Feds lose bid for Amazon.com customer records
Federal prosecutors tried unsuccessfully to force Amazon.com to identify thousands of innocent customers who bought books online, then abandoned the idea after a judge rebuked them.
In an order that was sealed but has now become public, U.S. District Judge Stephen Crocker rejected the Justice Department's subpoena for details on Amazon's customers and their purchasing habits. Prosecutors had claimed the details would help them prove their case against a former Madison, Wisc., city official charged with tax evasion related to selling used books through Amazon.
"The subpoena is troubling because it permits the government to peek into the reading habits of specific individuals without their prior knowledge or permission," Crocker wrote in June. Amazon filed the lawsuit to quash the grand jury subpoena.
The case is reminiscent of last year's attempts by federal prosecutors to wrest sensitive search-related information from Google through a subpoena. A California judge eventually rejected the request for users' search queries (and allowed only an excerpt from Google's index of Web sites).
In both cases, the judges worried about public perception. California's Judge James Ware was concerned about the "perception by the public" that Google search terms are "subject to government scrutiny." In the Amazon case, Judge Crocker predicted that "rumors of an Orwellian federal criminal investigation into the reading habits of Amazon's customers could frighten countless potential customers into canceling planned online book purchases, now and perhaps forever."
Instead of giving the Bush administration what it wanted, Crocker split the difference, saying that Amazon could send letters to its customers asking them whether they voluntarily wanted to contact the Feds.
After losing the subpoena fight, Daniel Graber, the assistant U.S. Attorney in Madison, gave up and rescinded his request for the customer records.
The onetime Madison city official who's facing tax evasion, wire fraud, and money laundering charges is Robert D'Angelo. He was indicted in October on charges that he ran a sizable mail order business from his city office, using city computers, and city storage facilities. The business allegedly generated $238,000 in revenue through the sale of music CDs, costume jewelry, and--through Amazon--used books.
Initially, prosecutors demanded "virtually all" records from Amazon dealing with D'Angelo, including "the identities of thousands of customers who had bought used books" from him, according to court documents. Prosecutors subsequently narrowed the request to 120 book buyers, 30 per year for the four years under investigation--on the theory that FBI and IRS agents could then contact those 120 customers.
David Zapolsky, vice president of litigation for Amazon, told the Wisconsin State Journal that his employer tries to protect its customers' privacy rights from governmental fishing expeditions: "When we don 't know what the government wants the information for and we have a doubt whether it violates privacy or First Amendment rights, typically we will dialog with the government and try to understand what their perspective is or we'll make a motion and have a judge decide whether the government has any need for the information."
This subpoena, even more than the one directed at Google, highlights the tension between law enforcement's desire to assemble information--and the privacy rights of Americans who have that information stored by search engines or e-commerce sites.
If the Wisconsin subpoena had been directed at a credit card company or bank, the customer records would probably have been handed over without a fuss (and without any publicity). But booksellers and libraries have unique First Amendment protections under U.S. law that can shield them from some overzealous demands by police for personal information.
In an important 2002 case, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that police could not serve a search warrant on Denver's Tattered Cover Book Store. Two years earlier, a judge denied the Drug Enforcement Administration's attempts to get sales records from a Borders bookstore as part of a grand jury investigation. And perhaps the most famous case came when independent counsel Kenneth Starr tried unsuccessfully to obtain Monica Lewinsky's purchase records from Kramerbooks, a popular neighborhood bookstore in Washington, D.C.
Knock Knock, Mr. Smith I see you have been reading several cook books that I really hate and the FBI really needs to know if you really cook that good?
Waste of tax payer dollars.
the government can request access to them.
http://ixquick.com/
It is overseas and they keep no records of searches.
If the Feds are able to nab a child molester or terrorist by monitoring reading habits, emails, or website visits, great!
I know there will be tons of backlash from my comments. But only from the people who are so paranoid and delusional that they think they are going to be tossed in jail because they visit a porn site or read a communist/socialist text.
But holey cr*p - the reason is that otherwise Amazon might lose money? That's the criterion for deciding intrusion of privacy and freedom of speech cases now - that a corporation might lose profit?
i'm just glad there's at least one patriot business left in this God forsaken country.
like someone said,this is worst than 1984.
Instead of a knee jerk response like "the govt shouldn't be allowed to do this ..." or "...its 1984 ..."
Think about the issue at hand.
There was a public figure who's being charged with tax evasion and use of public equipment for personal use/gain...
$230K per year on a side business buying and selling used items?
Hmmm. Something stinks...
Had the FBI first asked for the list of transactions by the mayor with the names and street addresses blocked out, then it probably would have gone through. (They are investigating the transactions of one individual.) Knowing the buyer's city and state would be important to see if there was something fishy going on. Such as laundering money or a bribe. (Sure I'll pay you $50,000 for that used copy of "The C reference manual mr mayor...
So where do you draw the line?
The cops are not looking for other information. However, how much screaming would they face if they had, plain as anything, evidence of kiddy porn or evidence that someone was planning another 9-11, and pulled it off?
*Amazon - for the reason stated in this article.
*Google - because they too have fought to protect our privacy from an all too accusative government...
*Verizon - because they too fought the government when people with too much power demanded the names of citizens that were thought to have downloaded a song.
This is the NewWorldOrder that 9/11 ushered in and it is only going to get worse no matter what candidate wins. 9/11 was a FALSE FLAG ATTACK. Wake up Americans! Do the research and you will find I am correct. Richard Gage's "How the Towers Fell" video will inform you of all you need to know. Search YouTube: 911: Eyewitness Says No 757. Bit by bit your rights are eroding away into nothingness--never to be recaptures. Ignorance is your undoing!