a T-shirt with that on it. I went to their merch page, and...they don't
have one. The only shirt they have is the "Kingpin", with a metal-band-ified
version of the handle of a hacker I've never heard of. What?

------
k2enemy
The NRA is a powerhouse because millions of Americans (and manufacturers) care
enough about guns and the 2nd amendment to be willing to donate and pay fees
to the NRA.

Privacy? Not so much. But we do have the EFF. So donate!

~~~
lysol
Wrong. The NRA is a powerhouse because they have the money to continue to
persuade Americans to care about guns and the 2nd Amendment within their
twisted, absolutist interpretation of it.

~~~
damoncali
That's a myth. The NRA is not among the big spenders in the lobbying world,
and money has little to do with their power. Michael Bloomberg pretty much
proved that when he dropped $12 million and came up with nothing to show for
it.

Your tone suggests you have made up your mind on this, but if you really want
to know why the NRA is powerful, read this:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/amyshowalter/2013/05/16/five-
rea...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/amyshowalter/2013/05/16/five-reasons-the-
nra-won-the-recent-gun-control-debate-that-have-nothing-to-do-with-politics/)
.

It's the people, not the money.

~~~
ihsw
Indeed, it's as much as a cult of personality as Apple is.

Here's the Steve Jobs of the NRA:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ju4Gla2odw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ju4Gla2odw)

Those aren't gun-toting wingnuts in the audience, they're business leaders and
politicians. You can't buy that kind of reverence.

I'm sure there are a lot of prominent people that still remember fondly about
the past, and when they die their sentiment will die with them.

~~~
stfu
Heston was an amazing spokesperson. Love that speech. The perfect emotional
appeal combined with giving a higher purpose and sending for the audience.

Just wish privacy advocates would stop fumbling on their Macbooks and instead
find that universal appeal in their speeches. Imagine getting JPB's "A
Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" presentend in the Heston's kind
of way.

------
jellicle
Currently 59 comments on this post, 2 hours old, I did a ctrl-F "epic" and get
no results.

So apparently no one at Hacker News knows about EPIC:

[http://epic.org/epic/about.html](http://epic.org/epic/about.html)

which is, more or less, what the original poster is asking for. They're not
militant, I suppose. They don't have the same level of anger that the NRA
manages to harness, don't have talk radio hosts promoting them, that sort of
thing. But they do exist and are focused on this one issue of electronic
privacy, and yet apparently are failing at their job of self-promotion,
because no one on HN knows they exist.

Are they failing to do enough outreach? Is a different organization really
needed, or does EPIC just need to do a better job of marketing itself?

~~~
hga
Put this in historical context: I'd say we're in the early '70s period, after
the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968 but before the BATF a bit later
starting to abusively enforcing it _and word of that got out_ ; critically we
don't have _specific_ examples of national security privacy violations, let
alone atrocities.

How politically powerful was the NRA back then?

Not very; in fact, a few years later it proposed to close their D.C. HQ, get
out of politics altogether and return to its original marksmanship etc. role.
Only a member revolt at the 1977 annual meeting in Cincinnati reversed that
and e.g. established a formal 503(c)(4) lobbying and political arm, the
Institute for Legislative Action, which rates politicians, sends out those
orange postcards with scores before elections, etc. etc.

------
jstalin
Go. Right now. Donate all you can to EFF. NOW.

[https://supporters.eff.org/donate](https://supporters.eff.org/donate)

Other ways you can help EFF, like using their Amazon referral link:

[https://www.eff.org/helpout](https://www.eff.org/helpout)

------
VandyILL
I don't think it'll work.

The NRA & the gun industry have successfully marketed a product, and the NRA
has successfully marketed itself as the means of protecting customer's rights
to that product.

Note, the NRA doesn't have to be the one that markets gun ownership as a
positive - that can come from any number of sources, inside and outside of the
gun industry. The NRA just has to give the image of being the political outlet
to protect that right. Thus the media and/or possibly the gun industry can
throw gas on the fire to show that guns are a necessity of American life and
in turn because of it's perceived credibility on the issue people vote
according to what the NRA says.

Now, presently I don't think either the NRA or the industry really has to do
much work marketing guns. All they have to do is hold back the tide whenever a
tragic event happens and forestall action when the willpower to change is
present. Then, when election season rolls around, they just remind their
members how to vote.

In the case of privacy there is #1 no product, and #2 no clear "defender" of
our right to privacy. Further, given the nature of privacy, I don't think
there will ever be a clear product or defender for/of that right. Without
that, there's never going to be the approach that markets the product as a
necessity or a group people will pay attention to when voting.

Just think about the ACLU - part of their mission is privacy. But yet I'm sure
half the people who care about internet privacy don't even like much less
trust the ACLU. EFF - majority of the population hasn't heard of them. It's
just too sensitive of an issue to have a blanket organization representing
everyone's interest.

Finally, as a side note, I think I would pay for an email service like this:
free email, with conditional payments. Whenever the service receives and
refuses a government request, it charges a very small fee (couple cents or
even a penny - will wait till x amount has accrued before charging card). Then
in turn, the payment fee goes to the campaign of a pro-privacy candidate or
organization like the EFF etc.

