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Judge Backs Amazon, Raps Feds Over Book Records

Posted by kdawson on from the can't-hide-your-prying-eyes dept.

netbuzz alerts us to a ruling in federal court that has just been made public. US Magistrate Judge Stephen Crocker told the Feds to lay off Amazon in denying prosecutors' requests for records of who bought what books at the online retailer. The judge wrote, "The [subpoena's] chilling effect on expressive e-commerce would frost keyboards across America." Prosecutors had demanded 24,000 transaction records from Amazon, all in service of convicting a city official on charges of fraud and tax evasion. In the end they found customer information on the official's PC, where they should have looked in the first place.

4 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. precedence by theMerovingian · · Score: 3, Interesting


    This sounds factually similar to the Robert Bork video rental disclosure issue. See here.

    --
    "If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
  2. Woops by goingforaslash · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Another case of the powers at be sitting in a room full of mirrors and muttering "Woops".

  3. New /. groupthink by BooRolla · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Seriously. We all should be liking Amazon about now (at least for a little bit). They stood up to the Feds even when they really didn't have to beyond the inconvenience.

    We can get back to hating them for the single click patent after Christ^H^H^H^H the holidays.

    (Interesting note: captcha was 'dogma')

  4. Re:This is America Right? by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It generally doesn't happen overnight, or all at once. A certain paperhanger and his minions didn't transform Germany in one fell swoop -- it was done gradually, eroding the rights and privacies of the people little by little, step by step, always under the guise of it being for their own good or protection from bad guys. I'm not necessarily making a direct comparison here.....I'm just saying.... Actually, it was pretty close to overnight. The Weimar Republic was never very well supported by the German people. Hitler was appointed Chancellor on January 30, 1933, and his government suspended civil rights on February 28, 1933. The Nazi's got 37% of the vote in November 1932 and those who didn't know what Hitler intended weren't paying attention. The only reason Hindenburg agreed to appoint Hitler Chancellor was because he thought that Hitler could be controlled.
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    The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison