Silly Little Country

Hooray for Amazon

Via BoingBoing

Federal prosecutors have withdrawn a subpoena seeking the identities of thousands of people who bought used books through online retailer Amazon.com Inc., newly unsealed court records show.

The withdrawal came after a judge ruled the customers have a First Amendment right to keep their reading habits from the government.

"The (subpoena's) chilling effect on expressive e-commerce would frost keyboards across America," U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Crocker wrote in a June ruling.

Amazon went to court to fight the subpoena. Excellent!

UPDATE: But see Orin Kerr's more skeptical view of this ruling.

Labels: Amazon subpoena

posted by Alan Adamson @ 8:54 PM