Yes. Your local store will be equally forthcoming with its cctv tape and employees' memories. That is a consequence of living under the rule of law. The people have continuously elected Congresses and Presidents who believe the government should have the power to obtain private information, and like it or not, they've made that legally enforceable.

I don't get to commit murder even if I feel it's justified; Amazon doesn't get to refuse to comply with a court order even if it feels it's unjustified. Nobody, individual or corporation, is going to sacrifice their well being or sit in jail indefinitely for contempt of court to protect the privacy of your purchase history.

The only people who really pull that stunt are journalists.

We're not talking about murder.

The threshold for obtaining a subpoena is remarkably lower than that. NSLs -- I wish I could tell you, but the whole program is classified.

The EFF reports that mobile providers received 8 million law enforcement requests for GPS data: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/surveillance-shocker-s...

And ... due process like subpoenas and court orders? Not so much:

AT&T said it now responds to more than 700 request a day, about a third of which do not require court orders or subpoenas.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57468316-94/cell-carriers-s...

I'm all for rule of law. This isn't.