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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."
Corporations do not have rights, but the individuals organized in them do not lose their rights just because they organized.
I heartily agree with this, and firmly disagree with the Citizens United ruling. Before Citizens United you lost no rights by incorporating. None. ZERO Every person in the country was free to say anything he wanted, and donate as much as he wanted. You could even organize with your friends and speak as a group.
What you couldn't do was incorporate and use that corporation as a political tool. See, corporations are an artificial construct. The government is under no obligation to recognize the existence of corporations. They could abolish the concept of the corporation entirely, and that would have no affect on your free speech rights. Since the corporation is a construct created entirely by the government, they get to define the scope of that construct.
So you see, limits on corporations have nothing to do with your personal rights to free speech and free assembly. You had exactly the same amount of free speech rights before Citizen's United as you would have in the absence of corporations. Anything the government chooses to facilitate with corporations is a bonus above and beyond your natural rights.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
But corporations *ARE* people in the eyes of law. Even though it wasn't a precedent that was argued in a case (it was a footnote in a case added by a clerk, actually) it is accepted by the courts as precedent, which is what the recent election law ruling saying corporations can spend unlimited money was all about.
Knownothings call for constitutional amendments for stuff like taking away gay rights all the time... why does no one call for a constitutional amendment to REVERSE corporate personhood? It is probably one of the most important constitutional issues of our time and no one talks about it.
And we talk about "strict consitutionists..." When you do the research, there is plenty of evidence that the framers of the constitution did not believe in corporate rights in ANY way. They were VERY sceptical of corporate rights because of their dealings with the East India Company.
We are living through the looking glass when it comes to these issues today. Watch how this goes... people that are for corps. spending as much money as they want in elections say it makes things transparent... but give corporations privacy rights and all of a sudden they can spend all they want on any candidates and don't have disclose what they spend to anyone... and the corporations get even more rights!