Bookseller Purges Records to Avoid PATRIOT Act

Skyshadow writes "Vermont Bookseller Bear Pond Books has announced that they will purge their sales records at the request of customers . This would effectively sidestep typically insideous a provision of the PATRIOT Act which allows government agencies to secretly seize sales records. The store's co-owner, Michael Katzenberg, put it this way: 'When the CIA comes and asks what you've read because they're suspicious of you, we can't tell them because we don't have it... That's just a basic right, to be able to read what you want without fear that somebody is looking over your shoulder to see what you're reading.' Now if only certain other booksellers would show that same conscience, we might have something here."

Re:Obstruction of justice

[Sunlighter]

Not unless they destroy it after it has actually been subpoenaed or otherwise requested.

If they or you destroy data that no one wants, then, hey... that's life.

Re:Obstruction of justice

[Queer Boy]

if destruction of records is not a normal business practice (to my knowledge its not), then i have to wonder if some creatative sort in the DoJ is going to try to attack them for obstuction

From what I gathered, they are informing their customers of a new customer service policy. They only keep records from customers that agree to it and they are giving everyone equal footing by purging existing records by request.

It's also an "all or nothing". They are not purging individual items from their database.

This is typical retail practise. Customer wants their information purged from the company's system, fine. Bear Pond is just making it sound like they're the only one doing it.

Re:Law Enforcement

[elmegil]

The problem is most of us have given up on finding any decent politicians. Quite honestly I can't think of any where I'm from.

Re:Problem Solved

[Thu Anon Coward]

uhhhh...eBay DOES track you and will hand over the info without a subpoena. furthermore, if they think you ARE acting suspicious they will turn you over to law enforcement and suggest they check you out

Re:Right to privacy

[jonman_d]

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

==

Just because you're not specifically guaranteed the right to privacy anywhere, doesn't mean you don't have it. The only way you _wouldn't_ have it would be if the constitution specifically said, "the federal government shall have the right to invade the private lives of citizens."

Absolutely incorrect...

[dameron]

The CIA does not, and is not allowed, to opperate within the borders of the united states. It may be the FBI or NSA that comes looking but CIA is strictly for international matters.

Wow, someone who actually believes this. You should be tranquilized, tagged, and returned to the wild so scientists can study your habits because you are a rare and fascinating aberration.

Here's a brief summary of what the Church Committee came up with in 1975: link [labournet.net]. A few select quotes from the article sited:

• the CIA infiltrated religious, media, and academic organizations.
  
• the CIA engaged in drug experiments (the MK/ULTRA Project) against unsuspecting subjects (two of whom died from side effects).
  
• intelligence agencies carried out burglaries in the homes and offices of suspected "subversives".
• a CIA program to open mail to or from selected American citizens generated 1.5 million names stored in the Agency's computer bank.

Here's a fine page with many links to goverment documents such as the Church Committee's and the Rockefeller reports on CIA abuses within the U.S.: link [history-matters.com]

Now of course all these things are in the past, and the Church report defanged the CIA right? Right? Surely the CIA would never do that again... But it really doesn't matter, as the USA PATRIOT Act gives the CIA pretty much a free hand at intelligence gathering in the US anyway.

-dameron

Ebay's Policy

[nyc_paladin]

Kind of interesting to here about this when I heard on the Screen Savers that eBay is more than willing to hand over any user's information to the goverment without a supeona or court order. Here is a link to the original artical [haaretzdaily.com]where the senior council for eBay had a close door meeting with cyber crimes divisions of goverment agencies.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Nice, but old concept...

[SmurfButcher Bob]

Companies have had this concept for years. Typical document retention policy is "useful life" - for contracts, it'd be life of contract + 6.5 years. For crap records, it's as long is it's relevent, then whack it immediately.

And the reason is simple - all this junk needs to be stored, which costs money, and managed - which costs more money. Then, if someone wants it (and you have it), you have to find it - that's a ton of money... then the lawyers etc. get to review it, and that's a fortune, over a freakin post-it note that would never be used in your favor, meaning at best it won't be used against you in a suit... more often than not, it'll simply provide the cause needed for them to request more documents.

Yick.

Re:Obstruction of justice

[lawyamike]

All right. The answer is, there is no short answer. The elements of obstruction of justice or of spoliation vary from State to State. The safest bet is to establish a regular, consistent regime for destruction of old documents. That is, to institute a verifiable program under which you or your organization sends all inactive files to the doc disposal company every three months or so. Even if there were a generalized -- and in my view, unsubstantiated -- fear that the Gov't might want old receipts within this book store's possession, absent knowledge of more specific and imminent legal proceedings, the book store's destruction of records probably would not cause it any legal trouble.

This is not legal advice, of course. And if you are interested in real legal advice, you ought to hire an expensive lawyer.

Re:Farenheit 451 anyone?

[crmsndude]

What the F---!!!

The ALA isn't silencing the mention of subpoenas. Librarians have been ordered to by the DoJ to NOT acknowledged them to account holders upon penalty of criminal charges (i.e., obstruction) in spite of the ALA's utter contempt for the PATRIOT ACT .

The ALA has been trying to get programs similar to what this bookstore is doing enacted across all American Libraries. There are bigger problems enacting this in libraries, however because the government can pull all manner of strings to stop any preventative action on behlaf of individuals' rights. However, they are also a bit busy trying to uphold the First Amendment against this same government alongside the EFF in the government's idiotic notion that public access to information online must be filtered to "protect children."

you aint seen nothin yet...

[s0rbix]

Just wait until Patriot Act THE SEQUEL [aclu.org]

Re:Right to privacy

[Melantha_Bacchae]

IANAL, but as far as I can tell, the Fourth Amendment seems to imply it:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I don't think it is too big of a stretch to apply "papers" to modern electronic records of purchases, medical records, email, etc. If my reasoning is correct, then the Fourth Amendment would not only forbid the CIA from searching our purchase records without a warrant, etc., but it would also forbid something like the Total Information Awareness database.

I think the Fourth Amendment is kind of a sibling to the Fifth Amendment. Whereas the Fifth protects us from having to testify against ourselves, the Fourth protects us from having our bodies, homes, things, and records (including electronic?) testify against us, at least without some kind of due process.

The people who wrote the Constitution had suffered under British rule. They had soldiers forced upon them, living in their homes, going through their things. If the soldiers saw anything suspicious, they would just report it, and that person could be sent to England for trial. (Think about the TIPS program, replace the soldiers with the cable guy, and you have the exact same situation.) These people knew what privacy violation felt like, they had had no privacy, not even in their own homes.

That this right to privacy, to "be secure in our persons, houses, papers and effects", was one of the first to be violated by the Attorney General is reprehensible. That it was violated (and continues to be violated) in the name of "security" is ridiculous. But then, we are living in the times where CNN ("the most trusted name in news" -- what a laugh) has declared that Congress does not believe in the First Amendment. Heck, I'm surprised they let the company execs of Enron, et al, take the Fifth!

"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)