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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.'"
Since Free Speech is enshrined directly in the Constitution while Privacy is not (it's an indirect right. See Roe Vs Wade for more info), they could have a good (legally, not morally) argument.
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... why is the Bush administration trying to pass a bill allowing for "retroactive immunity for all telecommunications companies"? If there's nothing wrong with what Verizon has done why would the current administration need to cover Verizon's ass with this legislation? Smell's fishy to me ... I wonder if Verizon has done more than the public is aware of?
I think Orwell left out a slogan :
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
Spying is Free Speach
They have a point, but man, that ranks right up there with:
I'm 10 months into a 2 year contract with Verizon. I'm cancelling as soon as possible.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
The first amendment protects us from government censorship. It's awfully brazen of Verizon to try to stretch that into protection of collusion with government. Especially when the speech in question is not political or even personal.
Verizon might have a tenuous point if they were simply selling the data to another company. Instead, since the only possible government use of Verizon's data is to enable crackdowns, the matter seems to fit better under the fourth or fifth amendments, both of which would arguably prohibit the whole transaction.
Thomas Paine's speech is protected; Benedict Arnold's is not.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
-b.
If I had a choice about phone companies they may be right. Since there is no viable competition to the RBOC in my area and they are government regulated their argument holds less weight. The fact of the matter is that there is a legal prohibition against the government obtaining this information without a warrant. This argues strongly for the expectation of privacy. So should the government be able to do an end run around a law by going to a company whose very life they control by asking them to "voluntarily" give them the information they (the gov't that is) are forbidden by law to get except with a warrant. Sounds like something from 1984 (the book) to me!
So giving away customers' data is the right of the first amendment... That would mean companies like TJX whose data was compromised could argue that it wasn't their responsibility to protect the customer's data since it was distributed in free speech fashion as well no... Think about the logics of the argument... Verizon: "We gave the data away because its our first amendment right. We can do as we see fit..." TJX: "We weren't compromised. We gave your personal data away. Its our first amendment right." How many companies will follow this misleading notion. And how many greased-pocket (monkey)judges will side with VZ on this. This country is becoming one big capitalist wild west where privacy means nothing.
Infiltrated dot Net
The first amendment was supposed to protect dissenters from government suppression. Since then it has come to be considered protection from almost anyone who the speaker is speaking against. To use the first amendment for the benefit of the government against the people seems like a parody.
You have tried to support your argument with faulty reasoning! Go directly to jail; do not pass Go, do not collect $200!
It is also a tragically pathetic ploy at trying to justify something they KNOW DAMN WELL is wrong, in the service of a growing police state. They are more interested in sucking up to this administration (and their own business interests, since they are in various federal legal battles, federal merger fights, etc.)
If this is the best legal justification they can come of for doing it, they would be much better served by simply turning the tables, refusing to do it, and forcing the federal government to make THEIR case for it.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
You know it's coming folks. War is peace, freedom is slavery. More and more, companies and people are using phraseology, spurious logic, and blatant redefinition to justify doing evil things.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Verizon's lawyers are simply perpetuating a common misunderstanding of the First Amendment. Yes, we are free to say what we please. No, we are not free from the consequences of what we say.
In old example of yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theater, the problem is not the speech itself, but the resulting stampede and probable damage to people and property.
Slander is another example. You are free to stand up in public and say all sorts of nasty things about someone, but then they can sue you.
If Verizon wants to claim First Amendment rights, fine. We'll just start a class-action lawsuit.
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
Companies should not be treated like citizens. Or, if they ARE treated like citizens, they should be just as accountable as citizens. They have the best of both worlds. They have more influence than you (just try getting heard by a congressmen without a lobbyist) over YOUR GOVERNMENT. For crying out loud. These entities are writing our laws AND influencing our legislative elections. Sure they can't vote, but they can sell the government the machines used to tabulate the count.
We need some severe curtailment of corporate rights. Immediately.
... is that everyone assumes that companies have First Amendment rights. Isn't the Constitution (and all subsequent Amendments) intended to protect the rights of the individual citizens? Corporations seem to claim corporate law when it suits them, and constitutional law when they want a little more leeway.
