UPHOLDING THE 1ST AMENDMENT

Denver's huge Tattered Cover Book Store is to book lovers as Christmas is
to kids. The spacious, multi-storied home of one of the country's largest
independent bookstores caters to a reader's every whim.

It also cares about its readers' privacy, and Monday it won a big victory
in that regard.

The Colorado Supreme Court refused to order the store to tell police who
bought two how-to books on making illegal drugs, finding that the First
Amendment and the state constitution "protect an individual's fundamental
right to purchase books anonymously, free from governmental interference."

A lower court had ordered the store to turn over the buyer's identity to
the police, who contended the information was critical to their
investigation of a methamphetamine lab and that they had no other way to
prove who owned the books.

Store owner Joyce Meskis appealed, contending the order violated her
customers' First Amendment rights.

Legal observers noted that the case does not prohibit police from obtaining
bookstore records, but it sets a higher standard. Police must show a
compelling need for the information, rather than just a "substantial and
legitimate interest."

As often is the case in such disputes, the issues don't come only in black
and white. We want police to apprehend people who make meth. Yet, we don't
want the government snooping into our reading habits. That's a really
slippery slope.

(Recall the clamor when Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr subpoenaed Monica
Lewinski's purchase records from a Washington, D.C., bookstore.)

In the end, the Colorado justices unanimously upheld the deepest principle.
Police have many routine ways to catch criminals. But only the courts stand
between citizens and police-state-like surveillance of their reading matter.