I know I have heard of the kind of thing I am about to describe here happening in other states, no surprise considering I have found my local government to be one of the least creative groups of individuals I have been lucky enough to encounter in recent years. This is the reasoning for the "Old News" portion of the Title. Let me know if this is old news not warranting discussion.
My county has just put into law an act that would allow local, state, and federal law enforcement access to my personal shopping habits with out a warrant.
In order to help curtail the manufacture of methamphetamines, local government has been attempting to make access to the precursors for this drug more difficult to obtain. To this end they have already set restrictions on the amount of cold medicines containing psuedoephedrine that an individual can buy at a give time. Limit 2 boxes per customer. This made me a little uncomfortable considering that we are talking about legal, over the counter drugs, but I can be a good soldier when the fight is a good one, and I can see how trying to limit the manufacture of this extremely dangerous drug could warrant what is really a small inconvenience.
Recently however, it has been decided this restriction is not enough. Now the medications are not allowed on the shelf, but are kept under lock and key and you must not only ask for the medication but present an i.d. in order to make a purchase. With this i.d. requirement you must be 18 to make the purchase, now, I'm not sure that a city or county has the power to set restrictions of age on the purchase of items. If they are able to do this, why couldn't a county say you must be 30 to purchase alcohol, or illegalize cigarettes altogether. It gets worse.
Now, I can probably deal with all of this, but here is where it really gets tough for me to swallow. In addition to presenting an i.d. for proof of age, the seller must keep a detailed record of who purchased these drugs, how much and how often. Now, I can get on board with trying to prevent crime, this feels awfully close to an invasion of my rights to privacy to me. This is no different than going to the pharmacy and asking for what prescriptions I have filled, my understanding is that a warrant would be required to do this. These lists of cold medicine users would assumably be available to law enforcement and who knows who else, for the asking. Now, I don't really guess I care who knows if and what kind, and when I buy cold medicine, but at the same time it has a very invasive feel.
Am I being overly reactive? At what point do we draw the line between maintaining privacy and preventing crime? This just feels very close to creepy to me. I'm interested to know how others feel about this.