The Colorado Supreme Court has unanimously decided that citizens have a “fundamental right to purchase books anonymously.” Police investigators had demanded that the Tattered Cover, a Denver independent bookseller, provide sales records with individual identification information on customers who had purchased a book about making illegal drugs.
A state appellate court had ordered the bookseller to release the information to law enforcement officials.
The Colorado Supreme Court decision makes a hearing mandatory before a search warrant can be executed on a bookstore when the bookstore is not a target of an investigation.
As my local independent bookseller pointed out last February, the new antiterrorism laws give the federal government the authority to search bookstore records.
The New York Times published typically mediocre coverage. Much more thorough was Pat Holt’s analysis this morning. (Ed. note: that link will probably break in about a week.)
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