right NOT to speak

for corps this is // to taking the 5th?

see nike v kasky

merri ok

---

https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/dark-money/

salon

More than a decade ago, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its historic ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, opening the door for corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on political causes (although not directly to political candidates). As corrosive as that decision was to democracy, it came with a slight proviso. As Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote: while "the Government may not suppress [corporate] speech altogether," it may "regulate corporate political speech through disclaimer and disclosure requirements." Citizens United found, in other words, that corporations could spend without limit, but government had a right to force public disclosure that spending to the public.

Since then, it's become abundantly clear that money in politics takes numerous forms, far beyond the obvious subterfuge of a corporation donating to a political action committee that then funds a political candidate. In the nonprofit world, big-money donors pump hundreds of millions into politically-motivated 501(c) organizations, which are not required to disclose their donors. Those groups then funnel this money into patently political ventures, even though they are technically forbidden from engaging in significant lobbying. That two-step process describes the phenomenon known as "dark money," which allows wealthy individuals and corporations to exert enormous influence on the political system behind a veil of anonymity.

Last year alone, more than $1 billion in dark money was spent in the 2020 election, a record high. Contrary to some people's assumptions, "both sides" actually do it — dark money flows to and from Democrats as well as Republicans. In truth, anonymous money has been part of America's political bloodstream for decades now, but not until relatively recently has the debate around it rose to a national level. Last month, in the firs major case of its kind since Citizens United, the issue of nonprofit donor disclosure returned to the highest court in the land.

In this case, Americans for Prosperity Foundation** v. Bonta (consolidated with another, functionally identical case, Thomas More Law Center**v. Bonta) the Supreme Court will decide whether political nonprofits can be compelled to disclose who their largest donors are. This case in question specifically concerns donor disclosure rules in California, but its implications are unmistakably nationwide. And while the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity and the Christian-oriented Thomas More Center are distinctly right-wing in ideological terms, they have some surprising allies before the high court.

As things work now, the IRS annually collects from every nonprofit a form called Schedule B, which lists the personal information of each nonprofit's largest donors. The stated legal purpose is to regulate or prevent various financial crimes like fraud and money laundering. California is unique in requiring nonprofits to submit their Schedule B forms to the state attorney general's office — if they want to keep on raising tax-deductible donations.

To be clear, California collects the information, but does not release it to the public. But this seemingly innocuous bureaucratic regulation has sent shockwaves throughout the conservative nonprofit world — not to mention a number of liberal-leaning or civil-libertarian nonprofits as well, including the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the ACLU and the Human Rights Campaign.

Broadly speaking, the strange coalition of plaintiffs in the Americans for Prosperity argue that the state's interest in collecting Schedule B's — which, once again, would not be made publicly accessible — does not outweigh the burden that the law would impose upon them. They further argue that this burden may be acute for nonprofits that advocate for or against controversial causes, like abortion. Furthermore, the plaintiffs have argued that if their donors are unmasked — by means of a hack or leak, for instance — these donors could be at risk of severe reprisal, causing a chilling effect on future donations.

John Bursch, vice president of appellate advocacy at Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative-libertarian group, told Salon in an interview he sees this as "a free association problem."

"Whether it's a conservative organization or a liberal or progressive organization," Bursch said, "they all recognize that publicly exposing donors to groups that engage in public advocacy risks chilling — causing people to not donate, or to donate below thresholds where they won't appear on a Schedule B."

Bursch currently represents the Thomas More Law Center,a Christian conservative legal nonprofit that briefly embraced Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the presidential election and is now battling on behalf of donor privacy. He alleges that there have been several cases when donors have felt threatened because of their connections to Americans for Prosperity Foundation or Thomas More. Court documents detail purported instances of doxing, death threats and even assassination attempts. It's worth noting that the plaintiffs also fear "economic reprisal," such as boycotts or criticism of their businesses, activities that are clearly legal and constitutionally protected expressions of free speech.