~~~
knowtheory
More to the point the NRA's mission statement is really freaking clear.

Allowed to have gun? C/D

Privacy is way more complicated, and an inherently psychological endeavor.

Free from government snooping? C/D

is a much more complicated question, because it is untenable for governments
to know nothing about their citizens or companies (it is good that we license
drivers, and that restaurants have health inspections).

Also, the NRA holds a special relationship with an industry. The NRA is the
lightning rod for attention after fire arms tragedies. No one ever goes in for
gun companies after something like Sandy Hook, instead they go raise money off
of the NRA.

There is no similar (legal) industry on which privacy and/or secrecy is a
prerequisite, and for which a lobbying proxy would be useful.

------
robg
Privacy isn't explicitly guaranteed in the Constitution. So the Court has
tended to side with the Government on matters of National Security vs.
Privacy. In fact, the Constitution guarantees searches for the Government, so
long as they are reasonable. On matters of national security versus a
database, national security readily wins. The Court finds those searches
reasonable.

So, in the case of Privacy, you aren't fighting your Representatives who can
be bought to change laws. You are fighting the Court. That fight is much more
of a long game. And that long game would seem to be better won through broader
Civil Rights which are already under attack. Read the First Amendment and
think of Snowden and the media. Read the 4th and consider the broadness of
"unreasonable" and where it extends to property seizure laws. Heck read the
8th and consider how broadly solitary confinement is used as punishment in our
prisons. Or how anti-drug and anti-marriage laws restrict personal choice. To
me, protection of our broad Rights against the Leviathan is the issue of our
time.

That said, the 2nd Amendment is also an ally in this fight. In contrast to
Privacy, the right of gun ownership is explicitly guaranteed and the NRA is a
partner in questions of privacy. We just need to help them realize that the
national security apparatus could easily be expanded inwards to target gun
owners. We need to help them realize that the technology to do so is already
trivial for the Big Bad Government.

~~~
hga
We realize it, but one of the secrets to the NRA's success is it's single
issue focus, it doesn't give people unrelated reasons to not join it, as what
you recommend would do. Unless it directly impinges on it or gun owners, like
McCain-Feingold's suppression of political speech, it's not going to get a
major push, although I'd expect it'll be added to "reasons we can't trust the
good will of those in government".

~~~
robg
You say single issue, but really the NRA is single Amendment. They fight for a
strong, individual right within the 2nd.

Privacy, unfortunately, doesn't have that same focus within the Constitution.
Where the 1st gives, the 4th takes away esp with respect to National Defense.
So Privacy advocates are left to fight a broad argument based on the
protections in the 1st and by narrowing the definition of reasonable searches.
That's a much harder problem and a long game that requires many, complementary
actors.

