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Does A Company Deserve the Same Privacy Rights As You?
An anonymous reader writes "The Supreme Court has agreed to hear an important case to determine whether or not AT&T deserves 'personal privacy' rights. The company claimed that the FCC should not be allowed to distribute (under a Freedom of Information Act request) data it had collected concerning possible fraud and overbilling related to the e-rate program. The FCC argued that the information should be made public and that companies had no individual right to 'personal privacy,' the way individuals do. As it stands right now, the appeals court found that companies like AT&T do deserve personal privacy rights, and now the Supreme Court will take up that question as well. Given the results of earlier 'corporation rights' cases, such as Citizens United, at some point you wonder if the Supreme Court will also give companies the right to vote directly."
If this comes to pass, then corporations will soon have more rights than people do. I'd expect to see a whole lot of real estate transactions in Delaware, and a lot more corporations being set up as people incorporate themselves to enjoy everything the government has been doing for corporations lately.
GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
Long answer: noooooooooooooo!
Only if I don't like them, or I think they're up to no good.
Otherwise, what do they have to hide?
When it can die like I can. When it can be taken off the streets indefinitely for doing harm to other people, the way I can.
Same goes for free speech in my opinion.
Corporations aren't people.
As a public company, this is clearly material information that needs to be disclosed to all shareholders (current and potential). Once you start trading stock, your corporate right to privacy pretty much disappears, at least where possible criminal activity is concerned.
Companies already vote with their money.
Rights exist or don't exist. Once you start to use the term "Do X deserve the right to Y?" you have already lost.
The Citizens United case has no bearing on this one. Anyone who disagrees with the Citizens United decision is dreadfully confused about what free speech means. If a few friends can't start an organization with the goal of promoting their political views without the government telling them what they may and may not say, then we may as well just pack it in right now.
Companies are not PEOPLE- people have rights, companies and corporations should not.
Of course they are treated like people and do have rights- a source of many of our problems.
BTW, the RIAA already has rights people don't.
Dave
Well, that was easy. Next question?
May we live long and die out
And in the case where corporate and individual privacy rights are in conflict, guess which way the courts will likely rule. While a privately-owned company may have the right to completely hide its business dealings from the public, a publicly-traded one like AT&T shouldn't be allowed to hide behind "privacy" concerns when the real issue is that they've been caught doing dirty business.
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
The problem with restricting privacy rights to individuals only is that ultimately no organization, corporate or not, will have privacy rights. Except perhaps churches in countries that grant them a special status. Beware the unintended consequences of a well intentioned idea.
If corporations have personal rights, is that always the case, or only when the law in question fails to specifically distinguish between real people and companies?
For example, my understanding is that McCain-Feingold was struck down becuase it limited the "free speech" of corporations.
On the other hand, there are other laws I think, perhaps pertaining to voting, that absolutely must never treat corporations as identical to real people.
If you want the right to privacy, then you need to be arrestable. Aka, if they are found guilty of a crime, then the entire corporation must go to jail. After all, if they can't be held responsible, then they shouldn't get the ability to hide their actions.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
No, as in I don't think this was the intention of the authors of the Bill of Rights or the 14th amendment. But yes, as in this is consistent with the way the courts have always ruled; that the 14th amendment gives corporations all Bill of Rights protections. They decided this in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad in 1886. They have held this precedent for 114 years now. They have recently upheld this in the controversial recent Citizens United case. I think it's B.S. that corporations have "human" rights in the U.S. but the courts will continue to maintain that position and you can expect AT&T to win.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
When it can die like I can. When it can be taken off the streets indefinitely for doing harm to other people, the way I can. Same goes for free speech in my opinion.
Careful, given your criteria corporations should have the right to privacy. I suspect that was not your intent. Judges can order that a corporation be dissolved for misconduct.
Representation in our government is supposed to be reserved for citizens. Corporations are not citizens, as they are not PEOPLE! I would never go so far as to think that corporations should not hold a certain amount of protection under the law, but this is getting ridiculous.