To make their case, the plaintiffs draw upon an unlikely parallel: the Supreme Court's seminal 1958 ruling in NAACP v. Alabama, where the justices found that Alabama officials could not force the NAACP to turn over its membership list due to the possibility of violent public retaliation against its members.

At the time of that decision, Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote that the NAACP had made "an uncontroverted showing" that the "revelation of the identity of its rank-and-file members has exposed these members to economic reprisal, loss of employment, threat of physical coercion, and other manifestations of public hostility." Alabama's effort to expose NAACP members was largely understood by racial justice advocates as a clear attempt to dismantle the civil-rights group through the use of racial terror.

Bursch acknowledged that the historical circumstances around NAACP do not resemble those of the current case, but insisted, "To think that [Thomas More] donors might not face life or death is not really accurate."

Unsurprisingly, many critics of the corrosive force of money in politics reject any comparison between the cases. In a statement to Salon, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., drily observed "an enormous gap between the Supreme Court case cited by petitioners — a civil rights-era decision where NAACP members had reason to fear state-sanctioned bombings, assassinations and other violence — and theproblem of billionaires secretly running dark-money-funded political covert ops in our country."

Daniel Weiner, deputy director of the Brennan Center's Election Reform Program, echoed that analysis in an interview with Salon: "I always pause at any contemporary actor analogizing themselves to the NAACP in the South in 1958. And that includes folks on the right and left. AFP, whether or not it is right on the merits, represents some of the most powerful interests in the country. This is not comparable to the NAACP in the South prior to the civil rights movement."

There's another important difference between the two cases: While the plaintiffs in the Americans for Prosperity case are alleging a largely hypothetical risk of reprisal, they are demanding a result that in goes further than in the NAACP decision. As Vox's Ian Millhiser explained, "the plaintiffs insist that they are entitled to facial relief — meaning that the state's disclosure rule must be tossed out for all nonprofits, regardless of whether donors to those nonprofits face harassment, or even if they want to keep their donations secret."

Weiner said that a universal ban on mandatory donor disclosures is not warranted, arguing that the plaintiffs' case goes no further than claiming "that the law should not be applied to them. It's hard to see how all this adds up to 'the law is facially invalid,' which is a really sweeping position to take in light of a couple incidents."

Bursch responded that Americans for Prosperity "is precisely the type of case where a facial ruling would be appropriate," saying, "It's almost nonsensical to suggest that thousands of charities should have to individually sue California to keep their donor information confidential."

Even though California has no plans to release "dark money" donors' names, Bursch argues there is still likely to be a chilling effect, claiming that the state does not maintain a secure record-keeping system and leaves an "open door" for hackers. It's true that in 2012, a Schedule B for Planned Parenthood was leaked in California, potentially revealing hundreds of donors' names and addresses. But such occurrences have been rare.

As mentioned above, nonprofit donor disclosure is a particularly hot topic when it comes to dark money, which typically moves through 501(c)(4) nonprofits, or "social welfare organizations," which collect money from anonymous donors and then spend it on campaigns or candidates on said donors' behalf.

Americans for Prosperity Foundation, however, is a (501)(c)(3), meaning that in order to preserve its tax-exempt status, it's supposed to designate its funds for "charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, and preventing cruelty to children or animals," according to IRS rules. However, Americans for Prosperity, the group's sister organization, is a 501(c)(4), meaning that it can more significantly engage in political advocacy and lobbying — largely in favor of reduced taxes, deregulation and other business-friendly policies — and has done so vigorously.

Bursch claimed earnestly that dark money has "nothing" to do with the current Supreme Court case, reminding this reporter that 501(c)(3) charities like AFPF are barred by federal law "from participating in any political advocacy, which is where the dark money issue arises." Explaining the relationship between Americans for Prosperity and its affiliated foundation, he said, "My understanding is that the 501(c)(3) can't fund the 501(c)(4). So, although they share a name and perhaps some common goals, the work they engage in is completely different. You can't cross those lines."

