CDR: Re: Denver Judge rules Cops can seize bookstore records

Tim May tcmay at got.net
Wed Oct 25 12:18:40 PDT 2000


At 12:45 PM -0500 10/25/00, No User wrote:
>"If we can save but one child from the awful scourge of drugs..."
>
>Of course, the real issue here is why the bookstore was keeping such
>personalized records in the first place.

Probably just credit card receipts, naturally linked to the products bought.

Paying cash works. For now.

More comments below.

>
>--------
>Judge: Cops can seize bookstore records
>http://www.denverpost.com/news/news1021b.htm
>
>By Susan Greene
>Denver Post Staff Writer
>
>Oct. 21, 2000 - Police will be allowed to search customer purchase records
>at the Tattered Cover Book Store to investigate a narcotics case, a Denver
judge ordered Friday.
>
>Civil libertarians decried the order - believed to be the first of its
>kind nationwide - for protecting law enforcement's ability to obtain
>evidence over individual rights to read without interference from
>authorities.

And once again the "civil libertarians" have gotten the issues 
confused. The First Amendment does not say that ordinary subpoenas, 
discovery, and court orders for some reason do not apply to 
bookstores!

As with "shield laws" for reporters, this is a wrong-headed idea. A 
bookstore is a business. It may even be _me_. Whether I sell a book 
to Alice or a roll of detcord to Alice, if faced with a valid court 
order to tell what I know, I must. Arguments that Alice has some 
right to "read without interference" won't cut it.

Of course, that bookstore may choose to keep no records, by either 
purging past records, insisting on cash, or encouraging/requiring the 
use of unlinkable cards. Granted, this is not likely to happen today, 
for various reasons.

What _would_ be an unconstitutional act would be a law _requiring_ a 
bookstore to keep linkable records, a kind of "reading escrow." Or 
requiring a library to have a "Library Awareness Program" to report 
suspicious activities.

But a bookstore purchase record, once it exists, is no different from 
any other business or other record. It is subject to subpoena. 
Bookstores have no special exemptions that any of the rest of us 
don't have, any more than reporters have any special exemptions from 
subpoenas that the rest of us don't have.

(Hint: "the rest of us" is the misleading point. We are all 
reporters, we are all book sellers. We are all first class objects.)


--Tim May

-- 
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon"             | black markets, collapse of governments.





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