------
johnny22
it's called the EFF.. DONATE!

~~~
plg
ABSOLUTELY. Everyone who cares about privacy should support the EFF. I 100%
agree.

However.

I would argue that with all due respect to the EFF, they have not achieved the
desired result (yet). Arguably this is because it has remained what mainstream
american would call a fringe interest group.

I find it hard to believe that the general public, if in fact educated (albeit
briefly, but effectively) about the issue of what's happened to personal
privacy in the USA over the past 15 years, would care less about it than say
the right to buy a military assault rifle at a private gun show.

We need an aggressive EFF. It starts with money. We need an EFF that way more
aggressively pursues big big money and big big names, names that joe the
plumber and soccer mom sally would "respect" (I'm talking about movie stars
and celebrities, people).

The NRA has (had actually) Charleton Heston.

Why doesn't the EFF have ... Oprah? or Ashton Kutcher? or Will Smith? or Tom
Cruise?? (oh never mind that one, actually)... or Katy Perry? you get the idea

~~~
grumps
Beyond celebrities, who is the corporate America sponsor?

Personally I feel that if you want to get it done you'll need both celebs and
corporate backing.

//sigh... I feel dirty. I'll go shower.

------
protomyth
It comes down to this, Does the EFF scare Senators and Representatives at
election time? If the organization that defends your rights doesn't scare the
hell out of a campaign (to the point opponents demonize the organization and
its members) then they are worthless for advocacy in this era.

The NRA does this and, like the ACLU, knows to defend the extremes. If we want
the 4th amendment defended, then we need that type of organization.

------
aubergene
Systems like PRISM should be a lobbying issue for the NRA. Background checks
and gun ownership registration become moot when the government has copies of
all your web browsing history, purchasing activity and correspondence. PRISM
is the biggest threat to the second amendment, the NRA needs to wake up to
this.

~~~
hga
Unless it _directly_ impinges on what they're doing, like McCain-Feingold's
suppression of its political speech, the NRA is resolutely single issue, which
is one of the things that makes it so powerful, they don't give gun owners
unrelated reasons to keep them away or oppose them. Compare to the 2nd
largest, but very very small Gun Owners of America and e.g. their up front and
continuing opposition to Obamacare.

Getting to your specifics, the NRA and I assume a large fraction of its
membership know the government knows the latter are gun owners, it's very very
hard to keep that secret, and most of us don't bother. Why bother when that's
probably over half the nation's people?

Heck, if you subtract the states and localities where very few are allowed to
own guns, just randomly picking people using a few simple profiling techniques
would result in a very high hit rate.

I just don't see it as being a significant enough direct threat for the NRA to
adopt it as a major issue like McCain-Feingold.

~~~
justin66
> the NRA is resolutely single issue,

I never heard a single speech by Wayne LaPierre which would lead me to
conclude that the NRA is interested in limiting itself to a single issue.

> I just don't see it as being a significant enough direct threat for the NRA
> to adopt it as a major issue like McCain-Feingold.

But you seem to understand that.

------
_pmf_
The problem is that people really love guns.

People only like privacy as an optional concept; what they really like is
sharing their personal information with strangers on the internet.

------
wes-exp
Privacy is what economists call an "externality" \- i.e., the full cost of
harming privacy is not accounted for in conventional business activity (like
pollution).

In the past, naturally occurring inefficiencies helped to safeguard privacy.
Privacy was free. However, now that the technology to collect, store, analyze,
and distribute information is so cheap and readily available, we are seeing a
massive loss of privacy.

As an economic externality, privacy can only be protected through deliberate
effort. We will not get privacy unless we demand it from society. Therefore,
political action is a prerequisite. Pro-privacy organizations will be
essential in the years ahead.

------
jbaiter
How about the ACLU and the EFF?

------
tippytop
We need a privacy amendment to the Constitution. It needs to shore up the
legalese of the 4th which lawyers have made a runaround.

~~~
dragonwriter
I think what we need is a public that holds the government accountable to the
Fourth.

If you think that the government defying the purpose of the Fourth will be
fixed by pushing for another amendment to be passed and then returning to
public passivity, you don't understand how the fourth has been "made a
runaround".

The Constitution will continue to be treated as something to pay lip service
to without substance as long as all the public cares about is having the right
words in it rather than the right action (or right _restraint_ of action) by
the government. Adding, deleting, or rearranging words won't fix that --
holding people accountable will.

~~~
tippytop
Anyone who watches government in action understands quite well how laws are
twisted and turned to meet objectives. It only matters what is explicit, and
there is no mention anywhere in the Constitution about "privacy". If this is a
value that we Americans wish to continue, then it needs to be codified. Any
government action begins with words and the interpretation of said words.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Anyone who watches government in action understands quite well how laws are
> twisted and turned to meet objectives. It only matters what is explicit

No, it doesn't matter what is explicit (which anyone who has observed the non-
impact of the 27th Amendment would know.)