/RANT
Corporations generally employ groups of people. The rights of this group should be decided based on the rights of the citizens involved. By giving corporations legal rights as individuals the US government is creating a subclass of citizens which have more rights than other citizens based on ownership & employment. This is completely backwards in that publicly traded companies are supposed to be publicly owned, and therefore "Personal Privacy" of corporations becomes nothing more than a farce for withholding information important to a public purchase.
All lobbying should be done by virtue of the rights of an individual citizen, not some money machine. Remove this piece of corruption and require all companies lobbying before Congress to include a list of citizens they represent. This means employees & shareholders of these companies would have to agree to be on that list, for EACH LOBBIED SUBJECT. Very quickly we will all see the truth of who's interests are being represented.
Where genius and insanity become confused true wisdom is found
A decent-sized corporation at the least is equivalent to a public figure. So right there, they'd have a lower expectation of privacy than I would have as a private, nearly anonymous person. Second, I think it's already established that a regulated business which deals with the public has a lower expectation of privacy than a private person.
Consider this. Suppose I personally were doing the business that AT&T was doing. Namely, my superdooper transhumanist implants or whatever allowed me to do the business of a few hundred thousand member corporation. Do I have an expectation of privacy that allows me to deep six an FCC report directly pertaining to my activities that I might find unfavorable to me? To be blunt, I don't think so. In other words, even if we grant a corporation the same privacy rights as a person, I don't see that a person would have an expectation of privacy in this circumstance.
They get the same privacy rights that the rest of us do. They get to have their browsing habits spied upon, their junk fondled at the airport, and all of their trade secrets given to hackers when a human happens to leave their private information on a public server like an idiot.
The ______ Agenda
Consider the following: What if a corporation were allowed to vote - one corporation, one vote. How much would that change things, when there are millions of people voting? Indeed, if we could limit the influence of a corporation down to just one vote, that would likely be better than what we have now, where a corporation can influence millions of votes via "soft money" funding of political parties.
In reality, it's not the idea that "corporations can vote" - it's the idea that "rich people, via corporations, can vote more than their fair share". Yes, if "corporations" could vote, then you'd see the Rich And Powerful creating millions of shell corporations to increase their own voting power.
But if I could limit [Koch|Microsoft|Ford|BP|..] to just ONE vote....
www.eFax.com are spammers
The right to vote is explicitly given to citizens, not persons. Most other rights that people think of, like free speech, are given to persons. This is whether they are natural or legal persons. Making a corporation a citizen would require amending the constitution as the only way to get citizenship is immigration or being natural born.
Corporations are legal entities defined by law and their rights should also be defined by law. Of course the Congress will do what is right for their contributors. So the people lose either way.
The concept of rights isn't about what a person can and can't do, it's about limiting the power of government. Freedom of speech is a right. It's implementation in the first amendment is important. The first five words of the first amendment are "Congress shall pass no law". This is an important distinction from "People have the right to" or "People can say whatever they want". "none shall pass", it doesn't matter if it's a flesh wound or a mortal wound, Congress can't make restrictions. Whether people have rights that companies do not is moot. It's whether the government can or can't restrict certain activities.
Some refer to the equal protection clause under these types of situations, but the notion of equality is only relevant if the two entities being compared are effectively equivalent. The notion that companies are equivalent to people is absurd. If companies are equivalent to people, how do you count votes for a company, and in what districts?
It's like voting millions of times.
If you want the right to privacy, then you need to be arrestable. Aka, if they are found guilty of a crime, then the entire corporation must go to jail. After all, if they can't be held responsible, then they shouldn't get the ability to hide their actions.
Corporate officers can be sued or prosecuted for their decisions and actions. Corporations themselves can be dissolved due to misconduct.
A "Company" already is awarded benefits that are grotesquely wrong. One of my main complaints is that the law views a "Corporation" as a single entity, and in this course physical individuals are legally shielded from direct complaints. Only in the most extreme scenerio, oft brought to light by other equally powerful entities, can an individual or board room member be personally charged with a crime.
