http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/03/supreme-court-att-cant-keep-bad-behavior-a-secret.ars"A trade association, CompTel, which included some AT&T rivals decided
that it might be nice to take a look at all of this embarrassing AT&T
material. CompTel made a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to
the FCC, asking for copies of everything that AT&T submitted. AT&T
objected, and the matter has wound its way through various hearings
and court decisions for years, until today's ruling from the Supreme
Court......
.......AT&T insisted that this personal privacy exemption applied even
to corporations—after all, corporations are considered legal “persons”
in the US. AT&T won this argument at a federal appeals court,
convincing judges there that its submissions to the government should
remain private.
But the Supreme Court was having none of it, with every justice except
Elena Kagan (she recused herself) agreeing that FOIA was not written
simply to prevent corporate embarrassment. After lengthy discussions
of grammar, including commentary about the relationship between nouns
and adjectives, the court concluded that “personal” in this case
referred to individuals and to private life, not to corporate dealings
and business decisions.
The ruling should make it easier to access corporate records turned
over to government investigators, though it is also likely that
corporations will make even greater attempts to avoid turning over
such information in the first place."
This is a very good ruling.
How does this compare to the 'person-like' rights of corporations in Canada?
-Glen
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Locked
