Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Wouldn't this completely screw over corporations? Or do we have some other mechanisms that will continue to protect them from these abuses them but not other types of "persons"?


Corporations in general have the constitutional protections that people acting in a group have. Corporate personhood is just a convenient legal fiction.

For example corporations don't have a right to free speech because they are "persons" but because we extend the rights of the individuals who make up the group to the group itself.


> we extend the rights

The constitutional basis for that is not secure.

It's not obvious that your right to free speech extends to secretly paying someone else to speak.

If I leave an iPod in a public park playing a speech, the authorities can remove or disable the iPod, not a violation of my speech rights.


I'm pretty sure they can also remove you; what they can't do is remove you based on the content of your speech, but then again I doubt they can have a policy of only removing iPods playing political speeches with certain viewpoints.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: