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

[Declan McCullagh]

On Wed, Oct 25, 2000 at 12:18:40PM -0700, Tim May wrote:
> 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!

Two thoughts:

* It is possible that "ordinary discovery" has gone too far in the
U.S. Shielded areas, such as bookstores protected by this view of the
1A, might be a good thing. 

* Richard Epstein has a nice piece in the May 2000 Stanford Law Review
(I was reading it last night). Epstein argues against "First Amendment
exceptionalism," which grants speech more protection than the common
law would afford. He says that creates weird side effects that prohibit
things like trespass to obtain private information but say (if such
info is leaked to a newspaper) that info can be published without,
generally, any recourse by the aggrieved party.

All of this may not be relevant once anonymous publishing -- or shall
I say consequence-less publishing? -- becomes more widespread.

-Declan