Corporations Now Have a Right To "Personal Privacy"

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Thanks to a recent ruling (PDF) by the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, corporations now have a right to 'personal privacy,' due to the application of a carelessly worded definition in the Freedom of Information Act. FOIA exempts disclosure of certain records, but only if it 'could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.' But in its definitions, FOIA makes the mistake of broadly defining 'person' to include legal entities, like corporations. The FCC didn't think that 'personal privacy' could apply to a corporation, so they ignored AT&T's claim that releasing data from an investigation into how AT&T was overcharging certain customers would violate the corporation's privacy. The Third Circuit thought that the FCC's actions were contrary to what the law actually says. So now the FCC has to jump through more hoops to show that releasing data on their investigation into AT&T's overcharging is 'warranted' within the meaning of 5 USC 552(b)(7)(c) before it can release anything."

Comments

Why do corporations have to be people?

[danaris]

Seriously. Can anyone with a legal background explain what part of corporate daily business requires that corporations be legally considered equivalent to people?

If there's nothing truly fundamental that requires it, I think it might be time to start writing letters to our representatives and senators asking that corporate personhood be revoked, or at least replaced with something much more watered-down. It's really starting to go too far...

Dan Aris

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[TheRealMindChild]

While this "loophole" seems bad on the surface, maybe it isn't. If corporations are considered people, perhaps we can start locking them up/shutting them down when they are breaking the law... you know... just like everyone else.

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, because people behind corporations want the corporations to have only the benefits of being consideren people.

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[Alien Being]

"I think it might be time to start writing letters to our representatives..."

The irony is that they won't listen to you unless you send corporate lobbyists with bags of money.

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[jeffasselin]

I concur. The whole corpocratic oligarchy mess stems from giving corporations rights which should be reserved for actual people. Giving "rights" to entities like corporations, but without them having the same restrictions and motivations as an actual human being (like reason, conscience, morality and guilt) is the source of the biggest issues facing us since the later 20th century: the corporations are now in control of our government, our institutions and our resources. They have all this power but no real responsibility behind it.

They care only about one thing: making the most profit for their shareholders as possible. They will do anything, including killing people and destroying the planet, to achieve this goal. They are the ultimate parasite.

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[Killer Orca]

While this "loophole" seems bad on the surface, maybe it isn't. If corporations are considered people, perhaps we can start locking them up/shutting them down when they are breaking the law... you know... just like everyone else.

I agree with you, but you and the mods are being a little too idealistic; that would never, ever happen.

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[sjames]

So you're saying corporations are the new nobility? (not that I'm disagreeing with you). In a country that forbids the very concept of a nobility? Perhaps we should look to French history for guidance in the proper handling of nobility!

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[schon]

Entering into contracts and owning, buying and selling services and property.

Why do they need to be the equivalent of people for that?

Why not codify the law to say that corporations or people can do those things, rather than saying that corporations are people?

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[Daimanta]

"Perhaps we should look to French history for guidance in the proper handling of nobility!"

With a massive reign of terror?

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[melikamp]

All successful corps use reason. Many successful people have only trace amounts of conscience, morality and guilt.

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[Dog-Cow]

You can "lock up" a corporation by disallowing it to do any business that results in a profit.

Not that it's necessarily a good idea.

I think the best thing to do would be to simply identify the people responsible for the actual illegal activities and kill them. Or whatever is appropriate as punishment.

The idea of a (limited liability) corporation started to protect the private assets of the corporation owners. And that's where it should have ended.

When a CEO authorizes expenditures for illegal activities, the CEO shouldn't be absolved. Instead he should be charged with theft (of corporate money) on top of the illegal activity he authorized. The idea that he should go free instead is so completely backwards that it tells you who really runs things in this country.

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[Chyeld]

Dissolution (you no longer exist as a company, your holdings fall to your 'estate', either the stock holders or financers) and removal of freedom (such as blocking the ability to do business) are the first to come to mind. I'm fairly certain that anyone with a wit of imagination could come up with approrpiate translations for other punishments that are applied in criminal cases.

