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.

Comments

That sound you hear.....

[s1r_m1xalot]

is the death shriek of an innocent server running Apache on a PII 450 somewhere in central Colorado...
May God have mercy on Tattered Cover's admin. ;)

Re:That sound you hear.....

[Selanit]

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.

Judgeorama?

[RollingThunder]

JUSTICE BENDER delivered the Opinion of the Court.

"The prosecution can bite my shiny, metal ass. Case dismissed."

It's a shame that this sham has gone this far.

[dave-fu]

It's bad enough that the RIAA wants to watch who's listening to what and where and how. It's bad enough that the MPAA wants to make sure you don't watch DVDs in the wrong country on the wrong brand of TV. It's horrible that they've bought enough senators to have their way with us, but it's fucking untenable that what we read can be subpeoaned and used against us.
Reading, music and movies are all unsafe at any speed. Let me know if you find a hobby I can enjoy without feeling someone's eyes on my back.

In this case

[guamman]

The Tattered Cover may not be in the right. The first amendment protects speech, religion, and the right to openly demonstrate those. It does not protect the right to privacy. I can certainly understand the bookstores reluctance to give out its customer's purchasing records, but if the government has a warrant there might not be much that can be done. I would assume this falls under the fourth amendment about search and seizure.

Re:In this case

[Zoop]

if the government has a warrant there might not be much that can be done

Read the actual decision in the word document. It's pretty plain there that the expression of speech includes consuming speech without harassment, which implies a right to privacy. While it would be better explicit, this is what a woman's right to choose is (mistakenly, IMO) based on. (I'd prefer it be based on property rights, but that's a whole 'nuther argument).

There's a lot of constitutional scholarship that has found a right to privacy implicit in the other rights, including those expressed in the First Amendment. This decision attempts to set up a test, essentially that the hated "compelling state interest," must be determined in an adversarial proceeding before seizure occurs--that means not just the DA and a judge in a darkened room, but a hearing giving the affected party a chance to object. And on the basis of the facts of the case, the Court did not find compelling state interest sufficient to outweigh the constitutional harm.

The Supreme Court may yet overturn it, but it would be an interesting precedent if upheld. That would significantly curtail the ability of police to do various seizures without a suspect's knowledge. Since several of those things (e.g. wiretaps) have passed constitutional muster before, that's where I see this to be in danger of being overturned, rather than a lack of a right to privacy.

Re:In this case

[cduffy]

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.

Re:Tattered cover...

[jheinen]

It's actually a really cool bookstore. It's positively huge - four floors, with comfy chairs and couches all over the place. They have successfully perservered as an independent bookstore in the face of competition from the big chains.

My god...someone give this man a medal!

[Cutriss]

"Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation--and their ideas from suppression--at the hand of an intolerant society," wrote Justice Bender.

Mr. Bender, would you please run for Congress?

Tattered Cover

[daviskw]

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.

Even that doesn't work...

[Big Sean O]

My computer store always asks for my name and address, even when I buy with cash. I usually tell them "No thanks" but one woman kept at it, so I gave her the address for Wrigley Field, heh heh.

Radio Shack was the original offender in this 'collecting your address to serve you better' BS, but it seems to be picking up steam as 'the thing to do'.

So, pay cash, and remember "3600 N. Clark Street, Chicago Illinois, 60657".
-----

Supreme Court

[Artagel]

I doubt the U.S. Supreme Court will take it.

The Colorado Supreme Court restricted the ability of Colorado police to execute a search warrant.

First, there is a doctrine that says if there is an independent state ground for the ruling, then there is not a basis for Supreme Court review. This doctrine has less applicability when a Constitutional right is being allegedly violated. However, nobody says that the Colorado police have a Constitutional right to the search -- if anything the ruling tends to support Constitutional rights.

Second, Federalism doctrine, which the current U.S. Supreme Court favors, would tend to lead to the conclusion that the U.S. Supreme Court should let the Colorado Supreme Court rein in the Colorado police if it wants to.

There will be other cases in the future, and the Supreme Court may well hear one. Just not this one.

Re:An uninformed opinion

[s390]

...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.

Why bother to support your local bookstore?

[melquiades]

One question:

Can you imagine Barnes & Noble, Borders, or Amazon.com doing what the Tattered Cover has done?

Subpoena, not search warrant!

[Spazmania]

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:

---

[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.

---

So, basically the Officer was a dope who tried to do an end-run around the law. Oops!

Thanks, TC

[Pinball Wizard]

Something most independent bookstores have in common is that they will fight tooth and nail to preserve your First Amendment rights. What Tattered just did was fight back what could easily be the first step on a slippery slope to eroding our rights. Think of what might happen next if Tattered lost. Publishers might become reluctant to publish so-called "subversive" material. Readers would have to be wary about which books they bought, knowing that the records could be subpeonaed.

Think about that the next time you buy books. The big chains, amazon, et. al do not have this tradition of protecting your information - in fact they are looking at ways to make use of it for marketing purposes. Its the independent bookstores around the country who really care about defending the First Amendment, because that reflects in the quality of literature we will see, and ultimately reflects on our individual freedom to write and speak as we choose. When was the last time you saw "Banned Books week" at amazon.com or Barnes & Noble?

Now we have a good legal precedent to back us up. Thanks, Tattered Cover!

Before you break out the champagne, ...

[blamanj]

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.

A modest proposal

[kindbud]

In the future, instead of linking to Amazon when you want to refer someone to a book, link to The Tattered Cover, like this:

The Termcap Manual, by Richard Stallman.

Support the folks that regard as important the same ideals you regard as important. Amazon is not your friend. The Tattered Cover is. They are fighting the good fight, and at no small cost to themselves. You should thank them by sending them your business and your friends' business.