[privacy] Judge: Gov't Can't ID Online Book Buyers

["Paul Ferguson" <fergdawg () netzero net>]

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Via CBS News (AP).

[snip]

U.S. prosecutors have withdrawn a subpoena seeking the identities of
thousands of people who bought used books through online retailer
Amazon.com Inc., newly unsealed court records show.

The withdrawal came after a judge ruled the customers have a 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.

[snip]

More:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/27/tech/main3544247.shtml

- - ferg

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--
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawg(at)netzero.net
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/

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