So I think Companies, Corporations are granted free reign on any tyrannical act they deem profitable. This is already far too much in my opinion.
Now, on to the issue brought up, under my premise that they already get away with murder, my main disagreement with the idea that they should be awarded personal Rights stems from another argument the have to circumvent immediate democratic measures; in other words, they argue that since they employ people that they inherently represent their views regardless under the assumption what's good for the company in turn is good for it's employees and thus surrounding society. This rationale is so flawed, one could write a book on how it's incorrect even without touching on giving jobs to foreigners or off-shore employees.
The above argument basically boils down to public representation. If you are representing the interests of the public, then you should abide by rules, regulations and scrutiny of the public. Period, no other way around it, no argument suffices to contradict this demand. Companies can't have both to choose from whenever the situation best suits them. When they indirectly cause a famine in Africa.... they are a single entity and those involved aren't directly charged and convicted. When the government comes for them, then they want to hide behind Personal Rights as granted to individuals... all the while, they also have to abide by business laws, and international legislation....
No, AT&T does not deserve explicit rights granted to Individual Citizens. They do not deserve the rights they already have.
Take any random citizen - let's just say me, for example. Since AT&T is a publicly traded corporation, I can, at will, by shares in the ownership of AT&T. Since I have partial ownership, I should be able to see whatever non-confidential information of theirs that I want (by confidential, I mean stuff like credit card numbers, anything under a client-lawyer protection, etc.). Since anybody at all can buy shares, I'd say it would be far easier to make the publicly-traded company's information publicly available. At MINIMUM, the shareholders should get it. They own the corporation, after all.
No, there is no "-1 I'LL NEVER ADMIT BEING WRONG!!!" mod.
Really simple. Publicly traded companies need to be Publicly Accountable. So, "NO".
I'da modded you up.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
Abolish trademarks!
Trademarks are intended to build brand recognition for goods or services. The idea is that a consumer has an honest perception of the source they are interacting with. It benefits both the producer and the consumer that their good name is defended from impersonators. It allows a company to build an honest reputation (good or bad). If we limit categories of negative information that can be disclosed for a particular brand - then how can a consumer reach a fair or balanced opinion? It follows that public perception of a trademarks is a farce, so trademark protection should no longer be enforced.
Does anyone really want that?
The Constitution of the United States of America talks about how the government is to be organized. It also spells out some of the rights of it's citizens (mostly in the Amendments, particularly the Bill of Rights). It's been a while since I've read the whole thing, but I don't recall a single reference to corporations.
Corporations aren't people. They should have very limited rights. Certainly no right to privacy. Certainly no right to free speech.
But money can apparently buy just about anything in the USA. It's already bought corporations more free speech than actual citizens. No doubt it will soon buy corporations more privacy than citizens too. Ain't fascism wonderful?
Recently on August 23rd this year, UNITED STATES v. HAVELOCK concluded that mailing threatening communications in violation of 18 U.S.C. 876(c), which makes it a felony to mail a communication addressed to any other person, does not apply to companies and corporations like news organizations. So since they are not persons, they should not be bound by personal privacy laws.
Rights in the Deist sense of Natural Law -Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness are one use of the word.
The legal rights are what you are legally entitled to- as in "you have the right to an attorney, if you are unable to afford one, one will be provided".
Legal protections can be voided, Natural Law cant. So deserved rights are legal issues. Corporations as a fully artificial construct are not provided the Rights of Natural Law, though corporation have legal rights.
Though corporations should have some privacy rights, they should not enjoy the full measure of a persons privacy.
Rights are not privileges. Privileges might be deserved or not. Rights are not "deserved": they are an inalienable feature of a person. Whatever the "creator" is, the creator of actual people that endowed people with inalienable rights is not a person (nor a government), and does not create corporations. People and governments create corporations, which do not have inalienable anything. Corporations are put together and made, and they can be separated from anything that makes them. They have no rights, only privileges actually assigned to the people who are the executives of the corporation.
