ABFFE Charges Madison Ordinance Threatens Reader Privacy

June 14, 2007

On June 13, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) urged the repeal of a new Madison, Wisconsin, ordinance that requires bookstores that purchase used textbooks to give police the names of the sellers and the titles purchased. "This ordinance forces bookstores to turn over confidential customer information without a court order, undermining the privacy that protects our right to read whatever we want," ABFFE President Chris Finan said. "The police have no business monitoring the purchase or sale of books in a bookstore."

The Madison City Council passed the ordinance on May 1 to deter the theft of textbooks at the University of Wisconsin. It requires booksellers to obtain a license from the city and to request identification from any person from whom they wish to purchase a used textbook. In addition, booksellers will be required to maintain detailed records of their used textbook purchases with the title, author, and name of the patron from whom the book was purchased and make these records available to the police upon demand during the six months following the date of purchase. The ordinance goes into effect on July 1.

In a letter to Madison City Attorney Michael P. May, Finan said that the ordinance conflicts with recent court decisions that have declared that the First Amendment protects the confidentiality of bookstore records. In 1998, ABFFE joined in the successful challenge to Kenneth Starr's effort to obtain Monica Lewinksy's book purchase records from two Washington, D.C., bookstores. In 2000, it supported the Tattered Cover Book Store's fight against a search warrant for customer information in a drug case. The Colorado Supreme Court quashed the warrant in a unanimous decision.

Noting Madison's 2002 resolution condemning the USA Patriot Act for invading a citizen's right of privacy in their bookstore and library records, Finan's letter urges the Madison attorney to recommend that the city council repeal the textbook ordinance as both a violation of the First Amendment and a contradiction of its own strong support for reader privacy.

The textbook ordinance was passed over the strong opposition of Sandra Torkildson, the owner of A Room of One's Own Feminist Bookstore in Madison, who testified and wrote letters opposing the bill.

Topics: Free Expression,