e Supreme Court will hear several cases in its forthcoming term dealing with the rights of corporations, following last term's opinion in Citizens United v. FEC, which found that corporations have a First Amendment right to spend freely in political campaigns. Earlier today the high court issued orders in pending cases that adds 14 cases to its term that starts next week. The New York Times reports that the "justices will consider how the state secrets privilege, which can allow the government to shut down litigation by invoking national security, applies in contract dispute between Navy and military contractors hired to create a stealth aircraft." Those cases are General Dynamics Corp. v. U.S. and Boeing Co. v. U.S. SCOTUSblog's Lyle Denniston writes, "While the controversy in this case is a major one, it is not the fight over ‘state secrets' that has drawn the most headlines in recent years; that fight is about using the doctrine to stop lawsuits by former detainees claiming torture and illegal detention."
The Blog of Legal Times reports that the Court will also consider FCC v. AT&T, ‘which asks whether corporate ‘personhood' extends to the Freedom of Information Act which exempts the release of government documents that invade ‘personal privacy.'"
It is high time we did something meaningful about corporations
Corporations were never intended to have the rights of persons. Let us not busy ourselves with piecemeal reform: Let us place the fate of corporations squarely in the hands of the legislatures and Congress, and take the constitutional trump card away from the justices who so favor these artificial persons:
AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION
No corporation or other entity that is chartered by the United States or by a state has any of the rights or freedoms of persons under this Constitution or under the constitution of any state. Such entities shall have those rights established by the legislative body granting or enabling their charter or regulating their presence or activities within a state, and the Congress shall regulate them in the exercise of its enumerated powers and in the regulation of federal and state elections and electioneering. Non-chartered associations that have as their primary purpose the aggregation of wealth for their employees or owners, or that are funded primarily by such entities or associations, shall have rights, and be subject to regulation, in like manner to chartered entities.
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