Courts
Justice Alito's disagreement with President Obama's interpretation of the Citizens United case is drawing much comment. The consensus is that Alito is correct. Even a Lefty like Linda Greenhouse thinks so. I'm not so sure, however. The question is whether the case, by overturning the restrictions on independent expenditures by corporations and unions, also overturns the prohibitions on like expenditures by foreign corporations. My question is this: for several years now, the Court has been collapsing the distinction between U.S. citizen and foreigner, (and, to a lesser degree, between U.S. law and foreign law). By what logic can U.S. law discriminate between U.S. corporations and foreign corporations in elections, when it can't discriminate between the two in so many other ways?
Isn't the problem going to be multinational corporations which are not distinctly American or foreign? There have been multinationals since the turn of the previous century, but it is a modern and not a Constituional problem. The Constitution says our government will not dent anyone free speech. Surely, we must always be allowed to know who is speaking and to judge the speech accordingly.