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SO HE’S GOT A SOCIAL CONSCIENCE
Apr. 23rd, 2010 12:13 pm
I'm no critic,
This is dF
Apr. 23rd, 2010
I'm no critic,
This is dF
ITEM: North Carolina's Department Of Revenue contacts Amazon.com and demands detailed records including names and addresses of customers and information about exactly what they purchased.
Amazon says “No” and then sues them for violating the privacy and First Amendment rights of Amazon's customers.
It’s worth noting that:
(1) The NCDoR is doing this in part because they don’t like the fact that Amazon gets around their 5.75% sales tax on shipments by not having any offices in the state.
(2) Amazon did provide the state tax collectors with anonymized information about which items were shipped to which zip codes, but:
It’s also worth mentioning that:
(3) demanding detailed info on book purchases isn’t peculiar to North Carolina – the Justice Dept and the DEA have also tried to subpoena bookstore records.
(4) to be fair, in all cases the records were not being subpoenaed for the sole purpose of finding out what people were reading for the purposes of punishing people for purchasing said books.
However, given the DOJ’s history of demanding librarians to hand over customer records without a warrant and regardless of whether the customer was suspected of any wrongdoing, and then forcing librarians to never tell anyone about it (all of which is legal under the Patriot Act), Amazon and any other bookseller have a right to be concerned about cooperating with such demands, regardless of the rationale.
Recommended reading,
This is dF
Amazon says “No” and then sues them for violating the privacy and First Amendment rights of Amazon's customers.
It’s worth noting that:
(1) The NCDoR is doing this in part because they don’t like the fact that Amazon gets around their 5.75% sales tax on shipments by not having any offices in the state.
(2) Amazon did provide the state tax collectors with anonymized information about which items were shipped to which zip codes, but:
North Carolina threatened to sue if the retailer did not also divulge the names and addresses linked to each order--in other words, personally identifiable information that could be used to collect additional use taxes that might be owed by state residents.
It’s also worth mentioning that:
(3) demanding detailed info on book purchases isn’t peculiar to North Carolina – the Justice Dept and the DEA have also tried to subpoena bookstore records.
(4) to be fair, in all cases the records were not being subpoenaed for the sole purpose of finding out what people were reading for the purposes of punishing people for purchasing said books.
However, given the DOJ’s history of demanding librarians to hand over customer records without a warrant and regardless of whether the customer was suspected of any wrongdoing, and then forcing librarians to never tell anyone about it (all of which is legal under the Patriot Act), Amazon and any other bookseller have a right to be concerned about cooperating with such demands, regardless of the rationale.
Recommended reading,
This is dF
