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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."
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
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Nice work. Just so you know, when the revolution comes you'll be first against the wall.
At the rate this idiocy is going it won't be long until directors of failed corporations get charged with manslaughter or murder....
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CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
Can we do this for the Commerce Clause?
The obvious answer is that corporations as part of their activities would say that everything on their computers belongs to the people using them, and their employment is a purchase of some assets or IP back. Everything else, your emails, your non-contracted work product, etc, would be your personal property, and then corps would literally own nothing to produce in court, except a finished product and some bills.
This is my sig.
And is a Hooray some sort of energy weapon made out of the sound an owl makes? :)
No, man. It's the eye beams that come out of U.S. Army soldiers when their power level goes OVER 9000!!!!!
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I, for one, believe it is time for lesser minds to have some influence on the laws which are inflicted upon them.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
This can easily be resolved by acknowledging that there is no right to privacy.
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!
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
So corporations get all the right of an individual, but with nothing but monetary penalties when they do something criminal like poison the ground water. The jerks responsible just close up shop and start a new corporation and rinse repeat.
No, this ruling does not go that far. This ruling does not say that corporations get the same "personal privacy" protection as individuals in all cases, only in the way that the government responds to FOIA requests. This is not a bad ruling, it is a good ruling on a badly written law. The results of this ruling are bad, but the law was clearly written to say this. It was probably not written this way on purpose, but I wouldn't bet on that. Considering that legislators often don't even read laws that they introduce, it is possible that some staffer introduced this wording for exactly this purpose.
However, I would expect that in this case the wording was introduced to serve some other purpose in the law (such as allowing corporations to file FOIA requests) without anybody noticing that it gave corporations unintended privacy protections.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I get so tired of hearing about who corporation XXX screwed today. Give them some privacy with their sex lives. I don't even want to imagine what Microsoft and Apple do when alone together.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
The results of this ruling are bad, but the law was clearly written to say this. It was probably not written this way on purpose, but I wouldn't bet on that. Considering that legislators often don't even read laws that they introduce, it is possible that some staffer introduced this wording for exactly this purpose.
I dunno, given that there are aspects of corporations that require them to be treated as an individual (contracts, property ownership) they might have just picked up a generic definition from some other location to save time. (The old "never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity" defense.)
The real problem is these laws don't get the full fine-tooth comb treatment until they get challenged at which point everyone comes out with magnifying glasses arguing that a smudge is a comma and vice versa. Unfortunatly, laws are a numbers game for politicians rather than something that should be considered their legacy: "I've introduced XXX bills!" Yeah, but how many were actually good?
The government should not have the right to publish private information that they have seized just because it does not pertain to a natural person. What if they seize your customer records in the course of an investigation of one of your customers? Should your competitors be able to see those records just because you took the sensible precaution of incorporating your business?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Corporations might have a right to corporate privacy but not to personal privacy.
If they are people give them a right to vote. I mean by pencil, not by money ;-)
And jail them if they do something wrong and make them stop operating until they get out. Would they accept?
That's rhetoric and ideology, not legal reasoning.
Why can there not be legal language giving corporations a specific set of rights necessary to act as corporations must and should, yet not defining them as people?
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Go to http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2469/how-can-a-corporation-be-legally-considered-a-person and do a find on "court reporter"
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
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
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...
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???
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
After reading through the decision and the relevant law, I feel confident in stating that the 3rd Circuit did not just "invent" a right to personal privacy for corporations: it appears that right is codified in law, at least as regards the Freedom of Information Act. This is not a big deal, since all that means is that Federal agencies can't publish private data about corporations, which they don't really need to do perform their regulatory functions.
The real question is, what is private about a publicly traded company? Sensitive personal information is normally limited to things like birthdates, Social Security numbers/Tax ID numbers, mother's maiden name, and other identifying bits of information. In this case, it would be proper for the TIN of a corporation to be kept private, since someone could use that to take out credit in the name of the corporation, just like ID theft of individuals. Any other information that can be used in that way should also be protected. Whether the data that AT&T was trying to protect counts as protected remains to be seen, the FCC will still have to rule on that.
