Book Business Heroes
- By Karen Wright
From the first Congress, Article III, which became the First Amendment, guarantees freedom of speech and the press. Courtesy of L. of C.
By Karen Wright
There aren’t many Indiana Joneses or Wonder Woman-type heroes in the book selling business, but there are still heroes. One of mine is Joyce Meskis of the Tattered Cover in Denver, Colorado, and a Wonder Woman she is, but in a different way. The Tattered Cover is a great big beautiful bookstore with more than a half million new books in stock and two stores, one in the Old Town part of Denver and another in the upscale Cherry Creek area.
One of the constitutional rights that Joyce Meskis and a huge majority of we booksellers and librarians value more than any other, is the First Amendment to our Constitution. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
There is endless debate about exactly what was intended with the establishment of this amendment; the result of too many lawyers with too much time on their hands, perhaps. However, it seems to be pretty much agreed that publications are definitely covered under freedom of speech. Thus, it would seem that the searching of records to see what people read should be covered as well. But of course, not everyone agrees, that’s why there are more flavors than chocolate.
Joyce Meskis has been concerned with censorship and First Amendment rights since she was a teenager. As she said in an interview with Shirley Bryant, former IOBA Standard Editor and current IOBA President, “I could never imagine why people would want to censor material, because I felt strongly then (as I do now) that our governmental system is based on the access to and debate of ideas of all kinds. In order to have an informed citizenry, they need the freedom to read. People don't just need to have access to the ideas with which they agree, but also those with which they might disagree. Don't we want to know what the other side is thinking? (IOBA Standard – Vol. III, No. 2).
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Book Business Heroes
- By Karen Wright
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Long about March of 2000, five police officers marched into The Tattered Cover with a search warrant giving the police the right to obtain information about the books that had been purchased by a specific customer suspected in a drug investigation. When searching his home and garbage, the police had found two drug recipe books; Techniques of Clandestine Psychedelic and Amphetamine Manufacture, by Uncle Fester, and Construction and Operation of Clandestine Drug Laboratories, 2nd edition, by Jack B. Nimble. They also found a receipt, without the names of the books purchased, and some packing materials from Tattered Cover.
Citing First Amendment rights of its customers, and in spite of the healthy, natural fear that most of us feel when confronted with a team of armed police, Ms. Meskis, owner of the Tattered Cover Bookstore, stood firm and refused to allow the police to search the records. The police maintained their need for this material outweighed First Amendment protections, Ms. Meskis did not concur. According to the American Bookseller's Foundation for Free Expression website, “The Tattered Cover argued that the police failed to demonstrate a compelling need for the records and a sufficient nexus between the records and the criminal investigation.” In other words, there were a number of other avenues they could have taken to establish the guilty parties without checking out their reading habits. Though we may never know whether these two books were actually mailed from the Tattered Cover, the two books found by the police in the suspect’s home lacked a Tattered Cover label, which is placed on the back cover of every book they mail from their store and there were other books in the home that could have come from Tattered Cover or any other bookstore, for that matter.
According to the ABFFE, Ms. Meskis’ refusal was followed by the ACLU of Colorado filing “an amicus brief arguing that the state constitutional right of free expression requires special procedural protections when the government seeks information about who is reading which particular books.” She lost the first battle, but went to appeals court and, “in a groundbreaking opinion that recognizes the dangers posed by government monitoring of citizens’ reading habits, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in favor of the bookstore.” The court ruled that bookstores must have a chance for a hearing before the search warrant is executed. Of course that wasn’t the end of it and what followed was a lot of sloppy police work, a lot of expensive court procedures and an enormous amount of wasted time for all involved.
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Book Business Heroes
- By Karen Wright
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Though this decision only affects Colorado, the long-range effect, if all booksellers stand up to this intrusive procedure, may be that the government can no longer search one’s reading habits in hopes of finding some way to prosecute for a breach of the law.
Chris Finan, President of the ABFFE said, in an interview with Christopher Dreher from Salon.com, "If we allow law enforcement access to customer records whenever they think it's convenient, customers won't feel secure purchasing books and magazines that are their constitutional right to buy. It's important because many books are very private, or about sensitive issues, and if they feel booksellers turn over buying information at regular intervals, customers won't buy those books."
Now, one might argue that amphetamine manufacturers and drug dealers do not deserve First Amendment protection. It is certainly not the intention of any book dealer of my acquaintance to encourage the manufacture and dealing of dangerous drugs or condone any other crime for that matter. Most of us are law-abiding and support our local law officers. But that is not the issue. The fact remains that once the government is allowed to pry into these kinds of records – books, videos, emails, etc. – they will be closing the distance to Big Brother. Just about any book that one reads could be used to prove one is some sort of criminal.
At a hearing in October of 2000, our hero, Meskis, explained that bookstore customers should not have to be afraid to buy controversial books and went on to note that she received hundreds of letters and phone calls from people who fully agreed with her. Other witnesses included Judith Krug, a librarian and director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association. She explained that “violating the reader’s right to privacy would ultimately erode public dissemination of information.” (ABFFE).
In addition, “Charles Robinson, a Washington bookseller who has belonged to the American Booksellers Association for twenty years, including two terms as its president, and who served as founding vice-president and is a current board member of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, testified regarding the heavy and far-reaching burden compliance with search warrants such as these would present.” (ABFFE).
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Book Business Heroes
- By Karen Wright
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“The district court exacerbated its error in excusing the police officers’ failure to attempt to ascertain the information via alternative investigative techniques that do not involve the invasion of the First Amendment, and in failing to weigh the potential value of the evidence and the relative importance of the criminal case against the First Amendment principles at stake.” (ABFFE).
It was law enforcement’s premise that the material you read is indicative of your proclivity to commit crime (I hope not, I read lots of murder mysteries!). The bookstore’s and ACLU’s premise was the police should have been more interested in who, of the suspected parties, had been actually manufacturing and selling the drugs, not what books the miscreants had purchased.
Booksellers, stand firm. Hold Joyce Meskis as your example if your records are raided. Don’t forget Fahrenheit 451. We should all be allowed to read whatever we want to read without the government reading over our shoulders.
If you are a bookseller, it would behoove you to peruse the entire story and the legal brief at www.abffe.com/tatteredbrief.htm. For more information on this very important subject, I suggest you check out the excellent interview with Joyce Meskis by Shirley Bryant at www.ioba.org/newsletter/V7/meskis.html, the Colorado Bar website cobar.org/opinions/opinion.cfm?, www.salon.com/books/feature/2002/02/13/bookstore, and the ABFFE website cited above.
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