SHOULD THE POLICE KNOW WHAT YOU READ?

Denver Case Tests Bookstore Privacy

The Colorado Supreme Court is expected to decide this spring whether
police have the authority to search bookstore sales records. Since no
other state high court has ever weighed in on the question, the case
is expected to have wide repercussions.

Like so many cases that threaten to further erode our constitutional
protections, the case arose from the "Drug War." Narcotics police
were staking out a trailer in suburban Denver, where agents suspected
a methamphetamine lab was operating. As part of the surveillance,
they combed through the trailer's trash and came across a shipping
envelope from Denver's Tattered Cover bookstore, bearing an invoice
number.

When police raided the trailer, they found two books by pseudonymous
authors, "Advanced Techniques of Psychedelic and Amphetamine
Manufacture," by Uncle Fester, and "The Construction and Operation of
Clandestine Drug Laboratories," by Jack B. Nimble. Police hoped to
connect the trailer owner to the books. But to do so, they said they
needed to see the Tattered Cover's computerized records.

Bookstore owner Joyce Meskis refused to cooperate.

Ironically, only one drug charge was ever filed, and it's already
been dropped. The case is now important solely for the bookstore's
First Amendment challenge.

"Joyce is a very stubborn lady," said Chris Finan, president of the
American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, of the Tattered
Cover's owner. "Her philosophy is that people should make their own
decisions about what they read, and her job is to make available to
her customers what they request."

"We sell any book that is constitutionally protected," Meskis told
the Los Angeles Times. "Once we start imposing our value system on
you, the customer, we firmly plant our feet on a slippery slope."

Many, of course, will protest that they would never buy a "how-to"
book on the clandestine pharmaceutical trade, asking why such matters
should concern anyone ... "unless you have something to hide."

But what if one were falsely accused of child molestation? Can we be
sure no book or magazine we've ever bought contains pictures that
might seem "suspicious" in light of such a charge? If you or your
spouse were falsely accused of espionage, are you sure you don't have
technical books in your home that might raise the question, "What did
you need this for?"

Nations whose citizens can get in trouble based on what they read
live in a much chillier political climate. It's hard to demonstrate
"The emperor has no clothes" if you can get in trouble just for
buying a book that proves it.

Bookstore sales records deserve First Amendment protection -- just as
48 states now protect library circulation records from police
snooping. Till such protection is afforded, American bookstore
customers should strongly consider paying cash, and refusing to give
their names.

Which is a pretty sad state of affairs.