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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[Wrath0fb0b]

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

Because if Corporations didn't have First Amendment rights, Richard Nixon could have shut down the New York Times for publishing the Pentagon Papers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_States). Similarly, organizations like the ACLU, NOW, NARAL, NRL, NRA, ... (remember, most political advocacy organizations are incorporated) would be subject to restrictions on what they could say or publish in furtherance of their causes. The whole debate over the "7 deadly words" and FCC regulation of TV/radio would be a moot point if the corporations that hold those licenses had no legal right to any expression.

In the case of Dartmouth College v. Woodward (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dartmouth_College_v._Woodward) the legislature of NH decided that they have the right to unilaterally rewrite the charter of Dartmouth college and appoint their own trustees to manage it. Again, if the corporation had right to a binding contract, there would be no impediment to the fairly naked power grab attempted there. The power grab was even more blatant in Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts v. Town of Pawlet (http://supreme.justia.com/us/29/480/), in which the Town basically tried to seize land from an unpopular missionary group on the grounds that corporations have no right to property. Again, if corporations have no right, their property could just be taken with no compensation.

IMO, the protection of the rights of corporations is little more than protection of the right of individuals when they want to accomplish something larger than they can do by themselves. If you and I wanted to start a nerdrage business on the internet (nevermind the lack of a serious way to make profits), we should be able to do so and retain the rights that we do as individuals. The fact that you and I are cooperating on the matter does not detract from the fact that we still have those rights.

I'm tempted to quote soylent green here -- Corporations are made of PEOPLE.

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?

[MickyTheIdiot]

I'll bite on this one.... I think that you have a massively revisionist view of history, but even putting that aside go back and look at how much power corporations had before the 1800s. The founding fathers massively distrusted corporations due to their experience with the East India Company. The Boston Tea Party was as much a protest against the East India Company as it was the British Government (the East India Company was the proxy of the British Government in the colonies). They knew first hand the damage corporations could do and they believed the corporate charters should be handed out for limited periods of time with limited scope. We didn't have the immortal corporation in this country until the 19th century.

I don't necessarily advocate that we go back to the originally founding father's ideas about corporations, however I do think we need at the very least to think about revoking charters of corporations that are bad actors in society. I also think corporate person hood needs to removed from our society completely.

Re:Hooray for lawyers and lobbiests!

[Kuroji]

And before that they actually have to exist.