BOOKS AND POLICE SEARCHES

Fishing Expedition?

I would like to add my two cents to the issues surrounding a local
bookseller's ongoing resistance to a subpoena regarding a customer's
purchase.

I am a longtime, frequent customer of the Tattered Cover. In fact, my
wife used to work there and we were married in the Fourth Story
restaurant. I will also stipulate that it is a wonderful business and
Joyce Meskis does an admirable job of presenting an extremely wide
range of viewpoints in the sociopolitical spectrum. I am also
generally in favor of the legalization of drugs on primarily
libertarian as well as practical, pragmatic grounds.

I agreed with Meskis' thwarting of what was originally a blatant
fishing expedition. However, where we part company is her continuing
refusal to surrender the information pertaining to a single invoice
related to two books on illicit methamphetamine production that were
found at a crime scene.

This is not a case of infringement on anyone's First Amendment rights.
My copy of the Constitution only states that the freedom of the press
shall not be abridged. No one has said the writing, printing, sale,
purchase or reading of these books should be banned or restricted. But
there is no presumption of privacy beyond the reach of legitimate
inquiry by law enforcement for purchase of printed materials any more
than there would be for the purchase of any other tangible item that
might be linked to the commission of a crime.

Would anyone defend, for even a second, the rights of a gunshop owner
to refuse to cooperate with investigators regarding the sale of a
firearm suspected of use in a crime on Second Amendment grounds? It
would be considered an outrageous attack on our freedoms to require
certain books to carry individual serial numbers and be registered
with the authorities.

However, many consider this a perfectly reasonable limitation to
"right of the people to keep and bear arms."

In fact, in the recent election, we approved yet another restriction
of our Second Amendment rights. The oft-heard justification for
background checks being that "law-abiding people have nothing to fear;
we're only trying to limit criminal access. Nobody needs a handgun (a
book) on illicit drug man ufacture; its only use is to break the law."

Sound familiar? And I say this as someone who recognizes a legitimate,
law-abiding purpose for such books, fiction research, for example. Ah,
but you say, guns are inherently dangerous. What about how-to manuals
on murder, child molestation or homemade explosives?

A bookseller has no more right to withhold specific information that
may be material to a crime investigation than a chemical manufacturer
can stonewall the investigation of a bombing. The fact that the item,
or items, in question happen to be a collection of printed pages is
wholly irrelevant. Would you also exempt contracts, letters,
brochures, etc., or other forms of printed or handwritten material?

At what point does a collection of printed pages assume the sacred
mantle of protected privilege? Hard cover? Paperback? Do periodicals
qualify? Minimum edition size? Books are not sacrosanct in this regard
and the First Amendment, like the rest, is not absolute in all
respects or in all cases.

I've also sensed the implication by some defenders that a bookstore,
or library for that matter, is some sort of sanctuary. Let's suppose
the suspect never actually bought the incriminating text; he merely
perused it while on the premises. Would you argue against a store
employee testifying to that fact or refuse to allow the police to
fingerprint the manual in question? To revisit the gun store analogy,
would the First Amendment absolutists advise similar restraint in the
investigation of a suspicious patron?

A final note to the chemistry majors: Pay cash next
time.

MITCH MOSCHETTI Denver