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[DM9290]

The entire economic system is already collapsing. Or haven't you noticed?

And why would shareholders lose everything they own if the corporation fails? That's an incredibly false dichotomy. Not every failing corporation fails so spectacularly that every investor will necessarily lose everything they own simply for holding a single share. But then again, people would be more willing to trust corporations if the investors were investing their LIVES into the endevour. Investors who absolutely wanted to insure that the corporation worked legally, economically and didn't harm anyone in a way to create a liability, because if would be their own heads the sword falls on if they do wrong. Just like people.

These laws shielding investors simply spread the hurt to everyone else in the economy. Its not like the hurt vanishes. Why should innocent bistanders have to pay for the mistakes of investors?

Investors would still be willing to invest in corporations managed by people who they truly trusted as moral and legal representatives of the power that their money gives them. Business leaders would then actually deserve the title for the first time in hundreds of years. Corporations would begin to behave like true members of the community who care about others. i would still invest in some way, just not as detached from the process or the consequences.

Money is power. And with power must come responsibility or the inevitable result is power that answers to nobody and cares about nobody. You can call that prosperity if want. But it sounds more like tyranny. And that is what every corporation wants to be: a tyrant.

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[Dog-Cow]

Corporations do not care one whit for the shareholders. This is a gross misconception I see repeated here often.

"Corporations", this is: the Board of Directors, only cares about increasing the wealth of the Board of Directors.

Most shareholders have little or no say in what the corporation does, thanks to the invention of non-voting stock.

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[Rob the Bold]

Corporations are fined when they are caught breaking the law because, so far, that's all the courts can do. Please explain how anyone can "lockup" a corporation and I'll be the first support it. The whole idea of incorporating is to AVOID personal responsibility. If someone could hold the CEO, or anyone in the company, personally responsible for the actions of a corporation then the whole concept of a corporation becomes mostly useless.

Well exactly. We want to incarcerate the corporation, not the employees. Yes, corporations exist to avoid personal responsibility for the investors, and to some extent for other interested parties. That doesn't mean the corporation itself is not responsible for its actions.

So how do we incarcerate a criminal corp? Incarcerating a person means taking away their freedom of movement, their ability to hold an outside job, their ability to see friends and family at their convenience or do most voluntary activities. We'd have to find a corporate equivalent, like making the company do "prison work" at "prison pay". It could be prevented from all sorts of activities that a "free" corporation could do, like hiring, firing, making deals and purchases without court permission. Obviously these are just top-of-the-head suggestions, and the subject warrants more thought than this.

Now one could argue that this would cripple the corporation and also potentially harm the employees and shareholders, but that's the whole point. That's what happens when we lock up a person. He's not able to hold a job to support his family, potentially causing them financial distress. And his family is probably just as innocent as Joe punchclock. But we lock up natural persons even though it has an adverse effect on their family, community and friends, so one can hardly argue that corps couldn't be treated the same way. When a person commits a crime, we consider that worthy of punishment, even though punishing them may affect the innocent. It's the price of justice, I guess.

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[MickyTheIdiot]

You're missing a really big item on your list (no reason, conscience, morality, and guilt)... corporations don't have the restriction of *death.* When people amass huge amounts of power at the very least they are going to die someday and that power will dissipate. Corporations are essentially immortal. Remember that scene in the Highlander when he shows his girlfriend all those priceless artifacts? It's the same idea.

Corporations should not be treated like people because they don't operate under the same constraints as people. As a matter of fact the lack of accountability that the Limited Liability Corporation structure gives individuals is a great enabler of evil. People do things behind the shield of the corporate structure they would NEVER do otherwise. We need to go back to the founding father's concept of corporations and move away to what it morphed into during the 1800s big railway era.

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[Rob the Bold]

So you're saying corporations are the new nobility? (not that I'm disagreeing with you). In a country that forbids the very concept of a nobility? Perhaps we should look to French history for guidance in the proper handling of nobility!

