No, the idea that this is equivalent to someone suing a government worker for turning off his own computer is what I was talking about. Where’d you get that?
This is about the government trying to regulate the speech, or the computer output in this case, of private citizens. I hope we’re clear on what we’re discussing.
See, you’re confused. Where’d you get the idea that this is about the government not shutting down it’s own computer? It’s the government’s computer, it can do what it wants with it. This is about whether the government can force your or me to shut down our computers.
No, that’s exactly what we’re talking about - the idea that the government could make speech by a computer a crime! That’s the point!
And this part has nothing to do with corporate personhood - because all groups of people, incorporated or not, have such rights!
Political parties, churches and other religious groups, non-profits like the ACLU or the NAACP or thousands of others, labor unions, the media - all have rights under the Bill of Rights and other places that can be expressed AS A GROUP. That’s due mainly to the fact that the Bill of Rights simply forbids Congress from regulating certain things. In the case of speech, it can’t regulate speech. The source doesn’t matter. That was the logic of Citizens United, which never mentions corporate personhood.
If only people have rights, the government could shut down newspapers (not people) churches (not people) political parties (not people) labor unions, etc. That’s obviously just as absurd as saying that it can ban the speech of a corporation.
I’m honestly confused about what you’re saying and where you stand on this. Please excuse me if I respond in a way that misunderstands you in this thread. Hope we can clear it up.
Possibly you’ve got confused because there are two threads of discussion going on right now.
Basically two sweeping statements have been made in this thread and in both cases I have shown why I think they lead to absurd implications.
1. You said that all speech is constitutionally protected, regardless of source (and this is in the context of me saying free speech only currently applies to humans).
When I gave the example of a computer generating random strings, you bit the bullet and claimed that that was constitutionally protected speech.
But this implies the government would not be able to turn off their own computers generating such speech.
2. The argument was made that a corporation should have freedom of speech because the people that make up the corporation have freedom of speech.
I illustrated why this argument doesn’t work: there are lots of rights individuals have that cannot or should not be applied to corporations. I made this point sarcastically, but it was taken at face value and some people thought I believed corporations could marry, get passports or run for president. Or they’ve whooshed my whoosh.
Note that I’m not necessarily saying corporations shouldn’t have free speech, I’m just pointing out why some of these arguments don’t work.
But no, it doesn’t imply that at all. Freedom of speech means the government can’t force private citizens to turn of their computers. The government can do whatever it wants with its own computers. Your implication is bizarre.
Tell me, do you think the government could make it illegal for you to program your computer to generate messages randomly? You make it pop up with “Romney for President” on a screen saver at random intervals, perhaps? Can the government censor that because your computer isn’t a person?
I made this point sarcastically, but it was taken at face value and some people thought I believed corporations could marry, get passports or run for president. Or they’ve whooshed my whoosh.
[/QUOTE]
No, you whooshed your own whoosh, because you don’t believe corporations should marry, AND neither do I or anyone else. Nor do we believe that there’s a logical connection between corporations having certain rights and having all the rights of a person.
When it comes to the right of speech, it is irrelevant though. Speech is protected. The source doesn’t matter.
Corporations can be sued just like a person can. That’s good, right? They are responsible for their actions. But that implies that they should have rights too, such as the right to an attorney. You do think a corporation should be able to defend itself from lawsuits in court, don’t you?
No. You are conflating freedom of speech with property rights.
The government can’t turn off my computer (unless I’m a suspect in a crime) whether it’s generating a political speech or if I’m playing space invaders. That’s because it is my property, not because of freedom of speech.
What would actually test whether a computer has freedom of speech is what the government could do with their own computers, or own printouts.
And it appears that you agree with me; that the government can do whatever it likes with their computers, even one generating political speeches. This does however refute the idea that computers can generate constitutionally-protected speech.
I specifically chose rights that everyone would agree corporations don’t have because that would make my point clearest. But if you want to call that me whooshing myself, then fine.
Could the government declare that you can’t generate random speech from your computer, and fine you or jail you for doing it? There, I hope that gets you back on track.
Ah, I see what you’re doing now.
Nobody said a computer has freedom of speech. Of course it doesn’t. It’s a computer.
But if you program a computer to “speak” it’s still YOUR speech. That’s the point. Saying that corporations have no speech rights is like saying a billboard has no speech rights, and banning billboard messages. Corporations, like billbaords or computers, are tools used by humans.
Still, suppose you insist that it’s the computer speaking - it’s still protected, because the First Amendment simply says the government can’t ban speech. Period.
People do what they want with their computers - including using them to help them speak. The government can decline to use its own computers for speech. It can’t criminalize speech by others simply because they use a computer to help them. The computer is simply a medium. Even randomly-generated speech is speech.
I’m not MikeBB. I was contradicting him, in part. Hope that’s clear.
Good; so in this incredibly roundabout way you agree that freedom of speech currently applies only to humans, and that’s all my original assertion was.
My computer does not have freedom of speech, though I am free to use it to publish my speech, and my speech is protected.