Disclosure: I work for AT&T, though not in any department or division relevant to this case.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
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When writing laws that affect a nation of 300 million people, stupidity is malice.
People vote for smarter representatives all the time... they are called Europeans.
In the US, our system is so corrupt from top to bottom. There's too much corporate money involved in elections and campaigns, and their are too many stupid Americans who vote based on things like abortion, banning gay marriage, being able to have prayer in schools, keeping guns unrestricted, and eliminating the IRS. They've been brainwashed to think that God will just make everything okay if they make sure all the "dirty sinful liberals" can't actually pass laws like economic and health reform. There is no logical discourse in our country any more as it's drowned out by illogical screaming, and that screaming is backed by corporate money because corporations don't like democracy. How can we vote smarter politicians into office when the ten idiots around you are voting for the idiot?
Yes I know European politicians aren't perfect but our idiots make their idiots pale in comparison in sheer ineptitude and corruption.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
The results of this ruling are bad, but the law was clearly written to say this. It was probably not written this way on purpose, but I wouldn't bet on that. Considering that legislators often don't even read laws that they introduce, it is possible that some staffer introduced this wording for exactly this purpose.
I dunno, given that there are aspects of corporations that require them to be treated as an individual (contracts, property ownership) they might have just picked up a generic definition from some other location to save time. (The old "never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity" defense.)
The real problem is these laws don't get the full fine-tooth comb treatment until they get challenged at which point everyone comes out with magnifying glasses arguing that a smudge is a comma and vice versa.
Actually that is what I said, that this law was probably not written on purpose to generate this court ruling, but that I wasn't entirely willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
I do agree with you as to the real problem with many laws. Actually, that gives me an idea for a great group for someone to start. This group would go through every law that is passed by Congress and look for language that is either blatantly bad or that doesn't match up with the expressed purpose of the law. It would be important that this group have no other political agenda than informing the public as to whether the laws passed by Congress are what Congress says they are.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
As long as my robot has the same right!
This deals a significant blow to consumer rights and makes it very difficult to regulate and watch dog corporations. I guess we have GOP judge. This ruling should again be appealed to be heard by a higher authority.
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?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
What incredible hypocrisy! An employee working for a corporation has NO expectation of privacy - they can be fired for sending emails to coworkers, using facebook on a company computer, or many other activities, but that same corporation can then turn around and claim privacy when the Federal government wants to investigate their actions? That is complete BS. We, as a people, need to rise up and demand our basic right to live as more than mindless corporate drones! Big brother *is* watching, and his title is CEO...
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Seems to be Corporations have more rights than people now, not to mention an army of lawyers to defend them. It's sort of depressing.
As is so often the case, the headline is misleading. This is not an issue with the rights and legal definitions of a corporation, but the specific structure and definitions of the Freedom of Information Act. I don't see how it could impact the general issue of the rights of a corporation, because the FOIA has nothing to do with creating or altering those rights; it merely happened to define the exemption in such a way that a corporation qualified. This is an FOIA issue, not a broader corporate law issue.
And I strongly suspect any attempt to use this as a precedent for unrelated 'rights of corporations' issues would get shot down; it's a very specific case dealing with a specific provision of a specific law.
To get there, you need an act of Congress, whose members are highly susceptible to lobbying by corporations. This has to be addressed by the Supreme Court, the same body who screwed this up a century ago. Thanks to Obama's recent appointment to the Court, this question is actually being raised, and there's at least one other Justice inclined to agree with her. Of course, they're still in the minority but it's unclear how the rest of them think, and even a strong minority opinion on this issue could be helpful in eventual change on this very important question.
Free speech for corporations? Either that is not true, or is just for profit corporations.
The government (in the USA anyway) has a long story of trying to shut down non for profit corporations that dare to say that a certain candidate is no good.
Most U.S. corporations are not multi-million dollar Fortune 500 corporations - it is apparent to me, based on many of the comments here, that many of you have this ignorant perception that they are. Well, it doesn't help that the defendant in this case is the big bad death star - AT&T.
