Feds can't access Amazon customer records


Good news bad news
For the moment, this is good news.

In an order that was sealed but has now become public, U.S. District Judge Stephen Crocker rejected the Justice Department's subpoena for details on Amazon's customers and their purchasing habits. Prosecutors had claimed the details would help them prove their case against a former Madison, Wisc., city official charged with tax evasion related to selling used books through Amazon.

"The subpoena is troubling because it permits the government to peek into the reading habits of specific individuals without their prior knowledge or permission," Crocker wrote in June. Amazon filed the lawsuit to quash the grand jury subpoena.

The case is reminiscent of last year's attempts by federal prosecutors to wrest sensitive search-related information from Google through a subpoena. A California judge eventually rejected the request for users' search queries (and allowed only an excerpt from Google's index of Web sites).

Now let's talk about the bad news.

This article lists two separate attempts by the FedGovs for wholesale data seizure. Congress has been trying to pass a shield law for "communications service providers" that would protect telecom companies from lawsuits brought because the cooperated illegally in intelligence gathering. There have been other efforts over the last few years, but these are just the ones we know about.

I want to stress that.

These are just the ones we know about.

And the FedGovs don't think you have any right of privacy at all.

On Oct. 23, Donald Kerr, deputy director of the Office of National Intelligence, outlined the new order of things: "Too often, privacy has been equated with anonymity; and it's an idea that is deeply rooted in American culture." Well, yes, the Bill of Rights, for instance, includes protections against "search," as well as "seizure." But that was then. As Kerr put it, "In our interconnected and wireless world, anonymity - or the appearance of anonymity - is quickly becoming a thing of the past."

I still blame the income tax. That is what set the precedent for government to access your records without a warrant and without your knowledge.

Just remember, you'll never hear about the ones where we lost our rights until after it's all over.


— NeoWayland

Posted: Wed - November 28, 2007 at 01:25 PM  Tag


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