When Selling Used Textbooks Is a Privacy Issue

May 09, 2007

The city council of Madison, Wisconsin's state capital and home to well over 50,000 University of Wisconsin students, has passed new legislation, to take effect in mid July, aimed at combating the problem of textbook theft and resale. Opponents of the legislation, including local independent bookseller Sandra Torkildson, fear that provisions of the new ordinance, which force booksellers to record data about individuals offering textbooks for resale, will inhibit customers' right to privacy.

The ordinance, which applies only to booksellers who deal in significant numbers of used textbooks, requires bookstores to complete a police-approved form identifying each textbook, its title, and author and to collect data on the individuals selling the books -- including their Social Security or driver's license numbers and a physical description. The completed forms must be maintained by the bookstore for six months or be submitted to the Madison Police Department, and possibly other law enforcement agencies. The ordinance also imposes a $62.50 fee to license all secondhand textbook dealers.

Torkildson, the longtime owner of A Room of One's Own Feminist Bookstore in Madison, finds the fee irritating, calling it "another tax"; however, she is far more concerned about the other changes the ordinance requires. Torkildson voiced her concerns to the city council, citing privacy issues and the danger of maintaining customer records in light of the federal government's ability to access them under the provisions of the USA Patriot Act.

"For over 30 years as a bookseller, I have never kept records of what my customers buy here," Torkildson told BTW. "Our store sells many books on sensitive social and political issues. Since the Patriot Act went into effect, we have been even more careful to make sure that no records link a customer's name to any book we sell or purchase."

Chris Finan, executive director of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) and author of From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America (Beacon), told BTW, "This legislation is a problem. It gives the police the right to search a bookstore's records without getting a court order." And, he continued, "[The police] can peruse the records of anyone who has sold books to the store whenever they want. This is an invasion of privacy that would have a potentially chilling effect on First Amendment rights."

Although opposition to the bill delayed the council vote for two weeks, it ultimately passed. "I think of Madison as a liberal place," Torkildson said. "I didn't think the city council would disregard our First Amendment rights so easily."

The ordinance raises many unanswered questions, according to Torkildson. "I have e-mailed questions to the city attorney and haven't received a reply," she said. "How, for example, do we 'obtain a physical description' of each person selling us textbooks -- should we keep a scale at the register? The day that classes end, we may have lines of 50 people waiting to sell back their books. I don't want them to get frustrated -- they are a critical part of my business."

A similar ordinance has long been in effect for the city's pawnbrokers and secondhand jewelry dealers; however, Torkildson said, "[The city council] doesn't understand the realities of selling books. For example, no one has really been able to define a textbook."

The language of the ordinance describes a textbook as "a book used in technical school, colleges, and universities as a manual of instruction or a standard book used for the study of a subject," said Torkildson, but, she noted, in courses dealing with human sexuality, women's literature, or queer studies, many trade books are used. Sales of these books, in addition to more conventional textbooks, total more than 25 per cent of A Room of One's Own's business, said Torkildson, thus earning the store the designation "secondhand textbook dealer" and making it subject to the terms of the new ordinance.

In a strongly worded letter to the local newspaper, Torkildson concluded, "Until the Patriot Act is changed or repealed, Madison's ordinance means that the FBI will have access to information on the books you sell, and it won't need a search warrant to get them. We should be working to change the Patriot Act, not assisting the Bush administration in trampling on our civil liberties." --Nomi Schwartz

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