The entire notion that a corporation is a person is a legal fraud originally perpetrated as a scam by a railroad monopoly. It's only though relentless corporate interference with the law in the US that corporations are treated as "persons" in any way. This fundamental injustice is the deepest flaw in our current democratic republic, and the source of the majority of our hardest to solve problems.
As for privacy, the US government already fails to protect the privacy of actual people according to the enumeration in the Fourth Amendment: "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects". Somehow Supreme Court justices can read that specification and not recognize the right to privacy it not only recognizes, but actually enumerates. To protect the privacy of corporations as a matter of "right" would pervert the fundamental basis of the US government beyond any ability to take it seriously except as a public office of private corporate power.
--
make install -not war
Individuals have rights. Corporations are simply a group of people who collaborate. The individuals still have rights, but their association doesn't magically create a "corporate person." I understand the whole convenience-for-tax-purposes element. A corporation isn't a sentient entity, and thus cannot have an expectation of ... anything. (The people operating the company have lots of expectations, but that's a completely different conversation.)
"My friends, if the courts start granting rights to legal fictions, then what's to keep them from granting rights to fictional characters? Should you have the right to marry Harry Potter? Why not grant privacy rights to ghosts, or robots, or horses, or zombies? If a fictional zombie is on your property, breaking into your house, going to eat your wife, your daughter, your grandma, and you've got a loaded shotgun in your hands, do you want to have to stop and worry about its rights? How about video game characters? Should Duke Nukem have to worry about being sued by the mutants he's gunning down? I mean, where does it end? The time is 5:28..."
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
AT&T wants personal privacy rights? The guys who oh-so-helpfully set up special rooms for the NSA to intercept data traffic, thus violating the personal privacy rights of everyone using their network? That AT&T? Pay attention, Ms. Morissette, for THAT is ironic.
The employees *inside* the corporation have the right to vote, speak, hire lobbyists, et cetera but the corporation itself has no more rights than a building.
The participants in a corporation are shielded for the most part from personal liability. That's the secret sauce that makes corporations so desirable; the people who form a company can pool their money and the entity is held responsible for the activities they collectively engage in, rather than the individuals involved. This is a great incentive for generating entrepreneurial activity, but it also means that the corporation has a legal life of its own, separate from even the founding individuals, much less people who were brought aboard long after the founders died.
The people inside the corporation spend money on lobbyists, PR campaigns, PACs, and so on, but they are merely the servants of the corporation. When Altria spends millions on local, state, and federal elections every year, it's not because J. Worthington Snipe, the guy who runs their Dirty Tricks Division, is exercising his rights as an individual. It's because Altria is taking advantage of its legal right to free speech, as defined by a series of Supreme Court decisions that completely ignore the fact that voting rights only matter if they are not completely overpowered by the 1st Amendment rights of goliath corporations.
The fact that corporations are legal fictions in no way diminishes the fact that they have been given many rights we would otherwise associate only with human beings.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
There is no notion of collective rights in the constitution, only individual rights. Corporations (and LLCs) are state sponsored entities where businesses give up some of their rights in exchange for limited liability. By granting them the same rights as people, while still granting them limited liability, they're elevating corporations above individuals.
Now if you're talking about a proprietorship or a partnership, then yes they should have privacy rights as their liability is the same as yours or mine.
If AT&T doesn't want to play by the rules, then they should have their corporate charter revoked. Otherwise just shut up and enjoy your dance with the devil.
I like that one. If you're not a lawyer, you should be one. This is exactly how you route around bad law. Mitigate it's negative effects by creatively analogizing from another field. The argument would be an uphill slope, but I wonder if any public advocacy groups have thought of taking this approch.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Tomorrow the corporations will have the right to vote. Then they will elect presidents. Then, just as they pay billionaire bonuses to the CEOs, perhaps the rest of you can find something to eat before watch another season of Lost. Governments exist to look out for the interest of PEOPLE. REAL PEOPLE. That's democracy. This thing of even judging constitutionality of applying individual rights to corporations is wrong since the start. It would be right in a Corpocracy. It should be very simple: give corporations the right of 'personal privacy' means do any good for real people? No. Then: no!
so, if i collect information on my neighbor, and then someone asks me to reveal that information under any law, i will be able to say 'its my privacy' ?
