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Tattered Cover v. Thornton Reversed
TheMatt writes "In a victory for all those who like the First Amendment, the Colorado Supreme Court today reversed
and remanded 'Tattered Cover v. Thornton'.
The case concerned the Thornton police attempting to use a search warrant to gain access to the book-buying records of a suspected criminal. The Tattered Cover asserted First Amendment rights and refused to comply with the warrant.
It is believed this will be heard by the US Supreme Court eventually." I can only imagine what the Tattered cover's legal bill must be like.
For those of you not from Colorado. The Tattered Cover is a bookstore chain out here in Colorado that specializes in all sorts of books over all sorts of subjects. The two stores that I am aware of (there may be more) are at least three, maybe for fours. There are not a used book store and the can be said to be larger than any Barnes and Nobles that I know of.
From a computer books perspective they are neither the best nor the worst but certainly they do carry them.
Beware the wood elf!!!
...I'd appreciate someone pointing me to the background for this story...
OK, here's the story. The local police busted a meth lab and found how-to drug manuals in a trailer, along with receipts from the bookstore. But the receipts didn't name the purchaser of the books, so the local DA subpoenaed the bookstore's customer records. The bookstore fought the subpoena and won.
When I first read this, I thought: "That's very strange. Why shouldn't the police be able to get the book buying records of a legitimate criminal suspect? They can get phone company records and credit card records, right?"
Pages 9 and 10 of the ruling make it clear:
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[Officer Goin] and DI McFarland then served the Tattered Cover with a DEA administrative subpoena. [...] Using such a subpoena was ordinarily a successful technique for DEA officers, though such a subpoena lacks any legal force or effect.
[...]
INSTEAD OF ATTEMPTING TO OBTAIN AN ENFORCEABLE SUBPOENA, Officer Goin approached prosecutors from the Adams County District Attorney's office to get a search warrant for the Tattered Cover. Several prosecutors at the Adams County DA's office refused to sign off on the warrant, voicing concerns about its scope and subject matter. [...]
Without informing the Adams County DA's office, Officer Goin sought approval for his search warrant from the Denver DA's office. As approved by a Denver DA, the warrant authorized a search of the Tattered Cover for information related to the transaction in question, and for records of any other transaction involving Suspect A during the thirty-day period before the police searched the trailer. A Denver county court judge then approved the warrant.
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So, basically the Officer was a dope who tried to do an end-run around the law. Oops!
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Actually, if you read the entire opinion, the judge talks quite a bit about why the 1st amendment *should* apply. To put it briefly, freedom of expression implies freedom to recieve that expression, ie. by purchasing and reading books; making it easy for law enforcement to find out who's reading what would have a substancial chilling effect on the first amendment rights of both book buyers and publishers as a whole.
Note that under the so-called "Patriot Act", not only will the FBI be able to seize these kinds of records, but it will be illegal for the media to report on any such seizure. How's that for the ability to rewrite history, Soviet-style?
Details here.
The FBI was never here, go about your business.
Actually, the Tattered Cover is quite well-heeled. I live in Denver, and the place is a Mecca for book lovers. It's the largest bookstore for a thousand miles in any direction. They have a second branch in LoDo (Lower-Downtown) which is smaller but still of quite a respectable size.
The main branch in downtown Denver has four stories of books (plus a basement). The fifth floor is a well-reviewd restaurant that serves fantastic garlic potatoes (among other things). Oh, and they have a coffee bar which serves the best cappucino in Denver.
The decor is tasteful and friendly; a big selling point in the Tattered Cover is that they provide lots of big, over-stuffed chairs and let you sit down and read before you buy. In some ways, it feels more like a library than a book store. Their selection of books is phenomenal; There's only one book I've been unable to obtain from them, and that was "On the Erythraean Sea" by Agatharchides of Cnidus. (Contains the only contemporary account of gold-mining techniques in Ptolemaic Egypt; hardly New York Times Best Seller List material.)
From what I've heard, they have a yearly revenue of a couple million. So, chances are that their web server is more likely to be a dual-cpu RAM-out-the-wazoo behemoth than a PII 450.