Corporations in the US have gradually been gaining more of the rights long reserved for individuals, a trend public-interest groups have decried since last year’s unpopular Citizen’s United
Supreme Court decision. That ruling gave corporations the same rights as individuals when it comes to political speech and the funding of election advertisements (and it was exploited to impressive effect just months later during the 2010 midterm elections).

This week, however, the Court sends good news to many of the same advocacy groups still smarting from Citizens United. Corporations, the Court ruled, may have free-speech rights, but they have no right to “personal privacy” protections in government documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act.

The court ruled unanimously in the case, Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T, to the cheers of government watchdog and media organisations afraid that a new precedent could weaken the FOIA law that helps keep government transparent and accountable.

COMPTEL, a trade group representing communications service providers, filed a FOIA request for documents from a federal investigation and settlement with telephone service provider AT&T, which had been overcharging the government for services provided under a federal broadband programme. AT&T maintained that some information should not be released under FOIA exemptions for “personal privacy” — essentially arguing that it had a right to keep unflattering company information shared with the government out of the public eye.

After all, the company argued in court, the term “person” is sometimes meant in a general sense in US law to apply to both individuals and corporate entities.

The justices, though, scoffed at that logic. The concept of personal privacy, wrote Chief Justice John Roberts, “suggests a type of privacy evocative of human concerns –– not the sort usually associated with an entity like, say, AT&T.”

Those words are particularly encouraging to groups worried that the relatively new conservative makeup of the court will promote a steady expansion of corporate privileges, at the expense of less powerful individuals in society.

Roberts — who seemed to delight in his 12-page take-down of AT&T’s argument — added of the final decision: “We trust that AT&T will not take it personally.”