[briandear]

The U.S. Supreme Court has accepted the notion of corporate personhood in constitutional cases dating back more than a century. In its 1897 decision in Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad Company v. Ellis, for example, the Court said that it was “well-settled that corporations are persons within the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Corporate “personhood” goes back even further, to at least 1819 with the Dartmouth v Woodward decision.

Citizens United has been surrounded by ignorance, promoted by newspapers who, incidentally, had their effectiveness and power reduced since they were no longer the only “protected” gatekeepers for picking political candidates.

Why should the New York Times editorial board get to express their opinions through millions of printed papers distributed through an expensive and vast logistics network, or via a website maintained by hired employees with a budget of millions per year?

Why shouldn’t Bob’s Hardware Inc., be able to also spend money, in exactly the same way as the New York Times to spread the message of their preferred political candidates that would be helpful for their business? How is Bob’s Hardware any less entitled to being able to express their opinions or present their facts than the N.Y. Times? Should the EFF be able to spend money at the same levels as what the New York Times spends to cut down trees and print some words on it and then send those words to readers all over the world? Media organizations can spend limitless amounts on getting their message out — Bob’s Hardware ought to have the same rights.

The First Amendment doesn’t protect newspapers as a special class — it protects everyone. The “press” is referring to the actual machine used to print things, not specifically to a news gathering organization. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/02/dont-be...