Supreme Court Agrees to Reconsider Citizens United

[eallen]

56. How are those points relevant?

Money is not speech. People are not corporations.

But people forming corporations with money to publish everything from newspapers to political screeds is exactly what constitutes "the press." And has, for hundreds of years. And the 1st amendment protects freedom of "the press." That doesn't mean just people. That also means corporations from the New York Times to film studios to radio stations to book publishers.

If your answer is that none of those corporations should enjoy 1st amendment protection, then you're talking about an extreme retraction of the 1st amendment that every civil libertarian will oppose. If you think not, consider all the 1st amendment cases that could have been thrown out simply because it was a corporation publishing the speech at issue.

If your answer is that some of those shouldn't have 1st amendment protection, then the question becomes which and under what circumstances? What are the legal criteria you propose? And why?

Simply saying money != speech and people != corporations simultaneously says too much, if you're serious about withdrawing 1st amendment protection from the press. And too little, if you mean to slice with a scalpel rather than a meat clever.

That's precisely the problem missed by most who misunderstand Citizens United.