The Wall Street Journal reported today:

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that personal-privacy rights don’t apply to corporations under the Freedom of Information Act.

Tuesday’s ruling was a defeat for AT&T Inc., which was seeking to block the disclosure of emails and other potentially embarrassing documents it provided to the Federal Communications Commission during a 2004 investigation by the agency of whether the telecommunications giant overbilled the New London, Conn., public schools.

I am not a legal scholar by any means, but it seems that the courts often split hairs, sometimes treating corporations as persons and other times as non-persons.  In this case, non-personhood prevailed.

The court, in an opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, said corporations don’t get to enjoy certain personal-privacy exemptions included in FOIA, a disclosure law that allows the public to gain access to some documents filed with the government.

"The protection in FOIA against disclosure of law-enforcement information on the ground that it would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy does not extend to corporations," Chief Justice Roberts wrote. "We trust that AT&T will not take it personally."

That last comment by Chief Justice Roberts is an interesting play on words.  According to his judgment, AT&T couldn’t take it “personally”.  They had to take it “corporately.”

How will it affect us?  Opinions vary:

News-industry groups and open-government advocacy organizations argued that AT&T’s position could place a wide range of records on corporate-behavior off limits to the public.

Several business groups backed AT&T. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the threat of public disclosure could have a chilling effect on corporations’ willingness to cooperate with law-enforcement authorities.

It will be interesting to watch where this leads.

Last Thursday, I tried unsuccessfully to register for the new Identify Validation service provided by Tru.ly.  On Friday, I got a nice email from a Tru.ly representative, responding to my blog and Twitter posts, thanking me for my access attempt and inviting me to try again.

This afternoon, my registration effort was successful.  Tru.ly verified the bits of Identity information I provided, and issued my very own Tru.ly URL – tru.ly/mgd – plus the QR code included in this post and on the blog sidebar.

You can see my verification information by visiting tru.ly/mgd, by clicking on the QR code or by scanning the QR code with your mobile device.  It worked just fine on my iPhone using the QRReader app.

What does a Base Hit have to do with Identity Verification?

Since Spring Training has started in Arizona, baseball analogies came to mind.  I assigned my first failure at Tru.ly registration “Strike 1.”  I’ll call my current success a “base hit.” The registration worked, but I’m not really sure what its real value is yet.  We’ll have to wait awhile to see what brings me across home plate.

TNW Gadgets reported today that Rolls Royce has launched a one-of-a-kind Rolls Royce 102EX Phantom Experimental Electric:

The car will be used to gauge the opinions and reactions to alternative means of power in Rolls Royce cars, amongst of a range of stakeholders including owners, enthusiasts, members of the public and the media.

Phantom EE features an aluminium frame, replacing the 6.75-litre V12 petrol engine and 6-speed gearbox with a Lithium ion battery pack and two electric motors. The motors are connected to a single speed transmission, each kicking out 145kW, giving Phantom EE a maximum power output of 290kW and torque of 800Nm. …

It’s a considerable achievement when you compare this with the 338kW output for standard Phantom with maximum torque of 720Nm. Apparently the Phantom EE has a range of up to 200km and can achieve 0-60mph in under eight seconds with top speed limited to 160kph.

I like the comment about electric luxury from the video: “is it compromise, or is it perfection?”