To the masses, they have NO CLUE what this means, the de-education of America is complete.

Jim,

Some points need clarification. Firstly, corporations should not have the same rights as citizens of the United States. However the granting of civil rights to corporations was the decision of a much earlier court, and Chief Justice Roberts pointed out that this may be the true issue and may need to be overturned. He even stated that if previous decisions weren't overturned occasionally "segregation would be legal, minimum wage laws would be unconstitutional, and the Government could wiretap ordinary criminal suspects without first obtaining warrants."
Unfortunately they must redress the grievances brought before them and the particulars of that case. To do otherwise would be "legislating from the bench."
The facts: In 2008, Citizens United sought to release a politically motivated documentary film via pay-per-view, they sought to advertise this via commercials. Senator Hillary Clinton appealed to the Federal Election Commision to bar it's release to cable, (it had already been released in theaters and DVD). The FEC sided with Senator Clinton and prevented the documentary commercials from being released. The Federal Elections Commision cannot infringe on the rights of free speech. That was the judgement.
Blame the first amendment rights granted to faceless corporations, blame Hillary Clinton for taking it to the court room. But don't blame the justices, they were merely ruling on one specific case.
Additionally, if they had found in favor of the Federal Elections Commission, they would have been granting the FEC the right to stop any political discourse that involves any corporation. This would include news corporations, newspaper corporations, internet corporations, etc. Think about that, the FEC could stop anyone from expressing any political opinion on any corporately controlled entity. That is chilling.
Also as for "rushing" it through, the Supreme Court took nine months to hear the oral arguments and then asked for them to be reargued nearly five months later, and then did not issue a decision for an additional four months. The time between the docket and the decision was 17 months and 3 days.
We are all entitle to our own opinions, but we are not entitled to our own truths.

If the above commenter is correct, then perhaps the time is ripe to re-visit the decision (if there ever was one) granting corporations personhood under the law. As I understand it this was first raised in a case Southern Pacific Railroad vs. Santa Clara County in 1886 and the court never formally ruled on corporate personhood. Rather, the court clerk, J.C. Bancroft Davis (a railroad excecutive), entered the following into the court record;

"The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does."

The quote was attributed to Chief Justice Morrison Waite, but the court never ruled formally on the issue.

Why this has never been challenged has always puzzled me, but perhaps the current five radical justices would be inclined to settle the matter once and for all if the right case would present itself. Surely there are a million potential cases that could be filed in this regard, why it has not been done before is beside the point. Why not do it now?

I like that Tony illuminates some of the history of the case and time-line in court -- good job. But we need more. We need to see a trail of case law that shows how Corporations and Individuals come to be treated as equals -- where does this come from -- I think later than 1886. Also where money = free speech. If this is true, I think we ought to level the playing field and make the maximum amount of money donations be equal to what the least wealthy can afford to donate. That would bring us back to something like one man/woman = one vote, instead of the "bags of cash" equals the "number of votes that can be bought" system we have. It is good to get all this out on the table for viewing. We know conservatives (politicians and judges in the Federalist Society mold) have a pro-corporation legal ideology and agenda just as liberals have a human rights and civil liberties agenda. Judges are political. When Roberts said judges are like umpires, he was not telling the truth. Why is justice filtered through ideological prisms? There is no answer. It just is. That is why we have these politicized 5-4 splits on these types of issues. We will see a lot more of this coming up with O'Connor gone, so hold on to you pants, they might get stolen. The real irony is to have a judge like Alito replace a judge like O'Connor -- both Republican conservatives, but miles apart in serving everyday Americans. Read "The Nine".

Tony brings up some interesting points in his posting, but perhaps he should have considered this: the distribution of the movie was not universal, but in targeted markets; and despite much effort, I could not find a DVD of the movie anywhere I looked for it.

As for the Constitution, nowhere in that document is the word "corporation" ever mentioned. As was noted in the article, our Founding Fathers had a strong opposition to corporations, which is why they limited them through law to 10 year lives, not eternal life as we have now. The notation on the ruling in 1886 was just that a notation, it was not part of any ruling, and therefore, there is no ruling to be challenged, which is what stops most lawsuits cold.

