FCC v. AT&T Inc.

What’s at stake? 
A corporation’s ability to hide information about wrongdoing from consumers based on its right to “personal privacy.” 

Issue:
Whether a corporation has the same personal privacy right that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) provides to individuals to limit FOIA disclosures.

Decision date:
March 1, 2011

Outcome:
8-0 in favor of the FCC. Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion; Justice Kagan recused.

What the court held:
In an opinion by Chief Justice Roberts reversing the court below, the Supreme Court held that a corporation cannot claim the “personal privacy” exemption under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). FOIA requires government agencies to disclose records requested in writing by any person, unless the record falls within one of nine exemptions, one of which protects records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes when releasing the records would be an unwarranted invasion of “personal privacy.” In this case, AT&T tried to claim that the Federal Communications Commission could not disclose to parties that filed a FOIA request information about its investigation that AT&T was overcharging for equipment and services it was supplying to schools. AT&T argued that releasing FCC's investigation records would invade its “personal privacy” under the statute.

The Court rejected AT&T's arguments. The court held that the term “personal,” which is not defined in FOIA, should be given its ordinary meaning given the context in which it was used, i.e., it refers to people. Thus, the phrase “personal privacy” is “simply the sum of its two words: the privacy of a person.” Moreover, the Court held, Congress included an exemption distinct from the personal privacy exemption for “trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential,” concluding that the latter was intended to protect certain corporate interests while the former was not. The fact that the federal government has long interpreted the FOIA personal privacy exemption to refer to the privacy interests of individuals and not to corporations was cited as further support for the Court's holding.

One reason this case garnered attention is because, in Citizens United v. FEC, a 5-4 majority of the Court held that corporations had the same constitutional rights as people to spend money on political campaigns. The effect was to unleash a tsunami of corporate spending on the 2010 election, much of it from undisclosed sources. With far less at stake, the Court in this case rejected the idea that Congress intended corporations to have “personal privacy” protections under FOIA.

Learn more:

• L.A. Times:  Supreme Court rejects 'personal privacy' for corporations in Freedom of Information Act case
• Bloomberg: Company Privacy Rights Get Review at U.S. High Court
• Forbes: Supreme Court To Decide If Corporations Have Privacy Rights

Merit briefs:

• Brief for Petitioner Federal Communications Commission, et al.
• Brief for Respondent Comptel in Support of Petitioners
• Brief for Respondent AT&T, Inc., et al.

Amicus briefs:

• Brief for the Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press — ALM Media, LLC, the American Society of News Editors, the Associated Press, the Association of American Publishers, Inc., Bay Area News Group, Bloomberg L.P., the Citizen Media Law Project, Daily News, L.P., Dow Jones & Company, Inc., The E.W. Scripps Company, the First Amendment Coalition, First Amendment Project, Gannett Co., Inc., NBC Universal, Inc., the National Press Photographers Association, Newspaper Association of America, the New York Times Co., NPR, Inc., the Society of Professional Journalists, Stephens Media LLC, Tribune Company, and the Washington Post in Support of Petitioner
• Brief for Collaboration on Government Secrecy in Support of Petitioner
• Brief for Free Press in Support of Petitioner
• Brief for the Project on Government Oversight, the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information, and Tax Analysts in Support of Petitioner
• Brief for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics In Washington, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries, the National Security Archive, and Openthegovernment.Org in Support of Petitioner
• Brief for Constitutional Accountability Center in Support of Petitioner
• Brief for National Association of Manufacturers in Support of Respondent AT&T, Inc.
• Brief for the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America in Support of Respondent AT&T, Inc.
• Brief for the Business Roundtable in Support of Respondent AT&T, Inc.