AFP did not respond to Salon's request to comment on its relationship with AFPF, which has been known to cross some lines.In 2010, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committeeaccused AFPF of financing blatantly political commercials that criticized the Obama administration, alleging that the ads "made the Americans for Prosperity Foundation a de facto political action group in violation of the federal tax code," according to the New York Times.

Bursch said that he believed or understood that AFP and AFPF had a "different office, different directors, different employees and different purposes." In fact, a comparison of AFP and AFPF's 2018 tax filings shows that a significant number of officers, directors, trustees and key employees work at both entities, including Nancy Pfotenhauer, Mark Holden, Robert Heaton, Emily Seidel, Slade O'Brien and various others.

Supplemental information on AFPF's filings also states that "certain employees of Americans for Prosperity Foundation may perform services for Americans for Prosperity, a related organization, through a service contract between the organizations." (This relationship also goes the other way.) AFPF is additionally listed as AFP's "direct controlling entity," a designation whose legal meaning is not entirely clear but certainly suggests an intimate relationship.

Not all contributors to political nonprofits count as "dark money donors," to be sure. Some are ordinary citizens, no doubt, genuinely interested in contributing to what they believe are nonpartisan endeavors. But it's precisely the lack of donor disclosure that makes the whole process opaque.

Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., a staunch critic of money in politics, affirmed the need for more effective disclosure in light of the AFP and AFPF's purposefully mysterious relationship. "Because we're dealing with dark money, we don't really know the relationship between AFPF and AFP," he said. "When a 501(c)(3) gives money to a 501(c)(4) to engage in electioneering activities, that's what dark money is all about." (Salon could not find clear evidence that money has flowed from AFPF to AFP, let alone how it might have been used.)

"The Federalist Society and the Federalist Society Foundation both share the same goals and aspirations," Johnson expressed. "People are trying to exert influence. That's the reason why they contribute to these organizations that have a political agenda."

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

A parallel with investigations of Big Tobacco

The attorneys general embarked on investigations on behalf of their citizens, asking whether Exxon was guilty of selling products and equity while concealing information about their risks.

The similarity of these allegations to the illegal conspiracy of the tobacco industry — a cover-up of internal corporate knowledge about deadly consequences of continued consumption of its products — did not escape notice. In January 2016, the Department of Justice asked the FBI to investigate whether Exxon should be prosecuted under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, as the tobacco industry was. The investigations by the Massachusetts and New York attorneys general, focusing on whether Exxon had been forthright in its disclosures to investors, soon followed.

Given identified sources and specific studies cited in news reports, it is not surprising that chief law enforcement officers of federal and state governments would investigate. Indeed, it would be extremely troubling if they did not.

But rather than show that the allegations of investor and consumer fraud are baseless, Exxon Mobil is misusing the Constitution to continue to conceal what it knew about the connection between catastrophic climate change and continued fossil fuel use, and when.

It is not uncommon, of course, for companies to resist subpoenas from attorneys general on a variety of legal grounds. For example, Exxon could have filed a motion in Massachusetts asking a judge to set aside the subpoena on the grounds that it was overly broad, and arguing that the investigation exceeded the jurisdiction of the attorney general. (In fact, Exxon did just that, and lost.)

Until fairly recently, no US court would have entertained free speech claims by a corporation that wanted to strike down regulation

But Exxon has gone much further. It has filed a federal “civil rights” lawsuit in its home court of Texas against the New York and Massachusetts attorneys general. The multibillion-dollar global corporation claims that the state investigations violate a previously unrecognized corporate right under the Constitution both to “speak” and to “not speak” about climate change any way it wants, however deceptive that speech may be.

