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AT&T Case Asks High Court to Assign Privacy Rights to Companies

40 points by grellas 16y ago

redcap 16y ago
In the last year or two I remember reading about a UK company who sucessfully argued for either a right to privacy or a right not to have specific information published. This information was about some horrendous pollution that the company was responsible for in Africa, and iirc only came to light because it was picked up by a member of parliament and read into Hansard where it was subsequently picked up by social media. I tried searching but couldn't come up with anything as I don't remember the name of the company or who was involved. If my memory serves me correctly, this was an example of exactly why corporations shouldn't be granted the same rights as actual humans.
- _delirium 16y ago
  I believe it's this case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trafigura#Super-injunction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trafigura#Super-injunction
  - redcap 16y ago
    That's the one, ta.
- joe_the_user 16y ago
  Actually, Neither a corporation nor an individual should have the right to cover up something like that.
  - redcap 16y ago
    You're right, probably better to say that it's a reason why corporates shouldn't be given the right to privacy except for trade secrets and the like.
  - _delirium 16y ago
    That's one of the controversies with English libel law in general, which is fairly strong, applies a burden of proof to the person accused of libel, and doesn't have truth as an absolute defense.
    - arethuza 16y ago
      Upvoted for not saying "UK libel law" :-)
- yardie 16y ago
  That would be Trafigura. The British press was banned from reporting it (and still is). So they handed their material over to foreign presses in hopes that they would carry on reporting it.
bitskits 16y ago
For a second, I thought this was an Onion article about a spicy TMZ story or something... A publicly traded company could have a "right to privacy"? What a country.
- yuhong 16y ago
  Well, many of them have confidential info about stuff like products in development.
  - yardie 16y ago
    So if your secret recipe contains 11 herbs, spices, and a pinch of dioxin that should be confidential?
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - bitskits 16y ago
      That's a different issue than what is described in the article. What AT&T seems to be asking for is a "freedom from embarrassment", rather than a protection of trade secrets.
ck2 16y ago
With all these privileges corporations are seeking and getting, I want to know when CEOs and other decision makers will also get the responsibilities of society enforced on them? ie. going to prison for things like killing a bunch of people on the BP platform and tons and tons of wildlife. I mean even for a few months? Why are they sleeping comfortable in their beds every night plotting their next dollar? BP, Worldtrans, Haliburton, not a single person has served a single day. But try pouring a quart of oil off your curb while the neighbors watch and see how many months you serve in prison. Blackwater, DynCorp, CACI and Titan Corp, not a single day in prison.
- _delirium 16y ago
  Technically corporations can be convicted of criminal offenses just like regular people can, but the penalties don't make much sense. They end up just getting fines, since it's difficult to send the corporation itself to jail. There was a 1980s case where a company (Allegheny Bottling Co.) was convicted of an offense with jail time, and the judge imposed a suspended sentence with probation, with a probation condition being that top executives spend their 40 hours a week doing community service. That was overturned on appeal, though, with the appeals court recognizing that the trial court had something of a dilemma (the corporation had been convicted of a crime with a sentence that in practice could not be imposed), but said that that form of "corporate probation" was too much of a stretch, and that it was up to Congress to figure out what to do about it. People also occasionally propose a three-strikes equivalent for corporations, where three criminal convictions leads to revocation of the corporate charter. The fundamental problem is that criminal penalties are supposed to have both deterrent and incapacitating effects: the threat of jail time is supposed to be a strong enough sanction to deter people who wouldn't be deterred by mere fines, and actual incarceration physically restrains people from committing more offenses during the time they're locked up. How does one both deter corporations from violating laws, and incapacitate those that do?
  - queensnake 16y ago
    Note, that corps. can claim a tax break for fines, as being a 'business expense'. Much more depth on all of this in the documentary 'The Corporation'.
cynoclast 16y ago
Very related post/discussion I made (no link karma for it, as if reddit karma were worth anything): http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/f1l79/instead_of_blaming_faceless_corporations_why_dont/ http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/f1l79/instead_of... tl;dr: For fuck's sake, nail the responsibility to the CEO. If they don't like it, they can steer the company into the moral high road. Secondly, Yes, the CEO. They take credit for when the company does well, so let them take credit for when it does reprehensible things.
Magnin 16y ago
So they want "Corporate Free Speech" and now "Right to privacy"..... If corporations are people, and you can't own people... then every stockholder is a Slave owner and the Stock exchange is the largest slave market ever.
jamesbritt 16y ago
If corporations are so much like people, how come they can be bought and sold?