I know companies are supposed to have protections - in fact the must have some protections, but any time a company uses citizenship protections to claim the right to violate a real citizens right to protection from illegal search and seizure, something is wrong. In fact, any time a company is seen as having protections that supersede any individuals, something is very wrong.
This doesn't mean that Verizon should absolutely refuse any and all cooperation with the government - quite the contrary, but they should at least demand due process. That's a responsibility they take when they accept our custom. For my part, any indication they've handed my info over, they'd better have some very specific, rock solid warrants on record. As it is, I'm inclined to drop all their services at earliest opportunity. Too bad, they actually have the best offerings in my area, thought they're a bit on the costly side.
Well, looks like we've been given a free pass.
Who wants to be the first to tap into the phone lines of Verizon execs and lawyers to hand over to the government? A Slashdot is fine, too.
Oh right, we're just citizens. I guess that means this "right" is only really held by Verizon.
Try posting your confidential client information here and see if Verizon considers it freedom of speech. Things like, oh, passwords, code snippets, and so forth. Does the first amendment cover posting client information?
Will Verizon sue me for making this suggestion to their contractors and employees, despite my merely exercising my freedom of speech as provided for under the First Amendment of the Constitution of The united States of America?
Or is the first amendment intended to protect voicing of unpopular opinions, especially political opinions, and not to be used to reveal confidential client information?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Since when do corporations get to claim protections from the constitution? Since when do they get first amendment rights?
Does this mean that corporations can start owning firearms and having their own militias, per the 2nd amendment? Does this mean that they can't testify against themselves per the 5th amendment?
"However, if they did not wave those rights in the contracts with customers, then their argument seems sound to me."
Companies aren't people, and as such do not have the same rights that people have. Verizon is grasping at straws to avoid having their ass handed to them in a class-action lawsuit.
...to warn the pope about some poop he's about to slip in, and the pope doesn't hear it, because, well, it's only one hand, or paw rather, but then a tree falls on the bear, killing the bear, and startling the pope, who looks up from the path, and slips on the poop, but the bear was well intentioned because the bear only *had* one hand, or rather paw, to begin with anyway, does the bear thusly enter into the kingdom of heaven?
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
It's a pretty ridiculous argument to make in light of the fact that there are already laws in place to restrict that specific type of information. Further, Verizon isn't a person, so I'm not sure that it would qualify as an entity capable of weilding first amendment rights.
"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).
'What Verizon is arguing is that it's okay to break ANY law as long as only "speech" is involved'
In this they are just borrowing a page from our distinguished gentlepersons in the administration, who feel that breaking ANY law is fine if you're working on the whole terrorism problem.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
...It's monitoring *everyone*. The point to the tracking program was to note the originating and dialed numbers for *all* conversations, not merely those between suspects and the rest of the world. Furthermore, the whole argument from the beginning is that FISA provides for getting permission to monitor up to 72 hours from the start of the monitoring process.
FISA is intended to provide *exactly* the flexibility required to enable surveillance responsive to changing conditions (the genesis of the 72-hour provision), while still requiring the judicial review that is part of the fourth amendment's requirement of showing probable cause.
And I agree with other commenters that customer transaction records (be they phone calls, or reporting on who bought what groceries for how much) is by no stretch of the imagination "protected free speech".
I can't believe the number of posts I am seeing that say that they might have a point, or legally they might be correct. The USA has gone nuts. Where did everyone's common sense go?
(To risk the wrath of our Corporate Overlords. . .)
The first amendment is a right of The People. A lot of the problems that we have stem from lawmakers (conveniently) forgetting that the Bill of Rights are the people's rights and that corporations clearly aren't people and unless there is an amendment to the constitution to change it, corporations do not get those protections.
It think the confusion seems to spring from the fact that campaign contributions and lobbying money mostly comes from corporations. I wonder if a blanket ban of contributions from any source other then individual people would make anything work better...
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
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Under the current law governing corporations, I think Mr. Verizon's legal claim stands. Go figure...
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