This is where the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is taking the country. That 2010 ruling is infamous for opening the floodgates of big, dark money in our elections by deciding that any limits on supposedly “independent” political ads violate the speech rights of corporations, unions, and billionaires. What is less well-known about Citizens Unitedis how radically it empowers corporations to misuse the First Amendment in other ways — ways we now see playing out in the Exxon case, and elsewhere.

Citizens United was the capstone on a remarkable series of cases, dating only to the 1970s, that revolutionized the application of the First Amendment in the corporate context. Very few people realize just how quickly this constitutional revolution has occurred; very few people realize that American corporations thrived for the first two centuries of American history with virtually no First Amendment protections.

In the early 20th century, First Amendment cases involving firms tended to involve media companies, as when Louisiana Gov. Huey Long imposed special taxes on newspapers (a clear attempt to punish them). It was generally assumed that the “speech” of business corporations was no more free from court scrutiny than the language of their contracts or their SEC filings.

Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. was an architect of the corporate “free speech” revolution.}:}:

After his appointment to the high court in 1971, however, Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., a former business lawyer who ardently believed that corporate America was being undermined by the public’s support for reformers like Ralph Nader, helped reinvent the Court’s doctrine in this area. In Virginia State Pharmacy Board v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council (1976), the Court said, on First Amendment grounds, that the state could not forbid pharmacists from advertising prescription drug price — a remarkable departure from precedent.

That finding was then broadened and expanded in National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti(1978), which held that corporations can contribute to ballot initiatives, and again in Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission(1980), which asserted that a utility could run advertisements promoting the use of electricity. Those two cases continue to be cited in almost all commercial speech cases — and they are cited more and more frequently. Citizens United affirmed those cases and extended them to campaign finance laws.

Despite the “free speech” rhetoric, corporations are not simply seeking to offer opinions about public policy issues. They do that all the time, routinely spending millions to fund ads, research, policy papers, and lobbying activities. Today corporations are claiming that their “rights” to speak clash with longstanding forms of regulation of business activity. Whenever they are required to disclose information to consumers, regulators, the public, or enforcement officials, they argue, their First Amendment rights are implicated. Whenever they seek or transmit information, they say, they are “speaking,” and the First Amendment gives them the right to do that without fear of consequences.

A growing number of constitutional challenges to reasonable regulations

In recent years, large corporations have been emboldened to argue that corporate speech rights entitle them to strike down state health care prescription information laws — those forbidding pharmaceutical companies from selling information about the prescribing patterns of individual doctors, for example. They have argued that speech rights forbid certain securities regulations — specifically, those requiring investigation and disclosure of whether a company sells “conflict minerals” from the Democratic Republic of Congo. They have said that the First Amendment gives them a right to decline to say on product labels that the meat they sell comes from foreign countries, or that food products contain genetically modified ingredients.

In a related egregious constitutional expansion, corporations have even attacked minimum wage laws as violating their rights under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause — when, as is typical, such laws treat firms differently based on size (or form of organization). The corporate misuse of the First Amendment and the Constitution more broadly, has gone viral. It now might be considered corporate legal malpractice not to take a swing at challenging, on constitutional grounds, any law that gets in the way of the largest corporate profits.

Investigations by public agents, including attorneys general, are a necessary component of law enforcement. Efforts by public agents to ascertain facts in such investigations should not create constitutional controversy, provided the agents respect due process and other constraints on how they perform these duties. If corporations can invoke “free speech” as a way to conceal relevant information about allegedly false statements — if they can effectively create immunity from investigation by playing a constitutional trump card — then we are on a slippery slope to the civic incapacity and relative weakness in both rule of law and economic growth that characterizes Russia and other regimes that collapse the distinction between economic and political power.

That’s why Exxon’s attack on the state investigations says so much about the damage to our constitutional framework wrought by the Supreme Court’s invention of these new corporate rights. In our federal system, attorneys general are the highest law enforcement officers in the state, generally elected directly by people, and charged with protecting the public interest and checking the abuse of corporate power. Yet in the post–Citizens United world, Exxon — with a virtually unlimited budget — can summon any officials with the temerity to do their job into physically distant courts. Trumped-up “civil rights” litigation of this kind has self-evident potential for the harassment and intimidation of would-be investigators.

