Re Amazon.com fights tax collectors' demands for 50 million customer records

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Jim Warren <jwarren () well com>
Date: April 20, 2010 3:18:23 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Amazon.com fights tax collectors' demands for 50 million customer records

> > <http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20002870-38.html>http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20002870-38.html
> >
> > > <http://Amazon.com>Amazon.com filed a lawsuit on Monday to fend off a sweeping demand from North Carolina's tax 
> > > collectors: detailed records including names and addresses of customers and information about exactly what they 
> > > purchased. The lawsuit says the demand violates the privacy and First Amendment rights of Amazon's customers. North 
> > > Carolina's Department of Revenue had ordered the online retailer to provide full details on nearly 50 million 
> > > purchases made by state residents between 2003 and 2010.

It's not clear how the state's demand violates the First Amendment, but it certainly seems to violate the Fourth 
Amendment - "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."

On its face, it's wildly "unreasonable" - targeting ALL of the state's presumed many thousands of residents who MAY 
have made ANY of 50-million Amazon purchases in 2003-2010.

It appears that no search warrant has been issued - certainly not warrants against the many thousands of Amazon 
customers (who are, after all the state's unnamed targets), much less with a showing of probable cause for each of 
those many thousands.

This is yet-another battle in the multi-decade war by states (and cities and counties too!) against "foreign" 
mail-order retailers based in OTHER states, that thus, do not collect other states' sales taxes - taxes that vary 
endlessly and change endlessly as to what's taxed and how much it's taxed.

--jim; Jim Warren, open-govt & tech-civlib advocate & sometime columnist
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Warren
 justjim36 on twitter  |  Jim Warren on Facebook




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