OF BRAVERY AND BOOKSELLING

Hurrah to Joyce Meskis for fighting the good fight by not only protecting
the privacy of her customers but by being a champion of the First Amendment.

The Colorado Supreme Court sided with her by refusing to force her
bookstore, the Tattered Cover, to turn over its receipts, saying that both
the U.S. and the Colorado constitutions protect people's fundamental rights
to purchase books anonymously.

Law enforcement officials stomp on that right when they seek customer
purchase records from legitimate booksellers. The court ruled that Colorado
bookstores are entitled to a hearing prior to the execution of such a
warrant. The decision doesn't mean that law enforcement will always lose
and never obtain such records, it just establishes a process to be followed
in order to get them.

The brouhaah began two years ago when Meskis refused to let the North Metro
Drug Task Force search the records in her Lower Downtown store.

The drug officers had found two books on how to develop methamphetamine
labs during a raid of a meth lab. Also discovered was a receipt from the
Tattered Cover. The officers wanted to connect the lab with the buyer of
the books and thought that a search of the bookstore's receipts would make
the connection.

But knowing that people expect their purchases to be private and
confidential, Meskis refused and contacted an attorney. The officers
subsequently failed to obtain a search warrant from Adams County, but a
Denver County judge signed off on a warrant.

When members of the task force went to the Tattered Cover with the search
warrant, Meskis called her attorney, who called the Denver district
attorney's office and informed a deputy district attorney of the First
Amendment implications of the case. The officers were told not to deliver
the order, but the signed warrant remained active and could still
potentially have been executed.

The incident, however, gave Meskis' attorney time to file a temporary
restraining order until a court could hear arguments.

The issue went all the way to the Colorado Supreme Court, but it ended
positively. We thank Meskis for her dogged fight. More than customer
privacy was at stake in the case: The First Amendment right to free press
and the right to read were also at risk.