A PRESS RELEASE FROM THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION
A federal judge ruled late Monday that government requests for detailed information about Amazon.com customers violate Internet users’ rights to free speech, anonymity and privacy. The ruling came in a lawsuit originally brought by Amazon to stop the North Carolina Department of Revenue (NCDOR) from collecting personally identifiable information about customers that could be linked to their specific purchases on Amazon. The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation and ACLU of Washington intervened in the lawsuit on behalf of several Amazon.com customers whose information was at stake.
“The ACLU is not taking issue with the Department’s authority to collect taxes on these purchases, but there is no legitimate reason why government officials need to know which North Carolina residents are reading which books or purchasing which specific brands of products,” said Katy Parker, Legal Director for the ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation.
Recognizing that government requests for expressive information can have an unconstitutional chilling effect on constitutionally-protected behavior, U.S. District Judge Marsha J. Pechman of the Western District of Washington at Seattle wrote:
“The First Amendment protects a buyer from having the expressive content of her purchase of books, music, and audiovisual materials disclosed to the government. Citizens are entitled to receive information and ideas through books, films, and other expressive materials anonymously. … The fear of government tracking and censoring one’s reading, listening, and viewing choices chills the exercise of First Amendment rights.”
According to the lawsuit filed by Amazon in April, NCDOR issued a request to Amazon for the purchase records from August 2003 through February 2010 of customers with a North Carolina shipping address as part of a tax audit of Amazon. Amazon provided NCDOR with product codes that reveal the exact items purchased – including books on the subjects of mental health, alcoholism and LGBT issues – but withheld individually identifiable user information that could be linked back to the individual purchases, including names and addresses. NCDOR refused to agree that it is not entitled to such information, leading to the lawsuit.
The following can be attributed to Aden Fine, staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project:
“This ruling is a victory for privacy and free speech on the Internet. Disclosing the purchase records of Internet users to the government would violate their constitutional rights to read and purchase the lawful materials of their choice, free from government intrusion, and undermine the very basis of American democracy and our cherished freedoms. With this ruling, the court emphatically reemphasized what other courts have found before – that government entities cannot watch over our shoulders to see what we are buying and reading.”
Today’s decision is available online at: www.acluofnorthcarolina.org
More information about the case, Amazon.com, LLC v. Kenneth R. Lay, is available online at: www.aclu.org/free-speech-technology-and-liberty/amazoncom-llc-v-kenneth-r-lay
Read the full article
A federal judge ruled late Monday that government requests for detailed information about Amazon.com customers violate Internet users’ rights to free speech, anonymity and privacy. The ruling came in a lawsuit originally brought by Amazon to stop the North Carolina Department of Revenue (NCDOR) from collecting personally identifiable information about customers that could be linked to their specific purchases on Amazon. The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation and ACLU of Washington intervened in the lawsuit on behalf of several Amazon.com customers whose information was at stake.
“The ACLU is not taking issue with the Department’s authority to collect taxes on these purchases, but there is no legitimate reason why government officials need to know which North Carolina residents are reading which books or purchasing which specific brands of products,” said Katy Parker, Legal Director for the ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation.
Recognizing that government requests for expressive information can have an unconstitutional chilling effect on constitutionally-protected behavior, U.S. District Judge Marsha J. Pechman of the Western District of Washington at Seattle wrote:
“The First Amendment protects a buyer from having the expressive content of her purchase of books, music, and audiovisual materials disclosed to the government. Citizens are entitled to receive information and ideas through books, films, and other expressive materials anonymously. … The fear of government tracking and censoring one’s reading, listening, and viewing choices chills the exercise of First Amendment rights.”
According to the lawsuit filed by Amazon in April, NCDOR issued a request to Amazon for the purchase records from August 2003 through February 2010 of customers with a North Carolina shipping address as part of a tax audit of Amazon. Amazon provided NCDOR with product codes that reveal the exact items purchased – including books on the subjects of mental health, alcoholism and LGBT issues – but withheld individually identifiable user information that could be linked back to the individual purchases, including names and addresses. NCDOR refused to agree that it is not entitled to such information, leading to the lawsuit.
The following can be attributed to Aden Fine, staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project:
“This ruling is a victory for privacy and free speech on the Internet. Disclosing the purchase records of Internet users to the government would violate their constitutional rights to read and purchase the lawful materials of their choice, free from government intrusion, and undermine the very basis of American democracy and our cherished freedoms. With this ruling, the court emphatically reemphasized what other courts have found before – that government entities cannot watch over our shoulders to see what we are buying and reading.”
Today’s decision is available online at: www.acluofnorthcarolina.org
More information about the case, Amazon.com, LLC v. Kenneth R. Lay, is available online at: www.aclu.org/free-speech-technology-and-liberty/amazoncom-llc-v-kenneth-r-lay
Read the full article
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Good. It was absolutely the correct ruling.
By Dionysis
10/26/2010
Very good news.
Now to get the Amazon Associates Program back for North Carolinians. That was my major source of income until the North Carolina General Assembly took it away.
By Thunder Pig
10/27/2010
Amen, pig.
By brebro
10/27/2010
Do we as Citizens get to review what's on NCDOR's bookshelves or their Amazon Orders?
Why exactly does NCDOR feel they need to know our choice of reading materials?
By Bjorn
10/28/2010