Free Press Disses Personal Privacy Exemption For Corporations

Free Press has filed a friend of the court brief in a case that could determine how much information large companies, including media companies, have to make public.

The group said it had filed the brief with the Supreme Court in support of the Federal Communications Commission's contention that AT&T should have to make public documents on equipment and services provided through the FCC's E-rate program, which supplies broadband to schools and libraries. The High Court is hearing a challenge to a Third Circuit ruling that there was a corporate privacy right that shielded the documents from a Freedom of Information Act request by AT&T's competitors. The documents related to AT&T's discovery, and the FCC's ensuing investigation, of possible AT&T overcharges to the government program in New London, Conn.

The FCC asked AT&T to produce the records as part of the investigation, which it did. CompTel, the association industry association representing competitive communications providers and suppliers, filed a FOIA to get access to the information and AT&T objected. the FCC rejected that objection, and AT&T took its case to federal court.