Police win limited search of bookstore records

DENVER - In a raid earlier this year on a suburban mobile home, police found the makings of a methamphetamine lab, complete with how-to books on manufacturing illegal drugs.

Outside, they found a shipping envelope from a bookstore they suspected had sent the books. But the envelope had no named recipient.

Investigators contacted the bookstore to find out who had ordered the books, but the store refused to hand over its records, setting up a legal battle that has pitted readers' privacy rights against law enforcement's right to gather evidence.

Last Friday, state District Judge Stephen Phillips came down on the side of law enforcement, granting police limited access to one store record specifically linked to the envelope's invoice number.

Tattered Cover Book Store owner Joyce Meskis said she may appeal the ruling to protect her customers. She said police could find out whether one of the six people who frequented the trailer had used the books by looking at fingerprints from the March 14 raid.

The ruling has worried civil liberties advocates, who say it erodes First Amendment rights.

''People are less likely to read sensitive material out of a fear that other people might find out what they're reading,'' said Dan Recht, the bookstore's lawyer.

And reading books is no crime. ''You can't make a jump between what you read and what your behavior is,'' said Judith Krug, director of the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom.

While there are laws in 47 states and Washington, D.C., protecting the privacy of records at libraries, there are no laws regarding bookstore records, Krug said.

Bookstore records are a more recent issue, she said, since it was not until widespread use of credit cards that bookstores began keeping more detailed records of customers' purchases.

But First Amendment lawyers said it would be hard for the Tattered Cover to win an appeal because federal courts have given police wide latitude in collecting evidence.

''I don't think many people are going to be chilled in what they read for fear the police are going to get a search warrant against them. I think it's the rare person who's worried about that when they go into a bookstore,'' said First Amendment lawyer Steven Shiffrin.

At last week's hearing, the judge said free speech concerns were outweighed by the importance of investigating crimes. He said the most reasonable way to find the books' owner is to obtain a copy of the invoice for the books, ''Advanced Techniques of Clandestine Psychedelic and Amphetamine Manufacture'' and ''The Construction and Operation of Clandestine Drug Laboratories.''

In 1998, independent counsel Kenneth Starr asked a Washington bookstore for Monica Lewinsky's book purchases over a 2-year period. But that dispute ended when Lewinsky agreed to hand over the information.

In another pending case, a Borders bookstore in Overland Park, Kan., has received a subpoena for records of how a customer paid for merchandise but not for book-buying records. Spokeswoman Ann Binkley declined to comment.