Read radical news here
You sir are an idiot.
I can't wait for corps to be charged with the 3-strikes laws. Can we get **AA kicked off the internet yet?
If you want your organization to be able to do things individuals can not, not least protect the individuals from losses, or from prosecution for negligence and lawbreaking by the organization, you have to expect that there will be compensating features of public oversight.
No. There is also the option of government oversight. Especially since it can be mandated that government agents have special access to information. For example the IRS having access to financial and business transactions that the public probably should not have access to.
There is no way it should have any privacy... Its business practices should be part of public record...
Even if it wasn't publicly traded... That information should be released to the public.. There is no accountability for bad business practices the people that gave it the thumbs up and let it go on.. Should be fired with no bonuses or golden parachutes.. They should be jail since they knowing defrauded people of money.
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
If a company is a person, and you buy shares of said company, does that constitute slavery? Isn't slavery, at least in part, defined as owning a person?
I know the article is supposed to about our rights being taken away while goverment hands out rights to corporations...sickening.
Side note:
AT&T, fraud?, doesnt want anyone to know about it? that couldnt possibly be happening. oh wait a moment, this has been going on for a while and AT&T has already basically admitted guilt?
networkworld.com
I am hoping the next news article about AT&T that comes out, is about executives going to jail and donating their golden parachutes to the schools... will that actually happen? 8ball says: My sources say no
A corporate body IS essentially the SAME as a human being/person, in a court of law. In fact, see here for more specifics on that note:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation
It's known as a corporate entity, per B-LAW I & II (where we covered laws of contracts etc./et al, in my 1st of 2 degrees (B.S. Business Administration + MIS Minor, 2nd/other degree is CSC here)).
Yes, it's been AGES since I looked into this "madness-N-lunacy", but there's my take on it, & why... but?
Yes, I do agree with you KillaGouge: Simply because the BIG "multi-nationals" & banks are what runs this planet & really essentially ALWAYS has (big money in other words). I hate thinking that way, but life's not showing me ANY DIFFERENT in 45 yrs. now on this planet (how sad).
APK
P.S.=> HOWEVER: Is it TRULY (a corporate body) actually a "person", & entitled to the EXACT same rights we as humans are? Hell no, we all know this...
Yes - technical tough call here! Still, I say no, since Businesses are NOT truly people (incorporated businesses, even though the latin root of "incorporate" means essentially to "make corporeal" or, to have a body etc. iirc)... and also because I do NOT like seeing businesses get any more powerful than they are currently! They have more money, even Bill Gates, richest single man on earth, has less to his name than his own corporate body in MS... this means in a "fight"? If money were muscle, and face it, is really basically IS??
Even "King Billy" would lose (just on 'weight alone', where MS could 'lean on him' & tip him over/win)... & the "King Billy" part? Not mockery, by any means on my part... it's actually meant as a sign of respect here! apk
Now we can rephrase the GM and bank bailouts.
They weren't bailouts, they were healthcare for companies. And their healthcare records are private, so shut up, pay up and quit asking questions.
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
Cannot figure out how to edit my already submitted comment. doh.
AT&T to pay $8.2 million in E-Rate settlement
AT&T Technical Services engaged in non-competitive bidding practices, the Justice Department alleges
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/021709-att-e-rate.html
A corporation is not a natural person, it is a fictitious entity, and so by definition has no privacy to protect. Each individual can protect their individual privacy. The individuals can band together into an association and protect their freedom of association (to some degree).
A corporation has trade secrets, which it protects as a proxy for the interests of the shareholders. There is already legislation and case law protecting trade secrets. A court should not confuse trade secrets with personal privacy.
Luke, help me take this mask off
You belong to a social advocacy or political group that makes a mistake on a tax filing. The IRS collects documentation including membership rolls. Now that membership roll is available through a freedom of information act request.