That's rather a good way of thinking about it. All the rights of commoners, plus some, and none of the responsibilities. They have ear of the government -- their concerns weigh upon the state much more than the riff-raff. If a company is threatened, it claims how its employees would suffer were it sanctioned, just as a nobleman might cite his responsibilities to his peasants. And of course, most of the money.

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[Anonymous Coward]

We live under that right now. Corporations control every aspect of our lives and we're subordinate to them. Sometimes we can choose which corporations we want to be controlled by, but that's about it.

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[interkin3tic]

With a massive reign of terror?

More specifically, terrorizing overpaid CEOs and executive boards with the guillotine.

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[Dare nMc]

all Sony stock is divided between the victims.

You do realize Sony stock (as with all NYSE/NASDAQ stocks) is held by lots and lots of people who have little to no say so or knowledge of they day to day activities, and very little disposable income, and thus many would lose a significant part of their retirement/savings/whatever. If it were to become common for some action of middle management to be able to transfer that kind of wealth, then the stock markets would be closed in short order. Business would go back to soley serving the rich (granted not a HUGE change.) and transferring this now un-sellable stock would be meaningless because they would get screwed out of it eventually for little. Not to mention the board members/ upper management would be able to see this coming better than the average stock holder and get out first, so then you would need a new lawsuit to track them down, sending all the small guys money to some lawyer.

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[commodore64_love]

Here's a good place to start: AMENDMENT __: "The enumerated rights and privileges apply only to individuals." QED no more free speech, privacy, or other rights would apply to corporations. The individuals inside the corporation would still have rights, but not the corporation itself, which make it easier to regulate it, audit it, and restrain its power.

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[divisionbyzero]

So basically people were lazy. Instead of explicitly enumerating the rights and responsibilities of corporations they said, "Uh, let's just treat them like people." Lame. Not surprising but still lame. We should just right an explicit list of corporate rights and responsibilities instead of relying on piecemeal case law.

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[mcgrew]

You do realize Sony stock (as with all NYSE/NASDAQ stocks) is held by lots and lots of people who have little to no say so or knowledge of they day to day activities, and very little disposable income, and thus many would lose a significant part of their retirement/savings/whatever.

If this were law thay'd be forced to pay a little more attention to what kind of people run the corporation they were thinking about buying stock in, now wouldn't they? If the CEO of Acme Rockets was the former CEO of CornCorn, whose stock was all transferred to the families of people CornCorn's products killed, it would be a BAD idea to buy any Acme stock.

Why is it that it's OK to lose your investment if the CEO is a clueless schmuck that ran the company into liquidation through bad business practices, but it's not OK to lose your investment because your investment killed somebody?

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[Jaysyn]

That's fine. They just need to be held responsible when they break the law, in a similar fashion to natural people. If you are stupid rich & speed everywhere & just pay the tickets & thumb your nose at the law, eventually you are going to have your right to drive taken away completely regardless of how much money you have. Something similar needs to happen to corporations that constantly bend & break laws. Sometimes a fine can *never* be an appropriate punishment, especially in cases where the CEOs & Directors get paid regardless of what actually happens in the company.

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[Jaysyn]

Firstly, if a corporation couldn't make a profit anymore then it would "un-incorporate" and possibly a new corporation with a different name and the same people would pop up.

I don't see any reason we couldn't specifically disallow this from happening when a corporation is being punished. Make it so anyone director level or above *cannot* create or join a new corporation until their "sentence" is served. If they are on multiple company's boards they would have to either give up the position or become a silent director until the sentence is finished or commuted. Considering there are natural humans in jail right now for *life* for nothing other than possession of marijuana, I don't think this could be considered "too harsh".

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time & all that.

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[Rob the Bold]

Firstly, if a corporation couldn't make a profit anymore then it would "un-incorporate" and possibly a new corporation with a different name and the same people would pop up. I have heard of this happening for smaller limited-liability corporations that specialized in government bid projects and were banned from bidding. They just started over with a new name. The government, local, state or federal, is so bureaucratically constrained that this seems to work most of the time.

