Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

Another problem with the legislation is that, for a retailer to be covered, the chain doesn’t have to primarily sell books. The chain merely has to offer a book service to the public. So an entity like Giant Foods or Safeway, which (in aisle 9, next to the magazines) offers a book service selling trashy paperbacks might become a provider under the law—not simply with respect to the paperbacks but with respect to everything it does.

As a provider the grocer would be prohibited from disclosing not only information relating to its customers’ use of the book service (what books they bought and read, and what IP address they used to buy or read them) but also other personal information, including “any information that identifies, relates to, describes, or is capable of being associated with, a particular individual, including, but not limited to, his or her name, signature, social security number, physical characteristics or description, address, telephone number, passport number, driver’s license or state identification card number, insurance policy number, education, employment, employment history, bank account number, credit card number, debit card number, or any other financial information, medical information, or health insurance information.”

The way the bill is drafted, if a commercial entity offers a book service, then it is a provider and, therefore, cannot release any personal information to the police without a court order unless there is an exception in the law.

The statute’s definitional problems go on. Besides the convoluted definitions of “provider” and “book service,” not to mention “primary purpose,” it also has a bizarre definition of “book.” The proposed statute defines a book as “paginated or similarly organized content in printed, audio, electronic, or other format, including fiction, nonfiction, academic, or other works of the type normally published in a volume or volumes.”

If it is not paginated or similarly organized, is it no longer a book? Is Plato’s Republic on a Web site not a book because it is not paginated? The Harry Potter novels are protected as books or CDs, but the movie versions are not?

The problem with the statute’s definitions of book and book service is that it fails to take into account what it is about what we read that makes it private, personal and protected. What we read—whether it is a traditional book, a magazine article, a tweet, a Facebook posting, a Web site or even an ad—reveals something about ourselves, our thoughts and our knowledge. That can be something intimate or frivolous. But by limiting privacy to “books,” the statute imposes a civil and administrative burden on retailers without protecting that which is truly private. The proposed law at once is too broad and too narrow.

Such a statute would have helped that D.C. bookstore in its challenge to the Independent Counsel, but that was more than 14 years ago. There are now so many different ways to get information, and retailers do so much more than sell books, that we should consider new laws protecting the privacy of individuals not just the privacy of books themselves.

If you disagree with me, I’ll see you in court, buddy. If you agree with me, however, I would love to hear from you.