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tsty
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1st video; now bookstores!!!!
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Apr 9 06:03 UTC 2002 |
1st ammend actually applies to bookstores!!!
April 9, 2002
Bookstore Cannot Be Forced to Divulge Buyers, Court Says
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
DENVER, April A local bookstore
does not have to turn over customer sales
records to help police investigators determine who
bought a book on how to make illegal drugs, the
Colorado Supreme Court ruled today.
In a unanimous decision, the state's highest court
found that both the First Amendment and the
Colorado Constitution "protect an individual's
fundamental right to purchase books anonymously,
free from governmental interference."
The 6-to-0 ruling reversed a state appellate court's
decision that ordered the bookstore, the Tattered Cover, to turn over
receipts for the purchase of two books on the construction and
operation of drug laboratories.
The books had been found by drug task force agents in a March 2000
raid of a methamphetamine laboratory
in a trailer home in a suburb of Denver. Outside the trailer was an
envelope from the bookstore, and the
police wanted to determine which of the trailer's residents had
bought the books and might thus be
responsible for the drug laboratory.
Civil libertarians, the police and booksellers around the country
had closely tracked the case.
"We think this is a very, very important decision because it is the
strongest opinion on the issue of protecting
customer privacy in bookstores that has come down so far," said Chris
Finan, president of the American
Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression.
The foundation, a nonprofit group, filed a friend-of-the-court brief
and helped raise money to pay for the bookstore's legal fees.
The Supreme Court ruled that a hearing had to be held before any search
warrant could be executed on a bookstore when the store was not itself
the subject of a police investigation. It also repeatedly referred to
the "chilling effect" if warrants were issued without such hearings.
"We hold that the city has failed to demonstrate that its need for
this evidence is sufficiently compelling to outweigh the harmful
effects of the search warrant," Justice Michael L. Bender wrote for the court.
Joyce Meskis, 60, who has owned the Tattered Cover since 1974, said
today that she was relieved that the case was over. "Two years is a
long time to be working on this," she said.
Ms. Meskis added that she felt she had to pursue the appeal to the
state's Supreme Court. "There is implied understanding when an
individual goes into a library or to a bookstore with the respect
to the privacy of their reading material," she said.
---<note>---
does this mean that *you* can legally CONCEAL what you read??????
where is BigBrother wheh you need 1984 and (Brave) New World (Order)?
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| 37 responses total. |
senna
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response 1 of 37:
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Apr 9 08:00 UTC 2002 |
This is interesting, because it presumably will apply to all of retail by
default. I was under the impression that retail records were free to be
auditted by law enforcement--I know the establishments themselves will use
the records in legal procedings when necessary, and presumably credit card
companies do the same, so where do the exceptions fit in?
If they try to restrict it to just bookstores, why? Books are just items,
products like any other. Are magazines at a Kroger newsstand included? How
about cereal boxes with substantial, original written content (for example,
a box of Count Chocula with a Where's Waldo picture on the back).
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jmsaul
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response 2 of 37:
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Apr 9 13:27 UTC 2002 |
I think it's a good decision.
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tsty
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response 3 of 37:
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Apr 9 13:43 UTC 2002 |
i think it's a good decision also, but *why* did the case have to
be brought in the first place? <1984 or (Brave) New World (Order)?)
damn gummints just WON'T quit fscking with us!
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jp2
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response 4 of 37:
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Apr 9 14:04 UTC 2002 |
This response has been erased.
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rcurl
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response 5 of 37:
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Apr 9 15:30 UTC 2002 |
The CASE was brought because the bookstore wanted to defend its right
to not divulge customer information. On the other hand, I think it
would not be obvious to police agencies what are the limits on their
ability to pursue clues. I recall it was not unusual in Sherlock Holmes
stories for merchants to readily describe, and name if they knew,
their customers: there was no implied necessary confidentiality in a
seller-buyer transaction. This is, in fact, a requirement of (legal)
gun transactions. Books appear to be a special case because of the
First Amendment.