In order to undo the damage done by that ruling and this one, we need to pass a constitutional amendment that would strip corporations of the same rights as people. This case addressed the question of money=free speech, but what happens when they arm themselves, do corporations get the same 2nd amendment protections that people do? What if Xe ruled that they should have the right to arm security guards without restriction under the 2nd Amendment? What if they claimed that they were protected from the search and seizure of corporate records when they are funnelling drugs or weapons or people illegally because they claim money=immunity?

How many of the rights we have as citizens do you think is a fair number to give to corporations? 1, 2, 5, 10? Personally, I think that they should be reduced back to what they are-a piece of paper that allows a business to exist for the purpose of making a profit, and not a person, my so-called equal. I am better than any corporation because I am a human being, and I do not need a piece of paper to exist or be a voting citizen. Apparently, that is something the Supreme Court of the United States should think about.

OK, this will sound strange, but I read an article about employment and the history of how employees were treated. Back in the colonial days, British employment norms ruled. Employees were virtual property of their employers. If an employee were hurt on the job by some outsider, the EMPLOYER was compensated for the work time lost due to the loss of the employee. The employee got zip. It was likely this system that the founders were revolting against when Jefferson made the following statement:

"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

One difference, an important one, between the two political parties that now alternate control of the gov't, is that Democrats nominate qualified jurors to the Supreme Court and Republicans nominate ideologues. Does anyone think Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia are qualified to be on the Supreme Court? that they have judicial temperaments? Just look at the activist rulings the conservative SCOTUS has inflicted upon the US, starting with the ultra partisan selection of GW to the presidency. We knew these guys were going to be bad news yet the nominations passed anyway. Shame on you Democrats! Republicans nominate young, partisan jurors, hoping their ideology will sway the court for decades, Democrats nominate mainstream jurists who are vilified by Repubs because they can actually deal with nuance and subtlety. This is a consequence of poor political judgement and will haunt the middle class for decades. I wonder how many real conservatives are happy with this decision?

These 5 Fanatical Free Market Capitalists who were stacked on the Supreme Court over the last few decades by Fanatical Republicans are completely out of control and should not only be impeached, they should be disgraced as the destroyers of Democracy in America right NOW, as the future will label them. This decision is strongly disputed by the other 4 dissenting Supreme Court Judges for good reason! This decision goes completely against what OUR FOUNDING FATHERS accomplished when they wrote OUR Constitution and will only hurt OUR Country more than you can imagine in the years to come. All motivation and the voice of the “common individual” will be destroyed, we are now slaves to the Corporate “Persons” (entities). It is part of their Global Corporate plan.

This action of the 5 Fanatical Capitalist Activist Judges is their attempt at fixing the playing field before they lose their hand, and is a result of the election of President Obama as they are sensing the “push back” of Democracy and the “common individual vote” through what is remaining of our balance of power that OUR United States Constitution grants the “common citizen”. The Fanatical Right have figured out that they don’t have to Fix the vote, if they control how we think. (Think Fox Corporation) If they get away with this, Democracy in America is OVER. Thomas Jefferson would be calling for their heads if he was still alive.

ARE we that stupid and cowered to let this happen? You people all need to read “The Shock Doctrine” by Naomi Klein to understand what they are up to. They are going to destroy the very foundation that made this Wonderful Country great. Please WAKE UP before there is nothing left for future generations to push back with except blood.

@Jim, Some points need:

first:

Supreme court Justice should not need anyone to defend them. They're powerful enough to do that themselves.

second: Saying that the FEC's power over freedom of speech is frightening does not make it. FEC has been holding and using this power for decades with nobody complaining except those struck by one of its decisions. And these are not many.

And Third: Sure! The people are not dumb. They know they've been had and that's why so many bonus CEOs are so afraid of them that they have to use soch extreme tactics to get away with their loot. Any other interpretation of this Supreme Court's decision is only an attempt to hide this reality a little more and to buy a little time to devise the next step of this criminal adventure of this very select social club of the very rich

Even Jim Hightower can't make this sound funny. It's a f*@&!#g tragedy,particularly given the Obama administration's singular mission to preserve any and all fascist, right-wing rules made before, during and after he took office. This new ruling must not only be brought into daylight, it must be countered with massive public outrage, or We the People don't stand a chance at having a government useful to regular Americans.

The Supreme Court decision gives new meaning to the phrase "checks and balance".