My point about individual rights mapping to corportate rights was aimed at MikeBB. You’ve then jumped in and said that no-one believes there’s a logical connection between corporations having certain rights and having all the rights of a person.
But someone does believe that – MikeBB – the person I was directing my argument to.
I am saying that being human is irrelevant to speech rights.
Subtle, but important, difference.
Right. Your computer, or your corporation.
Then MikeBB needs to weigh in and tell you if he really believes that because corporations have the right to speech that it means he thinks they can get married.
The problem here is the use of the term “right.” In general, the Bill of Rights, especially the First Amendment, isn’t written in terms of giving rights to people, it’s written as limiting the powers of government. That’s on purpose - it makes the right as broad as possible, and doesn’t allow the government to monkey around with things like banning speech because the speech comes by way of a corporation.
I don’t think you have a consistent point, I think you’re just trying to counter whatever I say.
I’ve given the hypothetical of a computer that generates political speech (and I’ve left it open whether it has genuine AI or not).
You’ve jumped from saying the source doesn’t matter (so the computer can generate constitutionally protected speech), to saying a computer is just a conduit for human speech and explicitly saying they aren’t in themselves protected by FoS, to going on about the government not being able to shut down a computer that belongs to me (which is beside the point) to now saying being human is irrelevant to rights – which confuses me even more about where you’re at.
Don’t be obtuse. Clearly I’m accusing MikeBB of no such thing; it was an example to illustrate a point.
Mijin, I honestly don’t understand what you’re trying to say, unless you’re just trying to be contrary. Your counterexamples apply only to individuals, not groups of people. Duh.
Cecil seems to think that the idea of corporate personhood is some bizarre and unfathomable invention of a rogue court. My main point was that corporate personhood is a centuries-old bedrock principle of commercial and business law.
I assume that your enthusiasm about this topic comes from the recent USSupCt campaign-finance decision. If that’s your real complaint, then state it directly.
My view is that if an individual has a right to buy speech, then a group of people should also have the right to pool their money and buy speech. And there’s no reason to punish that group for organizing as a corporation rather than in some other form.
If you disagree, then please clarify whether you’re objecting to group speech, or corporations per se. Please avoid sarcasm, because I honestly have no idea what proposition you’re trying to argue for.
Example: Suppose that Bob spends $2000 of his own money to rent a billboard supporting the re-election of the local mayor. Now suppose that Jane and Sally want to oppose the mayor’s re-election, but they only have $1000 each. So they combine their cash and rent a billboard across the street from Bob’s.
2.1) Is Bob’s rental of a billboard protected first-amendment speech? (I’m assuming yes.)
2.2) Is Jane and Sally’s rental of a billboard somehow NOT also protected first-amendment speech, because they pooled their money?
2.3) Suppose that Jane and Sally form a corporation and contribute their $1000 to it. Then the corporation rents the same billboard. Is that billboard rental protected speech? Would it make a difference if they rented the billboard through a trust, or a limited partnership, or a limited liability company?
You earlier said “A corporation has free speech, equal protection, and so forth because it’s simply a collection of people. If Bob can speak and Fred can speak, then the combination of Bob and Fred should also be able to speak.”
But this logic simply doesn’t work. It’s trivial to find examples of rights that individuals have, but corporations do not. Duh.
No, “all of the above” doesn’t clarify things at all, because the statements I listed are inconsistent.
I’ll clarify my position for you, perhaps if you do the same?
My position is:
Freedom of speech is a right that at this time implicitly applies to humans.
…I’ve illustrated this with the example of an AI generating speech; at this time such speech is either not constitutionally-protected, or it is protected only because it is considered the speech of the human programmer by proxy.
(And if you take umbrage with the “implicit” nature of this rule, note that several things have been taken to be implicit within the wording and are now legally binding; such as that freedom of speech protects political speech and not, say, your right to tell state secrets).
Given this, it is not entailed that corporations must have freedom of speech, because corporations are not humans.
Once again: in this case, the speech is protected because it is the speech of a human being.
The interesting case that I’m trying to put to you, is if we had an AI that generated unique statements.
I think what you’re saying in this latter case is that the speech would be considered the speech of the programmer, and so would be protected for that reason. But you’re being quite evasive and inconsistent over this point.
You’ve haven’t shown any evidence that it’s not protected. I say it is protected as speech because all speech is proxy for human speech, even AI speech, and that this is implicit in the First Amendment - which protects speech, period. If that means that I have to reject your notion that speech rights don’t apply only to humans, so be it. I reject it.
Revealing (former) state secrets isn’t illegal. That’s a right too! If I work for the CIA and reveal a secret I know from working there, that’s illegal, but it’s not really a speech issue. But if you or I or a newspaper repeat what the CIA agent says, the government can’t throw us in jail.
But then that would mean that churches, political parties, groups formed to overturn the Citizens United decision, labor unions, charities, and the like also have no speech rights, because they are not human either. Are you really saying that political parties have no right to political speech?