So.... What?
Hollywood Blacklist
Corporations are legal fictions, so when they are treated as having rights, they aren't really the ones that have those rights -- the people that control the corporations are. So, its not that corporations will have more rights than people do, its that the people who run corporations will have more rights than other people do.
And now that I am a corporation I want to be considered to be too big to fail and have access to tax dollars when I feel the need. The truth is that corporations are a fantasy, a convenience, a fiction, and should have no rights at all.
We have an idiot in Florida running for congress who is a deadbeat, a radical, and even has openly advocated armed rebellion against the government. He just might get elected! But when I hear of these corporations having rights court cases I could almost vote for him.
"Given the results of earlier 'corporation rights' cases, such as Citizens United, at some point you wonder if the Supreme Court will also give companies the right to vote directly." Personally, I actually won't be too surprised when that happens, after all they've already given corporations a ruling that effectively translates into unlimited bidding rights on politicians; why stop there?!
I'm honest enough to admit I lie to myself.
Establishing that corporations are not people, and not entitled to the same rights as people.
The whole difference between a human and a corporation is that the shareholders are insulated, by design, against laws which would apply to them individually if they were taking those same actions as individuals. A corporation goes bankrupt, and the shareholders lose only value in their stock, and are not assessed for debts the corporation incurred.
A corporation should not have the right to speak freely, because the a corporation is not a human-- it is a mechanism to shield humans from risk. As such, it has diminished rights of speech and privacy.
"...you wonder if the Supreme Court will also give companies the right to vote directly."
I'm all for it...if that vote comes at the expense of the personal votes of the Board. Otherwise, they're voting twice.
Give them jail time:
A company cannot operate for a certain number of years and must close its doors if they break laws.
Give them proportional fines:
If an individual person gets a $500 fine for a minor infraction, a company with 100,000 employees breaks gets a $50,000,000 dollar fine for every minor infraction. If a major infraction carried a $250,000 fine (like piracy does) the company will be on the hook for $25 billion
Give them the death penalty:
A jury can liquidate the company's assets for serious lawbreaking if a fine is un-payable or inadequate for the seriousness of the offense.
Hold their executives personally accountable:
No more hiding behind the corporation! If you gave the order to break the law, or your board agreed on such an order, you get to spend eternity in prison while your company gets liquidated.
they'll get it. When will this idiocy stop? When will we stop treating corporations as people? I just don't understand it. It makes no sense. If we treat them as people when it's to their benefit we should do so when it's to their detriment as well. If someone at a corporation breaks the law everyone at the corporation should pay the price or the company itself should pay the price, a price commensurate to the crime, not the ridiculous wrist slaps that happen now.
Corporations are the "Blade" of humanity. All of our rights, none of our responsibilities!
Looks like the general vibe here is that companies can have the personal rights of an individual just as soon as they're held liable to the same laws that any individual must obey in a human society. You can't have your cake and eat it, too.
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
Evidence of committing a crime is only a trade secret if you're willing to declare that your trade is the commission of crime.
As you might guess from my previous post, I don't think corporations should enjoy the rights of a natural born person. Unfortunately, when Congress wrote the FOIA, they included language that for the purposes of the Act, a "person" can include a "corporation". See the circuit court's thinking for yourself in Google Scholar. Scroll down to section IV.B, line 501.
So, provided the Supreme Court rules narrowly within the bounds of the case (and considering that the Roberts Court almost always rules for the rights of corporations), I think AT&T is going to win.
Luke, help me take this mask off
A company is just a group of individuals united by contract. So, yes, they deserve the same privacy rights as individuals. No more, no less.
The idea that this is even up for question is absurd. If you believe in individual privacy rights and you believe in contracts, you have to believe in privacy rights for companies.
Why do they need privacy if they have nothing to hide? Isn't that why we shouldn't be mad that they gave all our information to the government without search warrants?
I'm sure they'd live by the same rules they wanted us to follow, right guys?
