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Verizon Claims Free Speech Over NSA Wiretapping
xvx writes "Verizon is claiming that they have the right to hand over customer information to the US government under the First Amendment. 'Essentially, the argument is that turning over truthful information to the government is free speech, and the EFF and ACLU can't do anything about it. In fact, Verizon basically argues that the entire lawsuit is a giant SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) suit, and that the case is an attempt to deter the company from exercising its First Amendment right to turn over customer calling information to government security services.'"
Also, this is not "commercial speech". Commercial speech is when the speech applies solely to the economic interests of the speaker and the audience. For the most part, commercial speech is advertising. This is not commercial speech.
Chris Mattern
"iologically speaking, you are correct, however I thought US law effectively made a corporate entity a "person" with said rights."
Nope. Corporations can't vote, hold office, etc. They can't even sign agreements (only authorized representatives - REAL people - can sign, and they need to be authorized by other REAL people (sorry for the caps :-); if its a high-enough level, then it needs to be a board meeting that grants the authorization).
In the US, companies are generally treated as people under the law ("juristic persons"). This stems from a series of cases from the late 19th century involving the railroads that made it to the US Supreme Court (the most famous being Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company [118 U.S. 394 (1886)]). The Court didn't actually rule that corporations were people under the law, but that's how many people understood it, and that's more or less how we've operated ever since. Most legal and constitutional rights are afforded to corporations just as they are to individuals.
This has all sorts of very negative implications with regard to attempting to regulate business. Many people feel that it make the individuals second-class citizens in the eyes of the law -- and there's some really good arguments to that effect. Your "free speech" rights probably end at your employer's door, and if you sue you have to pay for your lawyers while for a company it's a tax-deductible expense (e.g., it's effectively subsidized by the government).
Verizon's blowing proverbial smoke through it's corporate anus here, though. Free speech is a poor argument in this case. First, not all speech is "free speech" and violating the reasonable confidence of a client would not be considered free speech. Factual or not, the information is of a personal nature and the individual would have a reasonable cause to believe it to remain private. It's no more free speech than if a lawyer violated the attorney-client privilege, of a psychologist had done the same.
Further, in Verizon's case, the "speech" consitutes aiding and abetting a criminal act: the government's violation of the 4th ammendment rights of Verizon's customers. While the government was engaged in the criminal activity, they could not have done so without the complicity of the company, who thus became an accessory to the crime.
George Bush famously said "there ought to be limits to free speech," and there are -- this is one such case. You can't cry "fire" in a crowded theater, you can't spread viscous rumors to torpedo someone's career, you can't talk about magic numbers that can be used to access digital media (OK, that's just stupid), and you can't provide sensitive information to the government that the explicitly requires them to obtain only with a court order after presenting a reasonable cause that an individual might be involved in criminal activity.
There are several court cases that hinged on the concept of "corporate personhood". It can be a challenge for a non-lawyer to understand them, but below are a few links. http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/personhood/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juristic_person http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030919.html
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
Under the current law governing corporations, I think Mr. Verizon's legal claim stands. Go figure...
[1] That documentary is a must see...