LOCAL HERO: JUDGE STOPS BUSH REGIME FROM SUBPOENA CITIZENS' BOOK ORDERS

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AP - Federal prosecutors have withdrawn a subpoena seeking the
identities of some people who bought used books through Amazon.com,
newly unsealed court records show. The withdrawal came after a judge
ruled that the customers have a First Amendment right to keep their
reading habits from the government.

The subpoena's "chilling effect on expressive e-commerce would frost
keyboards across America," U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Crocker wrote
in a June ruling.
"Well-founded or not, 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," the judge wrote in a ruling he unsealed last week.

Crocker, who unsealed documents against prosecutors' wishes, said he
believed prosecutors were seeking the information for a legitimate
purpose. But he said First Amendment concerns were justified and
outweighed the subpoena's law enforcement purpose.

"The subpoena is troubling because it permits the government to peek
into the reading habits of specific individuals without their knowledge
or permission," Crocker wrote. "It is an unsettling and un-American
scenario to envision federal agents nosing through the reading lists of
law-abiding citizens while hunting for evidence against somebody else."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/27/
AR2007112702199.html


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