Another overly detailed post on Schneier’s Blog

“Corporations are people, too!”

That’s the problem. They really should not be treated as such. They should be allowed privileges, but no rights. Rights should be reserved for people.

The modern American treatment of corporations came out of post-Civil War lawless and corrupt practices. From 1866 onward, following the stupid mistake of a judge who allowed a court reporter to insert his opinion into the official record, it has been tough to pin down and put the robber barons back in the bottle.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030919.html

Oil, Finance, and Transportation industries among others in America have all been totally f*$ckd by giant corporations fighting to gather all the rights of a singular person, while avoiding any kind of accountability that a real person would face.

President Grover Cleveland explained the problem in his 4th Annual Message to Congress on December 3, 1888

“Corporations, which should be carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people’s masters.”

Kind of like Asimov’s laws of robots, they need to live within the rules, as dictated by humans, not the other way around.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics

Should free speech, for example, be a right of corporations, artificial entities created by states, or only extended to individual and real people? In other words is commercial speech to be treated as free speech or should it be regulated more strictly to guard against harm?

Here is a case on the matter:

http://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/nike.htm

If America rules that commercial speech is free speech, than does it seem plausible that even phishing and spam corporations would have their tactics protected by the courts as a form of expression?

Here is an excellent essay about America’s founding fathers their warnings on this very issue:

http://www.thevoicenews.com/News/2003/0111/Front_page/002.html

“…with an audacity and willingness to take on overwhelming multinational corporate power similar to that displayed by the Founders, the elders of Porter Township said that: ‘Corporations shall not be considered to be ‘persons’ protected by the Constitution of the United States or the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania within the Second Class Township of Porter, Clarion County, Pennsylvania.'”

Or something like that…