Even the majority of justices in Citizens United did not argue that corporate speech rights protected fraudulent statements. Yet unless the Court revisits its First Amendment doctrines, Exxon’s attack on efforts by the states to investigate its conduct shows that such nuances may not matter. Whether Exxon wins or loses its “free speech” claims, it has already delivered its real message: Those who stand up for the public interest will face a high cost.

Jeff Clements is the president of American Promise, a national nonpartisan group of American citizen leaders working for the 28th Amendment to secure government of the people, not money. He previously was a partner in a Boston law firm and served as chief of the Public Protection Bureau in the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office.

John Coates is the John F. Cogan Jr. professor of law and economics, as well as research director of the Center on the Legal Profession, at Harvard Law School. Before joining Harvard, he was a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz specializing in financial institutions and mergers and acquisitions.

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The Big Idea is Vox’s home for smart, often scholarly excursions into the most important issues and ideas in politics, science, and culture — typically written by outside contributors. If you have an idea for a piece, pitch us at thebigidea@vox.com

Exxon tried to get NY NJ cases transferred to friendly courts in Texas, mostly failed? lost several rounds and shifted basis for argument, but ended up that. AG investigation about defrauding stockholders by not informing them of loses that they might suffer because of climate change [eg stranded assets? indeed oil prices went negative b/c of covid?]

this gets conflated with exxon promised to stop funding deniers (after it was disclosed the knew agw real by own sci // tobacco corps], but then continued.

exxon argues AG involved in a conspiracy? to quash 1st amend right for corp to speak on climate; AG argued and judge agreed AG does not care about you opinion, but about FACT that you lied to shareholders. what is the status of case? ref to paul Weiss firm winning 1.6m$ case?

https://www.**salon**.com/2019/07/14/corporations-can-legally-put-carcinogens-in-our-food-without-warning-labels-heres-why/

Corporations can legally put carcinogens in our food without warning labels. Here's why

Cheerios has so much glyphosate in it, it should be labeled as toxic. Corporate free speech precedents prevent that

MATTHEW ROZSA

JULY 14, 2019

A recent study by the Environmental Working Group revealed something horrifying: Glyphosate, the active ingredient in the popular weedkiller Roundup, was present in 17 of the 21 oat-based cereal and snack products at levels considered unsafe for children. That includes six different brands of Cheerios, one of the most popular American cereals.

I've written before about the limits of corporate free speech when it comes to public safety, but on that occasion I discussed this insofar as it involved corporate-sponsored climate change denialism. Yet here we have something more tangible, more direct: The safe glyphosate limit for children is 160 parts per billion (ppb), yet Honey Nut Cheerios Medley Crunch has 833 parts per billion and regular Cheerios has 729 ppb. While the potential risks of glyphosate are fiercely debated, many scientists believe that it is linked to cancer.

So if there are unsafe levels of glyphosate in a cereal popular with children, why isn't this disclosed on the cereal boxes? The complicated answer has to do with a legal case that defined free speech as something that non-human persons, like corporations, have a "right" to, in a sense. That sounds absurd, perhaps, and probably not something the framers of the constitution intended. Indeed, the idea of "corporate constitutional rights" is a relatively new one, yet one that corporations' legal arms fight tooth and nail to preserve.

There are several activist groups working to amend the constitution to undo the notion of corporate personhood and make it so that this mind-bending and harmful interpretation of corporate free speech is no longer enshrined in law. Move to Amend — as in, the constitution — is one such group. Salon interviewed ...What does glyphosate do to weeds?