The Supreme Court ruled (Dred Scott) that a black man is the equivalent of 3/5 of a white man. I wouldn't be surprised if they rule that a corporation is the equivalent of 100 (or 1000) voters, in any jurisdiction in which they do business. The Supremes have ruled that if you grow a plant in your own backyard, for your own use, that's Interstate Commerce, so don't expect a reasonable ruling from those jokers.
I suppose reframing the question as, "Does the public have the right to company transparency?" Companies are not humans, and it's not equitable that they be treated as one when they can't suffer the same consequences, and the people responsible can walk away.
If individuals can be branded with scarlet letters when they are under investigation of a crime, why can't companies?
You're all looking at this wrong. The new court will be willing to take a fresh look at the issue. More likely, the debate will be about whether or not the alleged right to privacy is protected. Perhaps most of the judges would agree that it does exist as a natural right, but that doesn't mean they will acknowledge it as being protected by the law (it's not mentioned in the Constitution). That's the critical part here. I don't think this issue has come up in the new court yet, but this issue is connected to Roe v Wade which was a horrible decision from a legal perspective (ref penumbra and judicial latitude to determine basic rights and laws of the land) in the eyes of this court, which makes the issue the foremost, IMO.
I guess we'll see.
IANAL.
- Derek
Just had this brainstorm:
If, in the future, a draft is called, then corps, in all fairness, should be called up too.
The way it would work, I guess, is for the corporation to give money and materiel in lieu of manpower.
It's hard to escape the conclusion that rights require concomitant responsibilities.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Sure, give the corps a vote(1 vote per corp), give them privacy, BUT with that give them the tax rate, the lack of write offs. Give them them a jail sentence for ripping off a customer.
They cannot have it both ways.
Please tell me more about this privacy you're talking about.
Considering how current congress members, such as Boehner, are already primarily representing corporate America, letting corporations be directly in congress will clearly save time and money. If we can just outsource the rest of the Government to a third world country then the dream of Regan Republicans will be fulfilled. The entire economy and running of the US will be done for the lowest price possible by private enterprise. Of course no US citizens except politicians, lobbyists, and corporate lawyers will have jobs, but that is a small price to pay for the ultimate Republican wet dream.
Why is Snark Required?
The only rights that exist are the ones you take. Even if somebody else does the butt kicking to attain those rights for you if you don't defend them then you will lose them. So, sadly, I guess corporations will likely get whatever rights they want because they are designed to lack empathy, fear of law, respect of community, and so on.. which means they can grow bigger and bigger and become more and more abusive without anyone putting the brakes on. In many ways those in charge of corporations can only get in trouble if they try to maintain a code of ethics - they have to maintain growth at any cost. And in America they have us so brainwashed that most of us are proud of them for their bad behavior because it's the American dream and greed is good and all those bullshit things people use to defend unrestrained Capitalism.
I'm all for businesses but mega-corporations are evil by design.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Vote? No. Because anyone can set up any number of LLCs. Each LLC, if given a vote, would have to vote the way of the founder. This gives anyone with the resources to create LLCs more voting franchises.
And, if voting is off the table, certainly other things can be as well.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Let's just rename this country to America Inc. already and stop fooling ourselves that it's still a country for "We The People".
The CFO gets the bog bucks because their job is riskier. That's what they keep telling me.
The management get paid more because they are supposed to be responsible for the work the people do under them, and the senior management responsible for making the managers do their jobs and the C*O get paid massively becuase they get a risky job. Except they don't get fired, they get great pension (index linked, usually) and a golden parachute when "let go". So where is the risk?
The Buck Starts Here seems to be your motive. But it should STOP there. If the CFO cannot handle the responsibility for the actions of their staff, then they shouldn't do the job or delegate it (and the pay) and the responsibility down to someone else. If the C*O ends up being nothing more than a figurehead because all the responsibility is delegated, then they aren't really worth as much as a manager.
Simple questions are too easy to be asked. To have an expectation of personal privacy, you'd have to be a person, right? I mean come on, you can lawyer-talk all you like, but that doesn't change simple, straightforward facts. Yes, I know that it is the job of lawyers to complicate and twist around simple facts until they don't look so simple anymore, but that's just a trick of the trade.