I've been thinking about this for a little while now. When I read the story in Wired about people disappearing and trying to start a new life (and the accompanying "find the author" contest), I got to wondering why a person who'd screwed up couldn't just "re-incorporate" themselves and move on. Apparently, it's because our identity is inextricably linked to our physical body, not just our name. If we go to jail, our body is kept there. If we try to evade out debts by changing our name, our creditors will try to track down our body and still try to collect their "pound of flesh" from it.

A corporation can get away with these things because it doesn't have a physical body. Its body is its capitalization. So "jailing" a company would mean restricting the movement of its capital, i.e. its accounts, assets, patent portfolio, land, plant, etc. Locking up a company would therefore look like "nationalizing" it. Shareholders could go right ahead and invest in a new company, but without their old capital.

This thought is a work in progress.

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[sumdumass]

A lot of what you say can and does happen right now. States and federal agencies as well as courts can ban or bar companies from doing business in their jurisdiction. When illegal activity does happen, they do attempt to find who actually did the act and bring them to the full accountability under the law. The problem is that a lot of times, the only way to track who did what is by examining the accounting and internal documentation of a company and by interviewing employees. If the person knows their actions were illegal and covers his tracks, it's very difficult to prove any one person was involved where it's easier to prove that the company they represent was included in the actions causing the violation. This is why you see companies getting fined without people inside them being arrested. It's easier to prove the company is at fault then any specific person inside the company when they cover their tracks. And to that point, any company has an obligation to make sure it's actions and actions taken by it's employees in it's behalf are legal.

The idea of a (limited liability) corporation started to protect the private assets of the corporation owners. And that's where it should have ended.

It did stop there. What your seeing is complexity of finding out who did something wrong verses pointing the blame on the company they represent. However, it should be noted that the limited liability will only protect asses from actions the owners did not participate in or direct. Anyone breaking the law or taking an action causing a liability is still personally subject to that liability and the penalties of the law. Where the limitations apply is when you do not take an action yourself resulting in that liability. an example of this, you have a working lunch with a few of your employees. Your an owner of a small company incorporated for the specific purpose of liability. Now you drink a couple glasses of wine, and while driving the company car back to the office, you strike a pedestrian, a parked car, and get a DUI in the process. Now you are personally liable for all damages you did as well as the DUI. The company is liable too (generally vicariously). If you have a summer home at the lake, it would be shielded by the corporate limited liability but not by your personal liability. So assuming your sued, the company is sued, and you are both order to pay the differences of a judgment, the company can bankrupt itself but because you took an action and were personally liable, your summer home could be auctioned off to cover the differences in the judgment.

Remember, limitations on liability are only for actions you do not participate in unless a specific law limits your liability (good Samaritan laws, bankruptcy with no wrong doing, and so on).

When a CEO authorizes expenditures for illegal activities, the CEO shouldn't be absolved. Instead he should be charged with theft (of corporate money) on top of the illegal activity he authorized. The idea that he should go free instead is so completely backwards that it tells you who really runs things in this country.

This is actually the way it is now. However, the problem is that while it's easier to prove the company was being represented when wrong doings were happening, it's a lot harder to prove any specific person was involved. But when that can be proved (take the Enron, Tyco, or Worldcom accounting scandals and investment fraud for instance) the CEO's were aware or participated, they are held personally accountable for their actions.

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ironically, your sig contains "You cannot wash away blood with blood."

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[Chyeld]

I'm not at a computer with a reliable spell checker and using IE6, misspelt words are inevitable.

The point is how many people today go to work and really don't give a shit about what the upper level folk decide to do? I work in a pretty ethical company and still it's not hard to find someone doing the "Shrug, that's what they told me they wanted done, I assume they know what they are doing" dance.

If you knew, right off the bat, that your company getting caught with a smoking gun in it's hands and a dead body in the room, would result in your own job being lost, maybe you wouldn't be that eager to let it go.

Maybe, if you were a bean counter trying to decide if the company should do a recall based on the idea that "well if it happens X times, people will sue and we'll be out Y dollars, but a recall would cost more than that", your answer won't be "let me run the numbers" and instead be "FUCK THAT, do the recall bitch!"

