Reading Your Rights Discussion Guide

             There have been a growing number of attempts by police to obtain bookstore records in recent years.  In 1998, Kenneth Starr subpoenaed Monica Lewinsky’s book purchase records from two bookstores in Washington, D.C.  The bookstores challenged the subpoenas in court and the resulting publicity drew the attention of law enforcement officials throughout the country to the existence of electronic records that reveal the titles of books purchased with credit cards or checks.  In addition to Tattered Cover, subpoenas or search warrants have been issued to Barnes & Noble, Borders, Amazon.com, Arundel Books in Los Angeles, Olsson’s Books and Records and Kramerbooks in Washington, and Books & Books in Miami.  All of these stores have resisted turning over information because they fear that their customers will lose the freedom to purchase the books they want if the police can easily obtain their records.  Since 2001, the focus of the fight for reader privacy has shifted to Congress where book and library groups are currently supporting legislation to restore the protections for book purchase and borrowing records that were eliminated by the USA PATRIOT Act.

             Reading Your Rights is a 26-minute documentary about the reader privacy controversy. It focuses on the efforts of the Denver police to force the Tattered Cover Book Store to turn over the purchase records of a man suspected of illegally manufacturing methamphetamine in 2000.  Two years later, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the Tattered Cover did not have to release the records.

             Reading Your Rights is an a vivid and even-handed portrayal of the conflict between the police and a bookseller who are both trying to do something that is socially valuable: to protect the community and to preserve the freedom to read.  Its message is that when the rights of government conflict with First Amendment rights, the choices are never easy.

 Program Format

             Reading Your Rights lends itself to several different program formats.  It can serve as the centerpiece of an hour-long program hosted by a moderator.  A five to 10 minute introduction of the subject followed by a showing of the documentary leaves 25-30 minutes for a discussion of the issues raised by the film.  A list of questions to encourage discussion appears below.

             The moderator can be a bookseller or librarian who has a general familiarity with the issue of reader privacy.  Almost every community includes other people who would also be a good choice for moderator, including ACLU staff members, attorneys, law professors and social studies teachers.  The program can also be expanded to include someone to represent law enforcement.  This could be someone from the District Attorney’s office or a police officer who has some familiarity with the issue.  If you have several good candidates, you can expand the program to 90 minutes by follow the documentary with a 30-minute panel discussion and ask the audience to respond for another 20-30 minutes.

             ABFFE will be pleased to help you identify speakers.  In some cases, it may be possible for ABFFE staff or members of the ABFFE board to participate.  ABFFE President Chris Finan will be happy to help you.  He can be reached at (212) 587-4025.  His e-mail is chris@abffe.com.

 Discussion Questions

 1.  Why is reader privacy important?  Why would people be embarrassed or fearful to reveal what they read?

 2.  Why would book purchase records be important to the police?  How important were the records in the Tattered Cover case? 

 3.  What is the bookseller’s role in protecting reader privacy?  Did Tattered Cover owner Joyce Meskis go too far?

 4.  Should reader privacy be absolute?  Under what circumstances should police be allowed to obtain reader records?

 5.  How have things changed since 9/11?  Should the FBI be able to obtain reader records whenever it wants for purposes of national security? 

 Supporting Material

             ABFFE has a variety of material about reader privacy that it would be happy to provide to organizers, speakers and audience members, including the ABFFE pamphlet, “Protecting Privacy in Bookstores,” newspaper articles, and “talking points” on bookstore privacy and the PATRIOT Act.  The ABFFE Web site is a good source of information, www.abffe.com.  On the PATRIOT Act, see the Web site of the Campaign for Reader Privacy, www.readerprivacy.org.

             ABFFE also has a variety of merchandise that can be given away or sold at reader privacy events, including T-shirt, buttons and bumper stickers featuring its FREADOM logo.  To see samples, go to ABFFE online store,  https://www.abffe.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv.

             To request material, contact Chris Finan, chris@abffe.com, or Caitlin Delohery, caitlin@abffe.com, at ABFFE, (212) 587-4025.