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Supreme Court Rules On Corporate Privacy
heptapod writes "The Supreme Court unanimously decided (PDF) Monday that AT&T can't keep embarrassing corporate information that it submits to the government out of public view; 'personal privacy' rights do not apply to corporations. 'We trust that AT&T will not take it personally,' concluded the ruling."
First off: "We trust that AT&T will not take it personally"
Hahahaha! That's like a big middle finger stuck right into the ruling. Nice!
Now that I got that out of my system...the whole corporate personhood thing is such a farce anyway. A corporation is nothing but a group of people. It could be one person or 100,000 people. But if you remove all the people from the corporation, can it make a decision? Can it sign a piece of paper? Can it continue to function at all? NO.
What's worse: the idea that people do things "on behalf" of corporations. Such as the fallacy that a corporation is to blame and not the person who does the wrong thing and rationalizes "I'm not a sociopath because I decided to pollute that river with toxic waste then obstruct justice during the investigation by shredding all those documents on behalf of the corporation."
Corporations don't commit crimes. People do. Maybe it's "on behalf of" the corporation. But it's always a person doing the deed.
Again, a corporation is its people. It's not its own person.
If corporations were individuals they would be sociopaths as this 2003 Canadian documentary endeavors to show. In D&D they would be considered either lawful evil or chaotic evil (depending on the corporation). They are narrowly selfish and greedy to such an extent that as an individual they would almost certainly be criminals. Profit trumps every other concern without exception. So corporations are an evil institution, but are they a necessary evil? The price we pay for economic prosperity. Perhaps, but that doesn't mean we have to give them any more power than necessary to get what we (as a society) want from them (inexpensive, innovative, useful products).
I consider myself a Libertarian, but I would argue that even in a free society corporations-as-individuals should be prohibited. It simply does not make sense to grant them the same rights as an individual not only because they clearly are a group of individuals, but because corporations need to have limitations on their power and on their predictably ruthlessly selfish/evil behavior. Corporations are the only institutions that can even remotely compete with governments in terms of power and abuse of power and they should be treated warily because of this.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Folks here are already saying things about this ruling diminishing the "person" aspect of corporations. The ruling doesn't really do that. Instead, it rests on a question of statutory construction. In particular, the court says that "personal privacy", a phrase used in FOIA, does not merely mean the privacy of a person, as AT&T argued, but instead refers to particular elements of privacy that only carry meaning when you're talking about an actual human being.
Wouldn't those people's rights be protected by, ya know, being people?
A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.
Sadly, most elected officials do not realize, that we the People, ALLOW these businesses to do business in our country.
Just like they think they lead us, when the words lead, leader and leadership, do not exist in the U.S. Constitution.
The tail shall not wag the dog. End of story. Get out and vote against these idiots! It is your DUTY as an informed
electorate.
So non-citizens residing the US have no rights? Or children?
Also, have you considered the full implications of that stance? Could the US, for example, censor Busboy Productions, Inc. on the grounds it has no first ammendment rights? Could they sieze Twitter's computer servers without a warrant on the grounds it has no fourth ammendment rights? Can they tap your wokplace phone without a warrant because your employer has no expectation of privacy?
Has a company ever been put in prison?
Wouldn't those people's rights be protected by, ya know, being people?
No. Even in the US that isn't true. If your rights have been violated by law or action, you still have to act to redress your grievance, either in the courts or through communication. What you don't get is that procedures frequently have to be implemented in order for the right to be properly honored.
For example, the Miranda warning is a judicially mandated action that was deemed necessary so that people who were arrested would aware of their rights. It doesn't follow naturally from the Constitution and didn't come about until about 45 years ago.
Similarly, corporate personhood is a legal invention. It came about precisely because the courts of the time deemed it necessary in order to honor the rights of the people making up the corporation.
No, it would be much easier as we would have to charge individuals with crimes and therefore, individuals in the company would have real personal consequences for their actions instead of having the company take the fall. It also wouldn't have to be a single person; a group of people in collusion would be just as effective.
-SaNo
There's a big difference between having some form of legal entity and personhood. The one big thing that must be brought back is actual enforcement of the requirement that a corporation be in the public interest. Breaking the law is never in the public interest, so a corporation that does so is dissolved.
The people certainly not.
But why does the group need extra rights for itself, if all the people within it already have them?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I personaly don't see why people working together should have less rights than people working alone.
They don't. The people working at a corporation are nowhere even the subject of the discussion. The rights at stake are additional rights given to the corporation.
I personally don't see why people working together should have more rights than people working alone.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Many countries make a distinction between natural persons (i.e. humans) and a legal person (entities, corporations). I have to assume that there must be some distiction between the two in the US too, though it is smaller than elsewhere. If not, a corporation being a natural person would have a nationality, and if it is a US nationality, it would have the right to vote in elections, which is not the case.
Sure they can. For instance, if corporations are property, thanks to asset forfeiture it's possible for the government to charge property with a crime and confiscate it.
Or alternately, assume they are neither property nor persons. That means that Congress can pass whatever laws about corporations they like (since they nearly always fall under interstate commerce), and the state where the corporation is incorporated can also exercise unchecked control. Either of them could pass a law that states something like "Corporations who commit criminal offenses will be tried as criminal defendants."
One could argue whether either of those is a good or bad thing, but it's hardly a situation where they can't be charged with a crime.
I am officially gone from
Which typically amounts to a slap on the wrist.
Problem is, "the public" is not what you think it is. that does not mean you or me but "major shareholders" which is the top 1% of the population. Liability to you or me, even if we hold 1,000 shares is nothing. liability to the guy that owns 20% is there.
the public was sold a bag of goods that was rigged from the start to protect the riches of the top 1% and NOT that of the public.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You have summed up the problem pretty effectively. All the execs have to do is pass the buck and they know they can basically get away with whatever they want. And if they are caught, the harshest penalty is monetary - not even personal fines, but rather the corporation. It is like legally removing your conscience.
"But this one goes to 11!"
When a company is fined, who pays the price? For public companies (most of the companies we care about), the answer is basically shareholders -- almost all of whom had no part in the wrongdoing. So the main effect is that some people in the company do something wrong, then all shareholders get fined. I think more fines should be leveled on the people who actually did the wrongdoing (although fining the company is still somewhat useful as it does provide an incentive not to break the law -- it's just that the burden of the fine is mostly misplaced).