No, I don't expect everyone in the company to suddenly grow angel wings and fly away, but there are a huge number of people in any large company that enable 'bad deeds' simply by not giving enough of a shit to put up a fuss about it. Removing that luxury would quite possibly remove a good deal of the bad behavior companies like the old standby, Enron, used to exhibit.

Re:Why do corporations have to be people?

[TheSpoom]

That's weird. I remember reading something saying "We the People" recently, and not "We the Citizens"... maybe I'm just imagining things.

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[account_deleted]

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Corporations are not people!

[foo fighter]

Corporations are not people! They are not endowed by their creators with certain unalienable rights! They have no freedom of speech! The have to right to privacy! God damn corporatists, literally!

Re:Corporations are not people!

[MickyTheIdiot]

But because of the Limited Liability nature of corporate structure they don't act like persons even if they are made of people.

If you don't limit the rights of corporations (and I mean LIMIT not ELIMINATE) they essentially have more rights than persons do.

Re:Hooray for lawyers and lobbiests!

[HogGeek]

"VOTE FOR SMARTER CONGRESSPEOPLE"

In order to vote for them, they need to actually run for the office...

Re:Hooray for lawyers and lobbiests!

[Volante3192]

"VOTE FOR SMARTER CONGRESSPEOPLE"

In order to vote for them, they need to actually run for the office...

And before that they actually have to get nominated...

Re:Interpreting laws by the wording?

[NotBornYesterday]

IANAL, but to sum up, the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution grants the US government the power to regulate interstate and foreign commerce. In practice, it has been used to regulate things that go well beyond its original intent, such as non-navigable waterways and homegrown (non-commercial, intra-state) marijuana.

In the words of Clarence Thomas, "If Congress can regulate this [homegrown marijuana] under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything - and the federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers."

Jury duty?

[danaris]

I consider myself reasonably smart, and I wouldn't mind serving on a jury.

Only problem is, from everything I've seen and heard, my intelligence, basic working knowledge of the legal system, inquisitive mind, and sense of justice would result in me getting removed in the first round of jury selection.

Dan Aris

Re:Public Company has expectation of Privacy?

[jamstar7]

Why should a Publicly Traded Company have any expectation of privacy?

Good point. Except for the details of trade secrets (KFC's "11 secret herbs & spices", for instance), they shouldn't.

Notice I said trade secrets, not copyrights. Copyrights need dissolving after a certain amount of time. Somebody unfreeze Walt and tell him this, the old fascist...

And saying that Corporations in general are entitled to the same privacy protections as individuals seems really silly to me.

Except that individuals seem to have no expectation of privacy, so in effect, this would give corporations more rights than individuals. This trend keeps up, I'm gonna have to incorporate myself in order to get comparable rights and privileges of 'other' corporations...


That's still legal, isn't it???

Positive Feedback Loops Considered Harmful

[bill_mcgonigle]

the corporations are now in control of our government, our institutions and our resources. They have all this power but no real responsibility behind it.

Yes, but it's worse than that - corporations are extensions of government. Only the government grant of existence, immunity, and immortality enables a corporation. Without government, we just have partnerships.

So, you have tentacles of government controlling government, especially regarding how those tentacles are operated, but with massive bleed-over into anything that could negatively impact those tentacles (at the citizens' expense). This is a classic positive feedback loop. Our system of government was designed with checks and balances - explicit negative feedback loops to prevent this kind of anti-human power center from forming (one could argue the design has some bugs).

The trick is, un-doing Santa Clara is big thread to tug on, and *lots* of things unravel when you do so. I'd argue it's necessary, but the government, errr, I mean corporations (or do I?) will fight it tooth and nail.

Yet the power derives from the consent of the people - we just need to step up and exert the power we have. Hey, what's on TV tonight?

Re:Interpreting laws by the wording?

[frank_adrian314159]

Adrian's Law: Once you start using the musings of Clarence Thomas to justify your legal position, you have lost.