Gibbs discusses how AT&T wanted to have their corporate cake and eat it.
“The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.” — Supreme Court Justice Morrison Remick Waite in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 1886
With that utterance Waite announced a decision that would forever change how business would be conducted in the United States and, many would argue, not for the better.
What the Supreme Court allowed in this case was really an extension of a then ongoing redefinition of what a corporation actually was. This redefinition started in the early 1800s and resulted in corporate charters being deemed “inviolable” and corporations in and of themselves becoming “artificial” persons enjoying both individuality and immortality (which is about as artificial as it gets when it comes to “persons”).
BUSINESS BATTLE: U.S. Supreme Court hands AT&T corporate privacy case beatdown
So, my friends, when we engage with a corporation today, what we deal with is legally a person, not a collective with unlimited liability as corporations were way back when. No, today’s corporations are very odd “persons” because they have a monomaniacal focus on profit, limited liability, and the moral sense of hyenas. Even so, they are legally “persons” nonetheless.
Curiously, on March 1, in a unanimous 8-0 decision, the Supreme Court found that it could not be assumed the term “personal” could be applied to businesses with regard to the Freedom of Information Act.
The Supreme Court overturned a ruling by a U.S. appeals court that found for AT&T in a case that concerned whether a corporation can assert personal privacy to prevent records from being disclosed. In AT&T’s case, the records concerned the company’s over-billing for a federal E-Rate program.
AT&T itself discovered the over-billing problem in 2003 and informed the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The result: AT&T paid a fine of $500,000 in December 2004, but didn’t have to admit to any wrongdoing (translation: “Sure, we goofed and we’ll pay up, but it was a mistake, honest, so let’s just forget about it”). It would appear the reason the company was let off the hook with just a fine was because AT&T discovered the “enhanced” billing itself and ‘fessed up.
Now, the reason the Freedom of Information Act got involved was because Comptel, a trade organization that includes many companies that AT&T competes with, made a request under the act to see the documents related to the case.
Comptel apparently wanted to see what actual events lead to the over-billing and what the basis of the settlement was. Also, obviously, there was the potential for AT&T’s competitors to derive some commercial intelligence from the documents.
To avoid this exposure, AT&T contended that a company is a person and therefore entitled to “personal privacy” and so should have its secrets kept while, at the same time, assuming it could have all the benefits of being a corporation.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the court’s opinion: “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. We trust that AT&T will not take it personally.” Sometimes the law seems almost human.
Gibbs is amused in Ventura, Calif. Your mirth to backspin@gibbs.com.
