Frosty keyboards
In light of recent trends toward less privacy and more intrusive government surveillance power, it was something of a surprise to read this article:
Federal prosecutors withdrew a subpoena of Amazon.com's records of customers who purchased used books after a Wisconsin judge warned that "rumors of an Orwellian" probe could "frost keyboards across America."
The subpoena was in the case of Robert D'Angelo, a former used book seller on Amazon who has been indicted for fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion. The feds were looking for potential witnesses in the case and wanted to use the subpoena to find former customers of D'Angelo whom they could contact and presumably ask to testify against him.
Although I don't think such a subpoena is inherently wrong in all situations, the prosecutors took it way too far in this case:
[US Magistrate Judge Stephen] Crocker -- who unsealed documents detailing the showdown 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."
The judge also said this:
"If word were to spread over the Net -- and it would -- that the FBI and the IRS had demanded and received Amazon's list of customers and their personal purchases, the chilling effect on expressive e-commerce would frost keyboards across America," Crocker wrote in June.
Crocker added: "Fiery rhetoric quickly would follow and the nuances of the subpoena would be lost as the cyberdebate roiled itself to a furious boil. One might ask whether this court should concern itself with blogger outrage disproportionate to the government's actual demand of Amazon. The logical answer is yes, it should."
How 'bout them apples?
He also pretty much nails the issue of judicial oversight of government surveillance with this:
"Shining some sunlight on the instant dispute reassures the public that someone is watching the watchers, and that this district's federal prosecutors are part of the solution, not part of the problem," he wrote.
Amen to that.