There are several activist groups working to amend the constitution to undo the notion of corporate personhood and make it so that this mind-bending and harmful interpretation of corporate free speech is no longer enshrined in law. Move to Amend — as in, the constitution — is one such group. Salon interviewed Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, the National Director of Move to Amend, to understand how this weird legal situation came to exist.

Glyphosate is a non-selective herbicide, meaning it will kill most plants, not just weeds. It prevents plants from making certain proteins that are needed for plant growth.

What do peer-reviewed studies indicate it does to human beings and animals if they ingest it?

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has labeled glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic” and the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment categorized it as a “chemical known to the state to cause cancer.”

How did glyphosate wind up in foods like breakfast cereals?

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, 250 million pounds of glyphosate are sprayed on American crops each year. Glyphosate is primarily used on Roundup Ready corn and soybeans that are genetically modified to withstand the toxin. Glyphosate is also sprayed on other non-GMO crops, like wheat, oats, barley and beans, right before harvest.

What have Monsanto and other companies done to suppress knowledge of its effects (lobbying, suppressing science, etc.)?

Monsanto has waged a sophisticated PR campaign to bully scientists and undermine findings that glyphosate is cancerous. In addition Monsanto and agribusiness leaders protecting the company's interests have a revolving door relationship with many agencies that are supposed to be overseeing and regulating the corporation. Monsanto and agribusiness associations have also made significant political contributions to Congressmembers like former Rep Lamar Smith from Texas who chaired the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee where he used his platform to undermine the [International Agency for Research on Cancer] when their cancer findings came out, accusing the agency of using "cherry-picked" science when determining that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic.” ...Monsanto has argued that California's Prop 65 labeling law is a violation of the company's First Amendment right not to speak.

What is the boundary separating corporate free speech between their responsibility to the public health? Have those boundaries shifted over the years?

The courts have expanded the ability of corporations to overturn labeling requirements on a number of occasions over the last 35 years. In 1986 the Supreme Court decided that the Pacific Gas and Electric Company in California was not required to allow a consumer advocacy group to use the extra space in their billing envelope, upholding the corporation's right not to speak and protecting the corporation's “freedom of mind.”

In 1996 the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a Vermont law requiring the labeling of all products containing bovine growth hormone and ruled that the right not to speak inheres in political and commercial speech alike and extends to statements of fact as well as statements of opinion.

In Nike v. Kasky in 2003the Supreme Court heard arguments on whether purposeful untruths in advertising are protected political speech before sending the case back to a California courtwhere it was settled in Kasky’s favor, finding that the state laws requiring truth in advertising had been violated. The question of whether the First Amendment gives a corporation the right to speak lies remains unsettled.

Legally speaking, why are companies allowed to have poisons in our foods without warning the public of that fact?

The Supreme Court never had the authority to determine that corporations have any Constitutional rights, including First Amendment rights. By granting corporations these powers, meant to be the ultimate protections for people from government overreach, it in effect means that in many ways regulatory agencies have no authority over corporate actions — even when those actions are determined to cause public harm. In cases involving the First Amendment right not to speak it is even more insidious because it means that their so-called right not to warn the public about their toxic products trumps our right to know what's in our food.

The only solution to this problem is to pass an amendment to the US Constitution to make clear that only human beings have Constitutional rights, and that government absolutely has the right to regulate corporations like Monsanto, so that they can no longer use the Constitution as a shield against public oversight and protection. The We the People Amendment will do just that.

MATTHEW ROZSA

Matthew Rozsa is a breaking news writer for Salon. He holds an MA in History from Rutgers University-Newark and is ABD in his PhD program in History at Lehigh University. His work has appeared in Mic, Quartz and MSNBC.

===

Pacific Gas and Electric v. Public Utilities Comm'n, 475 U.S. 1 (1986)

In PG&E, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a corporation has the right not to be associated with

the speech of others. In this case, PG&E was not required to include a message fromToward

Utility Rate Normalization (TURN) with PG&E's bill to customers.