I suspect, though, the bookseller would have to answer that they
SAW a defendent in their bookstore at such and such a date and time,
that coincided with the purchase of said book(s).
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russ
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response 6 of 37:
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Apr 9 22:32 UTC 2002 |
The First Amendment includes freedom of thought and conscience.
Wanting to know about drug labs and wanting to make one are not
the same; besides, it's possible that the person who bought the
book wasn't the one who read it.
I think this decision is great. The government shouldn't be
using records from either bookstores or libraries to finger people.
If there isn't any better evidence to implicate a suspect, then
maybe there shouldn't be a prosecution.
And maybe bookstores shouldn't be attaching titles to personal
information about sales. Come to think of it, maybe lots of
businesses should be separating personal information from the
other data they use. What isn't recorded can't be abused.
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cmcgee
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response 7 of 37:
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Apr 9 23:48 UTC 2002 |
Do it yourself. Pay cash.
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gelinas
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response 8 of 37:
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Apr 10 04:41 UTC 2002 |
Hmm... cash register receipts have titles, last I looked, which makes it
possible to get a refund. I think Kroger's would have a very hard time
linking a particular check to a particular register receipt. (Although I've
not looked at what the cash register actually puts ont he check; it may be
easier than I think.)
I do see this particular case as an example of freedom of speech.
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senna
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response 9 of 37:
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Apr 10 04:51 UTC 2002 |
It was theoretically possible at Meijer, though the cache of transactions
turned over daily. I have a strong, strong suspicion that transaction records
are stored, though, and if I looked at a Meijer-endorsed check today I could
still probably give you a fairly solid idea of what it indicated.
Actually, some retail establishments have, in the past and possible the
present, had policies that dictated that checks would be returned to the
customer for same-day or next-day refunds. Any later than that and the store
waited until the check cleared and sent a check of its own.
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oval
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response 10 of 37:
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Apr 10 06:22 UTC 2002 |
i was under the impression that the first ammendmant was null and void
anyway..
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senna
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response 11 of 37:
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Apr 10 07:07 UTC 2002 |
Next time I'm in DC, I'll go to the Smithsonian and see if I can find a "Void"
stamp on the Bill of Rights.
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oval
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response 12 of 37:
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Apr 10 07:13 UTC 2002 |
stamps are obsolete nowadays aren't they?
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bdh3
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response 13 of 37:
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Apr 10 08:15 UTC 2002 |
Meanwhile the prosecution of the manufacturer of an illegal and
really bad drug is hindered. And that is sad. What if it were
a murder case where a 'hit man' manual was the issue? Somebody
died and the bookstore owner is standing in the way of finding
out who did it.
On the other hand I too think it seems on the surface a very good
decision. I don't like the concept of 'the state' compelling
citizens to do much of anything. I believe that 'rights' are a
citizen's (god given or however) and are delegated to the state
by individual citizens for convenience of the citizens collectively
but may be taken back in a particular instance as an individual
citizen sees fit. If I were in the bookseller's shoes I would
have already turned over the invoice details, but I fully support
the bookseller's desire to do otherwise for whatever reason.
I can't help but point out that other 'ammendments' - such as
the second - don't seem to have the same weight in the media
et al....
Now consider the case instead of detailed plans for a nuclear
device who's receipt was found at a site where radiation and
other evidence suggested that such a device had been constructed.
And the 'bookseller' refused to cooperate with authorities on
account he liked Osama or somebody equally demonstrably dangerous.
Would there then be a compelling collective right of the citizens
to insist that records of the sale of such plans be released to
state investigative organs? So is it merely a question of degree?
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russ
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response 14 of 37:
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Apr 10 13:09 UTC 2002 |
Re #7: I do, most places and for most things (not just books).
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bru
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response 15 of 37:
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Apr 10 13:54 UTC 2002 |
gelinas, If you pay with a check, the odds are they can link it to the
register reciept. I used to have to do the Impacting at Mervyn's, and that
included reconciling the checks to the reciepts and verifying the amounts if
there was a register shortage.
