AT&T: Net Neutrality Rules Violate Our First Amendment Rights

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

After all, corporations are people my friend.

In a statement of issues outlining its legal assault on the FCC's net neutrality rules, AT&T makes it clear it will claim the new rules violate the company's First Amendment rights. The filing doesn't really detail AT&T's full legal reasoning, but the telco plans to argue that the FCC's new rules "violate the terms of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, and the First and Fifth Amendments to the US Constitution."

It's an argument the cable industry used in 2009 when trying to stop the FCC's original, flimsier, net neutrality rules.

Verizon argued the same thing when it successfully dismantled those rules in 2010 via lawsuit. "Broadband networks are the modern-day microphone by which their owners engage in First Amendment speech," Verizon claimed at the time.

Verizon won in court, but not because of its Constitutional arguments.

The FCC's original rules tried to apply common carrier type restrictions on broadband providers, something the court declared the FCC couldn't do -- unless it formally declared broadband ISPs to be common carriers under Title II. As such, the FCC formally declared ISPs as common carriers back in February, and now believes it operates on firm legal footing.

-more-

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-Net-Neutrality-Rules-Violate-Our-First-Amendment-Rights-133906

[cantbeserious]

1. We Are Told Corporations Are People - Imagine The Consequences - The Chickens Come Home To Roost

eom

[MurrayDelph]

10. I'm going to keep saying this until someone does it:

If corporations are people, the next time a corporation breaks the law, they should be "arrested" pending bail:

full cease-and-desist of all activities, all workers who violate this could then be charged with aiding and abetting a fugitive

all destruction of evidence would be charged with aiding and abetting

If found guilty, all assets would be frozen for the duration of a normal prison term (with the same penalties for violation).

If a corporation were to lose the protection of being a legal fiction, how fast would they want to take back their claim of personhood?

[cantbeserious]

11. Roger All That

eom

[agent46]

12. Recently 5 banks "pleaded guilty" to charges of market manipulation

Headlines to this effect were plastered all over the internet and not a word was said or an eyebrow raised. How can a corporation plead guilty? Well, they are people now after all. No individual(s) were named. No one went to jail and the corporation pays a fine. Everyone benefited. Fining the corporation instead of prosecuting and jailing CEOs is about to become the new normal, I think. Avoiding prosecution for fat cats is obviously the reason behind this "corporations are people" legal loophole the Supreme Court has created.

I think the entire population of the United states should incorporate and bring these parasites down on their own legal playing field.

[bluesbassman]

15. The corps build the cost of the fines into their business model.

Those five banks paid a fraction in fines compared to the profits realized.

I'm all for execs going to jail, but the burden of proof required of the prosecution makes that highly unlikely. In lieu of jail time the next best thing is full restitution of profits connected with the fraud and then a substantial penalty fine. That possibility would be a real deterrent, unlike the slaps on the wrists being handed out now.

[valerief]

2. If corporations are people and the First Amendment protects money (because money is speech

per Citizens United), then some people's money is being violated.

Do I understand this right?

Hmm, sounds like what the TPP wants.

[eloydude]

3. Citizen AT&T, please show us your identification, Social Security and blood type

Don't have it?

Corporations do not have the same rights as a person.

[Kablooie]

4. So their first amendment rights include restricting their customer's first amendment rights?

Doesn't seem quite kosher.

[jwirr]

5. That was what I was thinking. There are people and then there a PEOPLE - that is us.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

6. You are correct

The same point was raised in the comments section of the linked to article.

[onenote]

7. First Amendment rights are rights vis a vis the government.

As has been explained countless times on DU

[Kablooie]

13. But if the government specifically allows a private entity to stifle free expression...

isn't the government kind of behind it all, which would make it a first amendment issue.

[onenote]

14. No.

[onenote]

8. You wouldn't be very happy if corporations didn't have any First Amendment rights

Unless, of course, you were on the side of the government in the Pentagon Papers case, or on the side of the groups that want to prevent bookstores, movie theaters, etc etc from publishing or displaying content they find "obscene," or were on the side of those that sued the NAACP for engaging in an economic boycott against bigots in Mississippi.

CU was wrongly decided, but not because it found that the First Amendment applies to corporations. The error was in failing to recognize that distinctions can be constitutionally drawn between different categories of speakers where there is a compelling state interest in doing so.

I also think that ATT's First Amendment objections to the Open Internet order should not and will not succeed.

[MohRokTah]

9. It must violate the corporation's religious rights under the first amendment.

Mammon demands sacrifices on the altar of profits.