Title: How Corporations Hijacked the First Amendment to Evade Regulation | The New Republic
Headings: The Right to Evade Regulation
The Right to Evade Regulation
How corporations hijacked the First Amendment

Content: But IMS Health did not want that kind of fight. Instead, it filed separate suits against the three states that had first cracked down on its business, invoking the First Amendment. The selling of prescription records, the company asserted, is a form of free speech. Be the most
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For most of U.S. history, such a claim would have been a dead letter in court. But when it comes to the First Amendment, we live in interesting times. In June 2011, the Supreme Court struck down the new data-protection laws, arguing that they discriminated against IMS Health. “ The State,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the majority, “has burdened a form of protected expression. ... This the State cannot do.” It was Kennedy, of course, who authored Citizens United, which established that independent political spending by corporations is shielded by the Bill of Rights as well.