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keesan
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response 16 of 37:
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Apr 10 15:36 UTC 2002 |
If you pay cash nobody knows your name.
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polygon
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response 17 of 37:
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Apr 10 15:54 UTC 2002 |
In the underground economy, nobody knows you're a dog.
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void
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response 18 of 37:
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Apr 10 18:29 UTC 2002 |
The gulf between reading and action is pretty wide. Reading about
assembling a drug lab doesn't actually make one a pusher any more than
simply reading USMC training manuals makes one a Marine or simply
reading a lab manual makes one a phlebotomist. I've read two or three
different sets of instructions for shrinking human heads, but there are
no human heads in my freezer awaiting shrinkage.
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gull
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response 19 of 37:
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Apr 10 19:18 UTC 2002 |
I've read books and other media about all kinds of stuff I've never
actually done and probably will never do. I'm just a curious person.
I do sometimes wonder what a police searcher would make of the
collections of hacker and phreaker text files on my hard disk, but
thanks to the Bill of Rights it's unlikely to ever become an issue.
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senna
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response 20 of 37:
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Apr 11 02:10 UTC 2002 |
Paying cash is highly *underrated*, particularly for people who have spending
problems.
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bdh3
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response 21 of 37:
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Apr 11 05:13 UTC 2002 |
And the problem is:
There is a crime scene with evidence - a receipt for a drug manual
from the bookstore. It is entirely possible the receipt is from
a 14-year old neighbor of the drug lab with an interest in
biochem and has nothing whatsoever to do with the crime in question.
It is also entirely possible it is a 'lead' on the actual
criminal. The police sometimes get clever and actually try to
follow up on leads to see where it leads them - sometimes shockingly
it actually leads them to the actual criminal who committed the crime.
The bookstore is for whatever reason - either it condones criminal
activity or simply services a market that is not in and of itself
illegal no matter how unsavory - doesn't matter. The bookseller
should probably be a good citizen and cooperate with the police,
maybe, but only if the bookseller sees that drug use leads to greater
crimes and it is part of nipping the problem in the bud as it
were.
The problem with the information the police request is that it
won't go away after the investigation is completed. Lets say
there are 10 purchasers of the book only one of whom was the
lab chemist. The other nine will now have a record in a database
somewhere opened for them and on a slow day the police may
decide to investigate them - I suppose an innocent person hasn't
a fear of a police investigation, huh? Well, its a waste of
taxpayer money at the very least. Now consider one of those
being a fine upstanding citizen wants to be a police officer, now
the background check reveals that he was a subject in an investigation
of a drug lab (a 'true' statement on the surface). The innocent
citizen might be denied a job (or military career) merely on that
information.
No, the more I think about it, the more correct the decision was.
The power of the state to even inadvertantly suppress its citizens
is so great that the wish of one of its citizens - no matter what
the reason - to not comply with a request should be upheld over
the state's request.
(jsaul, am I a 'strict constructionist'?)
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void
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response 22 of 37:
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Apr 11 09:59 UTC 2002 |
No, the bookseller was being a good citizen by demanding that the
police behave in a lawful manner themselves.
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flem
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response 23 of 37:
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Apr 11 12:59 UTC 2002 |
If you think an innocent citizen has no fear of a police investigation, in
this day of million-dollar trial costs and media that barely pays lip service
to innocent-until-proven-guilty, you're even dumber than you sound.
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orinoco
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response 24 of 37:
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Apr 11 14:15 UTC 2002 |
> It is also entirely possible it is a 'lead' on the actual
> criminal. The police sometimes get clever and actually try to
> follow up on leads to see where it leads them - sometimes shockingly
> it actually leads them to the actual criminal who committed the crime.
True. But no law could stop the police from using this receipt as a lead.
They'll just need more convincing evidence to present in court if they
want a conviction.
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