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Dead Constitution See other Dead Constitution Articles Title: Corporations a person , not entitled to personal privacy The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that personal-privacy rights don't apply to corporations under the Freedom of Information Act. Tuesday's ruling was a defeat for AT&T Inc., which had sought to block the disclosure of emails and other potentially embarrassing documents it provided to the Federal Communications Commission during a 2004 probe by the agency of whether the telecommunications giant overbilled the New London, Conn., public schools. The court, in an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, said corporations don't get to enjoy certain personal-privacy exemptions included in FOIA, a disclosure law that allows the public to gain access to some documents filed with the government. "The protection in FOIA against disclosure of law-enforcement information on the ground that it would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy does not extend to corporations," Chief Justice Roberts wrote. "We trust that AT&T will not take it personally." The case raised echoes of one of the court's highest-profile decisions in recent years. In its 2010 Citizens United ruling, a divided court threw out restrictions on corporate and union political spending. Its conservative majority, including the chief justice, cited the First Amendment free-speech rights of corporations. AT&T referred to that ruling in arguing that the Supreme Court had recognized corporations as rights-bearing persons in other legal contexts. Without mentioning Citizens United, Chief Justice Roberts, however, made clear he didn't think corporations are necessarily the legal equivalent of flesh-and-blood human beings. "Dictionaries … suggest that 'personal' does not ordinarily relate to artificial 'persons' such as corporations," he wrote. The chief justice also drew on dictionaries to contrast nouns such as "crab" and "corn" with the adjectives "crabbed" and "corny" that carry different meanings. "AT&T's effort to attribute a special legal meaning to the word 'personal' in this particular context is wholly unpersuasive," he wrote. "We respect the court's decision," AT&T spokesman Marty Richter said in a statement. The FCC's New London probe led to a December 2004 consent decree in which AT&T paid $500,000 and agreed to policies to prevent future overbilling, but it didn't admit wrongdoing. A trade group for telephone companies that compete with large incumbents such as Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T, later sought access to the FCC records under FOIA. The FCC withheld some materials under exceptions for commercial secrets, and it deleted individuals' names under a "personal privacy" exemption. But the agency wouldn't extend the personal-privacy exemption to the content of some documents, saying the exemption didn't apply to corporations. The case is Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T, 09-1279. Dow Jones & Co., the News Corp. unit that publishes The Wall Street Journal, and other news organizations filed a brief with the Supreme Court that supported the FCC position. "The Supreme Court's opinion [Tuesday] confirms our commitment to openness in government," FCC spokesman Robert Kenny said. "It's a victory for transparency and protects public access to information held by the commission and other government agencies." News-industry groups and open-government advocacy organizations argued that AT&T's position could place a wide range of records on corporate-behavior off limits to the public. Several business groups backed AT&T. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the threat of public disclosure could have a chilling effect on corporations' willingness to cooperate with law-enforcement authorities.
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