Issue: Does compelling a private corporation to provide a forum for views other than its own

infringe on the corporation's freedom of speech?

Rule: The First Amendment states “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of

speech . . .”

Application: An independent consumer group, TURN, urged the Public Utilities Commission

(PUC) to require that PG&E include a pamphlet from TURN four times per year, in the PG&E

billing envelope, provided that the pamphlet use space not used for the billing and required

notices. TURN proposed to use their space to provide alternative information about PG&E

issues to the PG&E customers.

The PUC's order required PG&E to associate with speech with which PG&E may disagree. For

corporations as for individuals, the choice to speak includes within it the choice of what not to

say.

The Supreme Court concluded that the envelope, bill, and postage were paid for by the

corporation and therefore were property of PG&E, not the customer. Thus, the Court decided

that the PUC's order for PG&E to disseminate TURN's speech with potentially hostile views in

envelopes that PG&E owns risks forcing PG&E to speak where it would prefer not to speak.

Burdens on free speech can be valid, if they are a narrowly tailored means of serving a

compelling state interest. The Court concluded that the PUC's order did not meet this

requirement.

Transformation: This decision gives a corporation negative speech rights under the First

Amendment, which protects it against state regulatory action. Any person or group that wishes

to speak out against a particular corporate policy or activity must do so through independent

news media or independent mailings. Reaching the particular customers affected by the

corporation is now extraordinarily expensive, therefore usually beyond the means of any

citizens group.

Effect: The First Amendment has been extended to protect a corporation from being required

to transfer information other than what the corporation itself has deemed appropriate to its

customers. No PUC or other regulatory body may impinge on that negative free speech.

Fictional Representational Story: I own a small, four-generation farm in West Virginia,

where we raise and support the family with vegetables and fruits and the sale of hogs, chickens,

and eggs. The farm is near a coal mine operated by a major corporation, the Freedom Mining

Company. Weekly, I and many of my farming neighbors receive a multi-color brochure from

Freedom outlining all the "benefits" of selling our farms to them so they can rip up the soil in a

big strip-mining operation. The brochures are filled with statements from various politicians

and "scientists", explaining the need for “energy independence” for America, and questioning

why so many Americans are opposed to their efforts. I want to tell my own story, but I know

there is no way that Freedom would print my story alongside theirs. Our newspapers, mostly

owned by big corporations, all seem to tell the Freedom story: the few opposing views that get

printed appear as letters to the editor. To make it worse, most of my neighbors are inclined to

sell out, leaving me and a few others to fight off this wealthy corporation on our own.

Written by: W. A. Barrett Disclaimer: For educational purpose only.

---

https://www.**salon**.com/2019/07/14/corporations-can-legally-put-carcinogens-in-our-food-without-warning-labels-heres-why/

Corporations can legally put carcinogens in our food without warning labels. Here's why

Cheerios has so much glyphosate in it, it should be labeled as toxic. Corporate free speech precedents prevent that

MATTHEW ROZSA

JULY 14, 2019

There are several activist groups working to amend the constitution to undo the notion of corporate personhood and make it so that this mind-bending and harmful interpretation of corporate free speech is no longer enshrined in law. Move to Amend — as in, the constitution — is one such group. Salon interviewed Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, the National Director of Move to Amend, to understand how this weird legal situation came to exist.

Glyphosate is a non-selective herbicide, meaning it will kill most plants, not just weeds. It prevents plants from making certain proteins that are needed for plant growth.

What do peer-reviewed studies indicate it does to human beings and animals if they ingest it?

How did glyphosate wind up in foods like breakfast cereals?

What have Monsanto and other companies done to suppress knowledge of its effects (lobbying, suppressing science, etc.)?

What is the boundary separating corporate free speech between their responsibility to the public health? Have those boundaries shifted over the years?

Legally speaking, why are companies allowed to have poisons in our foods without warning the public of that fact?

MATTHEW ROZSA