FCC v. AT&T Inc. (09-1279)
argument 09-1279FCC v. AT&T Inc.
Supreme Court of the United States
48 min
6 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 4 days ago
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Transcript
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What is the central legal issue in FCC v. AT&T regarding personal privacy under FOIA?
We'll hear argument first this morning in case zero nine twelve seventy nine, Federal Communications Commission versus ATT Inc. Mr. Yang.
Mr Chief Justice, it may please the Court. The Court of Appeals has held that FOIA's statutory protection for personal privacy in Exemption 7C extends beyond the privacy of individuals and protects the so called personal privacy of corporations. That holding is inconsistent with the text of Exemption 7C, FOIA's broader context, and the statute's drafting history and would lead to anomalous results. The word personal standing alone refers to individual an individual human being. Privacy, standing alone, and even more so in the context of the phrase invasion of privacy invokes purely individual concepts. And the sum of those terms, that is, the statutory phrase used in FOIA, personal privacy, is greater than the sum of its parts.
It has long been well settled that corporations have no personal privacy. Isn't
it true that there are contexts in the law in which the word personal is used to refer to a corporation? For example, you could refer to personal jurisdiction over a corporation, couldn't you?
There are the term personal is sometimes used as a term of art, and I think personal jurisdiction is one of those. It is the modern, shorter term of art for jurisdiction in personum, and reflects a distinction drawn uh still in the law between cases brought uh in personum and cases brought in REM. That the evolution of that term in the law. law as a uh term of art does not reflect what the ordinary meaning of personal is. It's just the same as the the term personal property, which also invokes uh long established traditional distinctions between property that could be recovered in REM or in real actions versus property that might be recovered in uh uh actions in personum. So and in fact I think it's it's important to note that there are um although maybe there are some uh instances um that
uh uh th I think there's one instance that uh the ATT cites in its its brief. Nothing n he's never cited any um use of the term personal to mean uh corporate or pertaining to a corporation. And when when you what about
what about personal appearance as
A personal appearance, I think that That uh supports our position as well. If they're you're making a personal appearance, it's not something that a corporation does. Uh a corporation is an uh a legal construct, it doesn't exist as a thing that can make an an appearance.
Well in ordinary speech, uh the the term personal is not the term person is not used to refer to a corporation. That's that's legalese. But uh in but uh since the the uh the Administrative Procedure Act defines a person to include a corporation. Why is it uh relevant here or just positive here to look to the ordinary usage of the term personal as opposed to the way it's it's used in the law. And in the the law it is sometimes used to refer to a corporation.
Well I think that that point actually reinforces our position because although person is used in certain legal contexts to refer refer to um artificial persons, corporations and the like Personal is not. And um personal, as we explain in our brief, is not simply a uh grammatical alteration and inflection of the term person. It's existed in its own right since the late thirteen hundreds and has developed meaning that is unique to the term personal.
First to this the request came in And as I understand it The Commission said There are two exemptions, the one for trade secrets, commercial, financial confidential information. And then there was one Um with exemption seven itself. But as to the employees
Correct. There was a an additional exemption, exemption five, which protected internal government communications.
How did the Does the the Commission unaided By ATT go through the papers and decide what would be embarrassing for an ATT employee as distinguished from the corporation.
How does it do that? Yeah. Well, I I don't think the touchstone is necessarily embarrassment. What the government does following this court's decision in reporters committee is tries to determine whether there is a personal privacy interest about individuals, and that is information that pertains to particular individuals.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the central legal issue in FCC v. AT&T regarding personal privacy under FOIA?
0:01–6:27
2
How does the Court interpret the term “personal” in Exemption 7C – individual vs. corporate?
6:27–13:06
3
Why do the parties argue about whether corporations can assert FOIA objections on behalf of employees?
13:06–18:44
4
What historical statutes and agency definitions shape the meaning of “person” and “personal”?
18:44–24:51
5
How do the justices address the balance between privacy interests and public disclosure?
24:51–31:31
6
What examples are cited to illustrate corporate versus individual privacy concerns?
31:31–37:25
7
How might the Court’s construction of “personal privacy” affect future FOIA and exemption cases?
37:25–42:34
8
What conclusion do the parties seek from the Supreme Court on the scope of Exemption 7C?
42:34–48:34