2000-10-25 - 23:44:44

October 25. 2000

Ebbing Of Freedom

The Tattered Cover, a bookstore is under fire now by the courts and law officials. The reason ? I will try a short quote or two, "Members of a metro-area task force investigating a suspected methamphetamine lab found two apparently new books on how to run one, and in a trash can outside, a Tattered Cover mailing envelope with an invoice number. Officers obtained a subpoena asking the store to provide "the title and nature of any and all books shipped on that invoice, and also any other orders placed by a certain named customer."

Today's editorial hopes that the owner of the bookstore appeals the decision of the judge. To go on, "There's always a good excuse when government officials want to tear a little piece out of the Bill Of Rights. The excuse this time is the, "WAR ON DRUGS." That's fishing in the First Amendment waters, and the owner said she would go to court rather than comply. Then the Drug cops got a search warrant -- "It is pretty scary when the police show up," the owner said -- and she obtained a temporary restraining order preventing them from executing the warrant."Now the judge ruled that the Tattered Cover had to give the information requested about the specific invoice. He upheld the restraint on the search of a whole month's records. The editorial goes on with a quote by Justice William O. Douglas, who said, "Once the government can demand of a publisher the names of the purchasers of his publications, the free press as we know it disappears." "The purchase of a book or a pamphlet today may result in a subpoena tomorrow."

The editor further says, "We disagree, because we believe the likely cost of allowing government to delve into the reading habits of its citizens, even criminal suspects, is far higher than the benefit of convicting a single criminal -- not that it is even certain that the information from the invoice will contribute to the outcome."

To carry this thing a bit further toward the obvious ridiculous end, if they searched my house and found a playboy magazine, on a bookshelf Boccacio's Decameron beside a copy of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales," would that be grounds for convicting me of being a sex criminal ? ? ? ? ?

What actual - real evidence is it ? Even the possession of the book by them is problematical contributing evidence in my mind.

Circumstances requiring circumstantial evidence to bolster a case verges on the asinine, but I guess it has put many a man behind bars and will continue to do so as long as there are these, "rabid -- for the good of mankind" -- types who are propagandizing to hem us in more and more. Geez, soon will I have to obtain permission to use a public urinal or submit to a "no knock" search of my bathroom -- or a ransacking of the cabinet under my sink ? And while they are searching, if they should see some of the previously mentioned books -- will they try to use that as evidence of criminal activity ?

Piece by piece and little bits nibbled away as time goes on and our freedom will be gone and the freedom of expression is definitely under fire here. I can't see where the book is valid evidence in the procedure UNLESS there is hard evidence that methamphetamine was being manufactured and processed there. It is kind of like the girl telling her mother, "I'm not going out with Bill anymore, he whistles dirty songs." There is an old saying which I have read many versions of, "He is hoist by his own petard," which essentially says that he is entangled in his own explosive device and will be blown up with the gate he is trying to breach. We are in danger I think, of lighting too short a fuse resulting in the Ebbing Of Freedom.

Blog