40 points by grellas 16y ago

In the last year or two I remember reading about a UK company who sucessfully argued for either a right to privacy or a right not to have specific information published. This information was about some horrendous pollution that the company was responsible for in Africa, and iirc only came to light because it was picked up by a member of parliament and read into Hansard where it was subsequently picked up by social media. I tried searching but couldn't come up with anything as I don't remember the name of the company or who was involved. If my memory serves me correctly, this was an example of exactly why corporations shouldn't be granted the same rights as actual humans.

_delirium 16y ago
I believe it's this case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trafigura#Super-injunction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trafigura#Super-injunction
- redcap 16y ago
  That's the one, ta.
joe_the_user 16y ago
Actually, Neither a corporation nor an individual should have the right to cover up something like that.
- redcap 16y ago
  You're right, probably better to say that it's a reason why corporates shouldn't be given the right to privacy except for trade secrets and the like.
- _delirium 16y ago
  That's one of the controversies with English libel law in general, which is fairly strong, applies a burden of proof to the person accused of libel, and doesn't have truth as an absolute defense.
  - arethuza 16y ago
    Upvoted for not saying "UK libel law" :-)
yardie 16y ago
That would be Trafigura. The British press was banned from reporting it (and still is). So they handed their material over to foreign presses in hopes that they would carry on reporting it.

bitskits 16y ago

For a second, I thought this was an Onion article about a spicy TMZ story or something... A publicly traded company could have a "right to privacy"? What a country.

yuhong 16y ago
Well, many of them have confidential info about stuff like products in development.
- yardie 16y ago
  So if your secret recipe contains 11 herbs, spices, and a pinch of dioxin that should be confidential?
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - bitskits 16y ago
    That's a different issue than what is described in the article. What AT&T seems to be asking for is a "freedom from embarrassment", rather than a protection of trade secrets.

ck2 16y ago

With all these privileges corporations are seeking and getting, I want to know when CEOs and other decision makers will also get the responsibilities of society enforced on them? ie. going to prison for things like killing a bunch of people on the BP platform and tons and tons of wildlife. I mean even for a few months? Why are they sleeping comfortable in their beds every night plotting their next dollar? BP, Worldtrans, Haliburton, not a single person has served a single day. But try pouring a quart of oil off your curb while the neighbors watch and see how many months you serve in prison. Blackwater, DynCorp, CACI and Titan Corp, not a single day in prison.

_delirium 16y ago
Technically corporations can be convicted of criminal offenses just like regular people can, but the penalties don't make much sense. They end up just getting fines, since it's difficult to send the corporation itself to jail. There was a 1980s case where a company (Allegheny Bottling Co.) was convicted of an offense with jail time, and the judge imposed a suspended sentence with probation, with a probation condition being that top executives spend their 40 hours a week doing community service. That was overturned on appeal, though, with the appeals court recognizing that the trial court had something of a dilemma (the corporation had been convicted of a crime with a sentence that in practice could not be imposed), but said that that form of "corporate probation" was too much of a stretch, and that it was up to Congress to figure out what to do about it. People also occasionally propose a three-strikes equivalent for corporations, where three criminal convictions leads to revocation of the corporate charter. The fundamental problem is that criminal penalties are supposed to have both deterrent and incapacitating effects: the threat of jail time is supposed to be a strong enough sanction to deter people who wouldn't be deterred by mere fines, and actual incarceration physically restrains people from committing more offenses during the time they're locked up. How does one both deter corporations from violating laws, and incapacitate those that do?
- queensnake 16y ago
  Note, that corps. can claim a tax break for fines, as being a 'business expense'. Much more depth on all of this in the documentary 'The Corporation'.

cynoclast 16y ago

Very related post/discussion I made (no link karma for it, as if reddit karma were worth anything): http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/f1l79/instead_of_blaming_faceless_corporations_why_dont/ http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/f1l79/instead_of... tl;dr: For fuck's sake, nail the responsibility to the CEO. If they don't like it, they can steer the company into the moral high road. Secondly, Yes, the CEO. They take credit for when the company does well, so let them take credit for when it does reprehensible things.

Magnin 16y ago

So they want "Corporate Free Speech" and now "Right to privacy"..... If corporations are people, and you can't own people... then every stockholder is a Slave owner and the Stock exchange is the largest slave market ever.

jamesbritt 16y ago

If corporations are so much like people, how come they can be bought and sold?