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NEWS
January 25th
2003
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Update – Nike in free speech battle Original article at: http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/news/nike_free_speech.htm On 10th January, the US Supreme Court agreed to hear the Nike’s appeal against the California Supreme Court’s ruling that Nike’s PR lying activities are not eligible for ‘free speech’ protection. The U.S. Supreme will hear arguments this spring and issue a ruling by late June on the Constitutional implications of the ruling – essentially, the issue of whether free speech rights extend to corporations. Unsurprisingly, the corporate world (and the corporate media) has rallied around Nike since the ruling. The news reports (links from the Reclaim Democracy site, below) are rather strident, both ignoring the fact that Nike has not denied deliberately lying (they imply that Nike’s statements were simply ‘factual errors’, in which case why did they not simply correct them?) and getting very confused between people and corporations; USA Today suggests that everything anyone says is commercial speech since we all have economic interests, completely ignoring the fact that a corporation is solely composed of economic interests whereas most of us (though perhaps not the USA Today editors…) are more complicated and can act out of higher motives – this is why free speech legislation is important in the first place. The mainstream press reports suggest that corporations will now be afraid to say anything at all about anything for fear they might be sued, but according to one of the judges who issued the initial ruling, all it means is that ‘when a business . . . makes factual representations about its own products or its own operations, it must speak truthfully.’ Which really shouldn’t have them all in such a spin. More worryingly, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is split over the issue – ACLU Northern California has come out supporting Nike, suggesting they’re a bit confused about who the humans are that human rights are supposed to belong to, while ACLU Southern California has issued a policy effectively supporting the California Supreme Court ruling. More updates as the case progresses.
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