People who have tried the Amazon Kindle tend to say it’s good for e-book novices who want a convenient, easy-to-learn e-book-reader. But could the Kindle be even better for something else in time–helping Washington spy on human readers in the future?

This question, alas, is more than abstract, unfortunately. Amazon stores not just your Kindle books but also your book-reading habits, and now the feds are unwittingly reminding us of the risk of Big Bro even without the Kindle. Via an AP story, Publishers Weekly has learned that U.S. prosecutors sought “the identities of thousands of people who bought used books through online retailer Amazon.com.” Long term, could the Kindle be Jeff Bezos’ accidental gift to federal snoops? Someday will you say sayonara to your prospects for a federal security clearance if you read too many subversive books on Iraq or type out some unpatriotic annotations in Fair Play?