It matters what the public holds people in official positions accountable to.

------
brador
The problem is encryption is useful for many things. Some good, some bad. It's
great for underground humanitarian organizations in third world
countries...it's also great for kiddy diddlers hiding their stash. But the
tech is the same, so we pick both or non. Right now, government is leaning on
none.

~~~
cji
That's not a problem unique to encryption. Firearms have good uses and bad
uses - you can hunt and feed your family, or you could kill someone. With a
powerful privacy advocacy group, as proposed by OP or like the EFF as
mentioned by others, you can have the same voice like the NRA does to promote
responsible "good" uses of firearms but for privacy technology.

------
pcvarmint
The NRA is not the most gun-friendly organization. The JPFO and Gun Owners of
America are better. The NRA is a sellout, compromising on principles in order
to maintain political power.

Just as the Rutherford Institute is more protective of individual rights than
the ACLU is.

But you're right we need an organization for privacy.

The EPIC and EFF are not enough.

------
jydarche
We can't expect such association when the biggest internet companies in
America (Google, Facebook, Yahoo...) clearly don't care about privacy. It's
all about money.

Google don't be evil? FAIL

------
BgSpnnrs
I think the issue of privacy is being intentionally and collusively kept a
series of domestic affairs by national state agencies.

We need a global charter for privacy rights.

~~~
privong
I think such a thing would be unenforceable without the consent of those same
nations which currently ignore privacy rights.

------
tomphoolery
I would join this, and be as militant as the NRA.

------
readme
We already have the EFF.

------
RRRA
It's called the EFF, and please don't compare it to the NRA :P

------
mattreaver
www.campaignforliberty.org

------
hga
What has made "the NRA"\---really, gunowners, the NRA has but a fraction of
them as members---so powerful?

Well, first of course there's a lot of us. Even having only a fraction, the
NRA now has 5 million members. The EFF? I would be surprised to learn they had
more than 50,000 (couldn't find a number in a quick search).

2nd, we vote, and many of us vote first and foremost on this issue. Especially
since it's a good general touchstone, not that more than a tiny tiny fraction
of national level politicians really give a damn about either issue no matter
what they say most of the time.

3rd, there are many major elections where it's clear gunowners were a
necessary if not necessarily sufficient part of the winning side. Gun control
at the national level mostly disappeared in this century until Newtown after
the Democrats suffered a string of catastrophic defeats from losing both
houses of the Congress in 1994 to Al Gore losing by a whisker in 2000. That it
was even close is telling, especially since Bush isn't much of a conservative
or friend to gun owners, e.g. he officially supported renewal of the "assault
weapons" ban.

(Note that it's in our cultural DNA to defy being told we can't or shouldn't
have something, be it guns or e.g. drugs. But those are tangible, literally
put your hands on them things, not like "privacy", the loss of which isn't
immediately visible.)

On the side of the Stupid Party, every post-Reagan defeated Presidential
candidate was, or appeared to be bad on gun ownership (Romney's actions were
good, but his rhetoric was very bad). Again, the very narrow margins by which
Bush won in 2000 and 2004 are probably also telling, bad rhetoric and very few
good actions.

Now for some historical specifics that made a difference:

The biggest is how extreme gun grabbers are. While businessman Eric Schmidt is
notorious for some creepy even if possibly true statements, I'm not aware of
any national level politician who's willing to go on record saying we have no
right whatsoever to privacy (whatever they actually believe).

Nothing compared to e.g. Dianne Feinstein's " _If I could have gotten 51 votes
in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one
of them . . . Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in, I would have done it. I
could not do that. The votes weren't here._", or Michael Dukakis' " _I do not
believe in people owning guns. Guns should be owned only by police and
military. I am going to do everything I can to disarm this state._ "

Legislation stripping us of gun rights are much more in your face than e.g.
FISA, and have much more concrete results (see below). Privacy is much more a
Federal issue, although there have been a number of gun privacy atrocities at
the state and local level. Whereas the nation frequently watches some state go
crazy and e.g. tell you that you can load only 7 bullets in your 10 round
magazines ("clips"), and arrest people on that basis. Plus hypocrisy, there
are many many carve outs for the anointed, be they police or politicians, or
the frequent discovery that a prominent gun grabber owns guns. And all the
politicians with armed bodyguards telling the rest of us we don't deserve that
level of protection.

