Colorado High Court Rules
Bookstore Records Are Private
In an unanimous 6–0 decision April 8, the Colorado Supreme Court reversed a ruling that had required Denver’s Tattered Cover bookstore to tell police who purchased two 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 Denver district judge had ordered the store in October 2000 to give police a copy of an invoice believed to have been in a Tattered Cover envelope found outside a mobile home. Police had found a methamphetamine lab and the drug-making books inside the home. The American Library Association and the Freedom to Read Foundation filed an amicus curiae brief in the case.
Bruce Jones, who wrote the American Civil Liberties Union brief supporting the bookstore, predicted that the decision will be cited by libraries and bookstores that resist efforts by law-enforcement officials to obtain their records under the USA Patriot Act. The law, passed last October in the wake of the September 11 terrorism attacks, overrides existing privacy laws to allow the FBI to compel disclosure of any kind of records.
“There was a provision in the act about being able to go after library and bookstore records,” Jones told the April 9 Denver Post. “I think this case will serve as a guidepost to other courts when those issues arise in the terrorist arena, just as the court today issued its order in the drug arena.”
Posted April 15, 2002.
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