The fact is, about 98% of the corporations in the United States are closely held corporations - this simply means there's no public market readily available to sell those shares, and in all likelihood, the shares are closely held by a few people, sometimes just one person. In most instances, they're small, family owned businesses, though there are some very successful closely held corporations (e.g. Mars, Inc. - the candy maker).
Your entire premise is incorrect. In the USA, at least, the sole purpose of a corporation is to provide limited *financial* liability to its *shareholders*; limiting their financial liability to the amount that they invested in the corporation's stock. The officers and directors of a corporation certainly can be, and have been, held both criminally and civilly liable for their own wrongdoing, and for corporate wrongdoing that they either directed in advance, or ratified after the fact. Nowhere in the US concept of corporations does the idea of "...to AVOID personal responsibility" appear.
The board of directors, of course, are shareholders, and normally some of the very biggest ones. It's not rare for the board to collectively hold a controlling share of a corporation, even without recourse to tricks like share classes with limited voting rights. So saying that corporations don't care about shareholders isn't the most insightful way of putting it; it's more like majority shareholders have interests that are different from minority shareholders.
One example: if you're a majority shareholder, you almost automatically welcome the company's an acquisition of another business (as long as it's at the right price), because it diversifies the income streams to your corporation and thus reduces the risk of the stock that makes up the vast majority of your wealth. A minority shareholder, on the other hand, can simply buy another stock to add to his portfolio, so an acquisition only makes sense if the combined business is more efficient than the pieces held separately.
Are you adequate?
FOIA makes the mistake of broadly defining 'person' to include legal entities, like corporations.
Who the heck ever said this was done by mistake? Equally likely was some lobbyist convincing the author that the change was innocuous enough.
I am officially gone from
If a legal person, corporation or not, is suspected of breaking the law, they can and should be served with a subpoena/warrant just like us flesh and blood schmucks.
A Constitutional amendment declaring that corporations are legally not individuals is long overdue.
Floating in the black seas of infinity without a paddle.
My "rhetoric and ideology" is based on decades of rational thought and experience. I know you statists hate to admit it, but the free market is PROVEN to be the only rational way of running a society. So please stop trying to change the subject and start educating yourself.
Pot, meet kettle.
I asked a simple question, the answer to which would have been some concrete facts about specific rights, duties, etc. You responded with standard libertarian ideology.
I didn't say that you were wrong. Whether or not your ideology is correct is irrelevant to this. I just said that you didn't answer the question, which you didn't.
And then you accuse me of trying to change the subject and link to Ayn Rand in the same breath?
You're either a towering hypocrite or a troll.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
"The constitution was designed to protect the freedoms of individuals," and "before corporations were treated as people, they could be undermined simply by using the protections of the constitution against them." contradict each other. So individuals exercising and protecting their Constitutional rights hurt non-individuals, so the answer was to redefine individuals. So basically it was handwaving (actually a clerical error) that did nothing to change behaviors.
I find this strange... People exercising their constitutional rights were hurting the free market, therefore we need to redefine person so we can avoid this. Personally I think individual rights come above some mythical, and abstract, free market.
By treating corporations as people, we eliminate that loophole to ensure that corporations are able to sell their products with as little regulation and oversight as possible. This is how it should be, folks.
I don't see this. Why the hell should corporations have the right to speech, privacy, and soon political speech (as if a corporation could have an opinion)? I can see the argument of not regulating them (I don't agree, but there is room for debate), but I can't see considering a fictitious entity to have the same rights that I do.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
As far an I know, German courts know a rule, that what is most important, is not the exact wording of something, but the intention behind it. So in this case, it would be obvious, that the personal privacy thing was meant for real people only, and the whole thing would be over.
Is there no such concept in US courts? Or has someone used another loophole to get around that? Can a court still stop that "corporations as real persons" thing?
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Honestly I'm not sure who I want to win.
Has the old saint in his forest not yet heard of it? That God is dead?