Then there are specific atrocities, cases well known by gun owners of
innocents brutalized or killed by abusive organs of the states. This became
big a while after the national Gun Control Act of 1968 was passed, when the
BATF had to find something to do for its Revenuers after sugar price supports
killed the moonshine industry.

Our side can point to kittens killed ("I swear I am not making this up"),
pregnant mothers who miscarried, people crippled for life, mothers shot dead
while holding a baby (Ruby Ridge, in which the BATF was enlisted to try to
force her husband to spy), and many many outright killed (Waco started out as
a BATF "ricebowl" operation, they wanted some nice video for their first
budget in the Clinton Administration). Plus a constant drumbeat of gun owners
ensnared by "flypaper" laws in gun grabbing localities; even NYC has realized
it's damaging their tourist industry.

And how could I forget Fast and Furious, just one of several Federal
Government gun running operations that sent thousands of guns south of the
border, resulting in 350 deaths and counting, just to generate better
statistics for gun grabbing propaganda (that reason is now on record and any
other explanation suffers an Underpants Gnomes logical error).

The very secrecy of our national security privacy problems makes the latter
problematical. Ignoring that the targets of the DEA are seldom ones we can
empathize with, that they launder the tips they get from the NSA means that as
of now I don't think there's a single _specific_ case we know of.

And one final general point: lots of public figures are willing if not happy
to demonize gun owners of almost every sort, and gun organizations (we can see
the latter in this discussion). That results in _strong_ push-back from the
targeted (again, it's not in our cultural DNA to take that lying down).

~~~
damoncali
The threat is certainly more direct and concrete. A lot of people don't know
that the recent assault weapons ban that was proposed would make millions of
people felons and punishable by 10 years in prison if they did not register
their rifles under the NFA (which is currently used for machine gun collectors
- it's a painful bureaucratic process that takes months, but allows the
ownership of machine guns, suppressors, and other items deemed dangerous by
the government).

Practically, NFA registration is something that is not accessible to many
citizens due to local roadblocks (requirements for local law enforcement to
sign off who have no obligation to do so). It also takes well over 6 months
with the relatively rare items it covers now. Adding millions of records to
that would have overwhelmed the ATF, and instantly turned millions of people
into felons _for doing absolutely nothing_.

That will get your attention.

~~~
rdl
As an aside, gun trusts are a decent way around the CLEO signature requirement
for NFA items, at least in states which don't ban them outright (sigh,
California). (acutely noticed since I've seen <$200 .22lr suppressors on the
market recently. Almost like cheap airline tickets, where the tax > the fare.)

~~~
hga
I gather that in a lot of states they haven't been put to the legal test. Not
a good bet where judiciaries lean more left than the state itself, e.g. any
that picks judges with the Missouri Plan, like my home state of Missouri where
our Castle Doctrine has been judicially nullified. Especially since you won't
find many political profiles in courage supporting ownership of NFA items.

~~~
shpxnvz
In the cases I've seen state first hand, state law regarding NFA items usually
just provides a blanket exemption for legal ownership so long as the item was
procured in compliance with NFA procedures.

In those states, so long as the NFA branch issues the stamp and you are
(federally) legally allowed to possess the item under the NFA, it doesn't
matter whether you or a trust owns it.

Of course, the trust must be valid under the trust law of the state you reside
in or else it cannot legally own the items, but competent trust attorneys are
not too hard to find.

~~~
rdl
Ironic that both of them (I believe) involved current or former law
enforcement officers, too.

~~~
shpxnvz
I think this was meant in reply to the comment about NFA weapons and crime. If
so, yeah, I find that particularly interesting too.

It also fits with the published data showing that police officers commit
violent crimes at a significantly higher rate than non-LEO concealed weapons
permit holders.

------
dreamdu5t
The problem is there's no big business in protecting privacy, and therefor no
lobbying money. The NRA is driven and funded by gun manufacturers.

