Corporate Trash Talk

The Corporate Right to Cover Up:
The Environmental Audit Privilege and the Public Interest

by Sanford Lewis

Should corporations be allowed to police themselves? A new trend sweeping the United States is encouraging corporate self-policing, despite grave concerns about its implications by environmentalists and legal experts.

New laws, currently enacted in 24 states and pending in several others, encourage corporations to conduct environmental studies of their own activities, known as environmental "audits." To induce such studies, these new audit laws grant corporations rights to conceal a wide range of environmental information from public and government eyes. Industries become entitled to keep the content of environmental studies secret (privileged), if the firms commit to engaging in corrective action when they find any violations. And, under many of the laws, if the corporations choose to disclose their violations to government officials, they can receive outright immunity against government prosecution. MORE >>

Veggie Libel: Agribusiness Seeks to Stifle Speech

by Ronald K.L. Collins

The costs of free speech are rising. Thanks to "veggie-libel" laws, speaking about the safety of the food supply may result in a long and expensive lawsuit, a huge damages award or criminal sanctions. Even if the speaker prevails in court, he or she must still bear the litigation costs.

A dozen states -- Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Texas -- have adopted food-disparagement statutes stipulating that food critics may be held civilly liable for claiming any "perishable food product or commodity" is unsafe for human consumption. A thirteenth state, Colorado, makes "libeling" food a crime. In California and Michigan, industry is pushing to get such laws on the books. Agribusiness also tried, unsuccessfully, to include a similar provision in the 1996 federal farm bill. MORE >>

First Amendment Follies: Expanding Corporate Speech Rights

by Robert Weissman

The First Amendment -- it is not just for people anymore. In recent years, corporations in the United States are increasingly invoking the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to defend controversial speech. U.S. courts afford corporations most of the same protections for political speech as are provided to individuals. The courts are also providing ever-increasing levels of protection for commercial speech, gradually approaching the peak protection guaranteed for political debate.

As the U.S. Congress debates tobacco control legislation, some of the consequences of extending free speech guarantees to corporations are becoming apparent. MORE >>

SLAPPing Back for Democracy

An Interview with George Pring

George Pring is professor of law at the University of Denver College of Law. He is co-author, with Penelope Canan, a University of Denver professor of sociology, of SLAPPs: Getting Sued for Speaking Out. For 13 years, Pring and Canan have co-directed the SLAPPs Project, studying SLAPP suits around the United States. Pring and Canan coined the term "SLAPPs," which stands for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation in government. MORE >>