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ORIGINAL: Thor
[link=http://www.ratical.org/corporations/SCvSPR1886.html]http://www.ratical.org/corporations/SCvSPR1886.html[/link]
Yes it does (well sort of). The decision also means that corporations as people owned by other people are technically slaves, something prohibited by the 13 th Amendment.
Most importantly the case does not invlve the legal argument of the case for corporations and “persons”. It is a legal precedent (if you can call it that) established by a single person summarizing undocumented opinions.
I’m not sure why you guys are all hung up about corporations, legal status, citizenship, etc. The ruling has little to do with any of that.
Speech is the focus of the 1st amendment, not the speaker. The speaker is irrelevant. Free speech may not be infringed, period. The 1st amendment applies to any individual speaker, including citizens, resident aliens, an foreign nationals. It also applies to non-profit and for-profit corporations, religious organizations (many of whom are corporations), and the press (many of whom represent corporations).
Another way of looking at this is that the 1st amendment delineates an important type of legislative authority that is denied to Congress. It doesn’t matter who the speaker is or what the speaker is saying, the issue is that Congress does not have the right to censor or filter speech in any way. It is a power that the Constitution specifically does not grant to Congress.