So no, corporations do not have personal privacy because they aren't persons.
Oh, also, in this case, they aren't private. They're a publicly traded company. Oops.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I founded a company myself because it allows me to do I could otherwise not do. I end up paying less tax, I'm able to hold/trade stock in parts of the world I otherwise can't, I can obtain goods at prices that are not otherwise possible, I enjoy enhanced legal protection when I screw up, etc. etc. IMHO, this very fact, that it's benefitting me as a single person, without my contribution to society being increased, makes the current implementation of what a company is dead wrong.
I used to think that running your own company was about the job: growing your product/service, pleasing your customers, providing jobs.. and that's why I failed before. Now that I understand it's all about my personal gain, I've been much more successful, though disappointed at heart.
A couple of problems there.
1) Try modding your PS3. Or ripping your BluRay. Or selling your Steam version of HL2.
2) The post you reply to is talking about PEOPLE (Corporations) and you reply with an OBJECT (something). If it's an object, it's not a person and so you're saying that a corporation is not a person therefore cannot have the right to free speech and privacy.
I am glad I don't live in US. You guys seem to be ruled by your corporations in the strangest ways. Lobbyism, voluntary news censorship, lawsuits that can only be won by corporations, and now this..
I feel sorry for you guys.
you'll never hear about at a Teabagger rally.
NO! Final and end of argument.
Maybe for a private company. Most government collected data should probably be public. Might depend on size and type of information. Safety related information, like a one man car shop, should be public. I can think of other information that should be private. Customer lists for instance.
The City of London Corporation (the local authority for the City of London's business district) allows companies to put forward people to vote in local elections. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London_Corporation More info on who & how. http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/scripts/htm_hl.pl?DB=col&STEMMER=en&WORDS=compani%20vote&ALL=&ANY=&EXACTB=0&PHRASE=&EXACTP=0&CATEGORIES=&SIMPLE=company%20votes&COLOUR=Red&STYLE=s&URL=http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Corporation/LGNL_Services/Council_and_democracy/Councillors_democracy_and_elections/Voting_and_Registration/Voting+FAQ.htm#muscat_highlighter_first_match
NO. I don't care what any lawyer or judge says, Corporations are not people or real citizens of any country and therefore don't get the same rights as real people.
Corporations exist as a figment of the state - literally, they only exist because a license from the state says they do.
People exist, whether or not the state declares them to exist. The state exists because The People said it does. Corporations exist at the whim of the state.
Elections for state office are regulated by state laws. And many states have never had the limitations on corporate speech that existed federally prior to Citizens United. Yet they do not stand out as significantly more corrupt or worse off in any correlated way.
Money is not the only factor in elections. If it was, multi-millionaires like Ross Perot, Mitt Romney, or Jon Corzine could buy their way into office whenever they wanted. But they can't.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/29/headlines
Court Exempts Corporations from Alien Tort Law
A federal appeals court has ruled US corporations can no longer be sued for human rights violations abroad under the longstanding Alien Tort Statute. Earlier this month, the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Alien tort claims can only be brought against individuals, not corporations. The ruling dismissed a lawsuit accusing the oil giant Royal Dutch Shell of complicity in the murder and torture of Nigerian activists including Ken Saro-Wiwa. In a separate opinion, Second Circuit Judge Pierre Leval criticized the ruling, writing, "The majority opinion deals a substantial blow to international law and its undertaking to protect fundamental human rights So long as they incorporate, businesses will now be free to trade in or exploit slaves, employ mercenary armies to do dirty work for despots, perform genocides or operate torture prisons for a despot’s political opponents, or engage in piracy—all without civil liability to victims."
So....they get all the rights with none of the responsibilities.
Why aren't the Tea Baggers up in arms over stuff like this? No, they are too busy fighting big gumint....
It's not the only factor. But it sure does have a huge influence. For example, both Romney and Corzine DID buy their way into office initially.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai