Should AT&T be held legally responsible for any NSA cooperation?

• Google executives on trial for criminal liability in Italy

  I'm generally in favor of holding companies liable for their actions -- after all, if we treat corporations as "persons" under the law, then they should have responsibilities as well as protections and benefits. But I'm not sure about holding executives criminally liable -- perhaps in the case of knowing pollution or conspiracy to cover up product dangers -- but not, I think, for actions they are not directly responsible for, as in this case from Italy.

  
  
• Privacy as secrecy and privacy as autonomy

  The concept of "privacy"--as in "the right to privacy"--can be understood in a number of ways. This multitude of potential meanings and uses is partly why the concept is controversial, confusing, and perhaps even contradictory. Previously I have discussed the difference in perceptions of privacy in the 19th century, where the legal focus seemed to be more on "confidentiality" than what we have come to understand as "privacy" today. That is, the 19th century concern was with maintaining trust relationships between people rather than with protecting either secrecy or autonomy (although that is not to say that these were not valued).

  
  
• Research preview: the historical case for vaccination

  I'm researching how the scientific and medical community presented and developed itself such that the public moved from rioting to cooperation with vaccination.

  
  
• What was the "right to privacy" in 1948?

  It took nearly 50 years for Justice Brandeis' ground-breaking law review article on the right to privacy to begin to widely influence judicial decisions. By 1948, though, a dozen or so states had begun to recognize the right as a part of common law.

  
  
• Neil Richards on "Reconciling Data Privacy and the First Amendment"

  In "Reconciling Data Privacy and the First Amendment," argues that privacy regulation is not speech regulation at all, and, additionally, that in commercial contexts at least, "speech restrictions ... have never triggered heightened First Amendment scrutiny." In other words, either the data being protected isn't "speech" in the legal sense, or "because they are legitimate speech regulations under existing doctrine."

  
  

Post title: Should AT&T be held legally responsible for any NSA cooperation?

Authored by: krisnelson

Date posted: Oct 12, 2007

Categorized as: law • privacy • search and seizure • technology • wiretap

Tagged with: law • privacy

Alternate URL: /2007/10/should-at-be-held-legally-responsible.html