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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."
Sorry, Ralph Nader didn't win. Nice try, Analogy Guy.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Because it wouldn't be a corporation, it would be a partnership. And partners are financially liable for a failed business venture in a way that stockholders are not.
Got take a Business 101 class before you start spouting off about things you obviously know nothing of.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
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.
How do you explain the fact then that corporations today have far less power than they did in the late 19th, early 20th century? There is no company in the US that wields the kind of power U.S. Steel or the railroads did.