Starr Turns Bookish

Independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr is eager to know what kind of books Monica Lewinsky buys, and to satisfy that curiosity he has subpoenaed the records of a Washington bookstore where the former White House intern has shopped. Bill Kramer, the bookstore’s owner, says he will fight the effort to pry into the personal affairs of a customer. That determination deserves the support of all who value the right to privacy and abhor the kind of voyeuristic Big Brotherism that attempts to link a person’s character to what she or he chooses to read.

Just what is Starr looking for? Apparently, according to sources close to his investigation, he’s trying to find out if Lewinsky bought books with a pronounced sexual content, in particular a novel that deals with telephone sex. He may further want to know if she gave any such books to President Clinton. And if he can document that she did buy such books and even presented one to Clinton? Then presumably Starr would claim this supports his suspicion that Clinton and Lewinsky in fact had a sexual relationship that both, under oath, have denied.

This is the kind of inquisitorial search that should raise apprehensions among Americans concerned about the status of our liberty. For a decade, federal law has protected the privacy of video store records, making it illegal to disclose what a customer has rented or bought. What the law says in so many words is that the films one chooses to watch at home are that person’s business alone and not to be made a matter of public record. That is a sound law, and the principle it seeks to uphold beyond any question ought to apply equally to the books or newspapers or magazines a person reads. The films we watch, the things we read, are simply not the business of the government or anyone else.

If Starr’s effort to show that Clinton and Lewinsky perjured themselves depends on what the bookstore sales records show, then his case would seem to rest on a flimsy foundation indeed. Flimsy and prurient, for Lewinsky’s purchase of books with a sexual content by itself proves absolutely nothing. Certainly the threat to privacy represented by Starr’s subpoena far outweighs the value of whatever he says he is trying to uncover. Prying into Lewinsky’s book purchases is not merely a matter between her and the special counsel, or the special counsel and a bookstore. The assault on privacy that it represents affects us all.