Opinion ID: 104758
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: rights under fourth and fifth amendments.

Text: The Commission's order is criticized upon grounds that the order transgresses the Fourth Amendment's proscription of unreasonable searches and seizures and the Fifth Amendment's due process of law clause. It is unnecessary here to examine the question of whether a corporation is entitled to the protection of the Fourth Amendment. Cf. Oklahoma Press Publishing Co. v. Walling, 327 U. S. 186. Although the right to be let alonethe most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men, Brandeis, J., dissenting in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438, 471, at 478, is not confined literally to searches and seizures as such, but extends as well to the orderly taking under compulsion of process, Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, Hale v. Henkel, 201 U. S. 43, 70, neither incorporated nor unincorporated associations can plead an unqualified right to conduct their affairs in secret. Hale v. Henkel, supra ; United States v. White, 322 U. S. 694. While they may and should have protection from unlawful demands made in the name of public investigation, cf. Federal Trade Comm'n v. American Tobacco Co., 264 U. S. 298, corporations can claim no equality with individuals in the enjoyment of a right to privacy. Cf. United States v. White, supra . They are endowed with public attributes. They have a collective impact upon society, from which they derive the privilege of acting as artificial entities. The Federal Government allows them the privilege of engaging in interstate commerce. Favors from government often carry with them an enhanced measure of regulation. Cf. Graham v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, 338 U. S. 232; Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 323 U. S. 192; Tunstall v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen & Enginemen, 323 U. S. 210; Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111, at 129. Even if one were to regard the request for information in this case as caused by nothing more than official curiosity, nevertheless law-enforcing agencies have a legitimate right to satisfy themselves that corporate behavior is consistent with the law and the public interest. Of course a governmental investigation into corporate matters may be of such a sweeping nature and so unrelated to the matter properly under inquiry as to exceed the investigatory power. Federal Trade Comm'n v. American Tobacco Co., supra . But it is sufficient if the inquiry is within the authority of the agency, the demand is not too indefinite and the information sought is reasonably relevant. The gist of the protection is in the requirement, expressed in terms, that the disclosure sought shall not be unreasonable. Oklahoma Press Publishing Co. v. Walling, 327 U. S. 186, 208. Nothing on the face of the Commission's order transgressed these bounds. Nor do we consider whether, for reasons peculiar to these cases not apparent on the face of the orders, these limits are transgressed. Such questions are not presented by the procedure followed by respondents. Before the courts will hold an order seeking information reports to be arbitrarily excessive, they may expect the supplicant to have made reasonable efforts before the Commission itself to obtain reasonable conditions. Neither respondent raised objection to the order's sweep, nor asked any modification, clarification or interpretation of it. Both challenged, instead, power to issue it. Their position was that the Commission had no more authority to issue a reasonable order than an unreasonable one. That, too, was the defense to this action in the court below. Of course, there are limits to what, in the name of reports, the Commission may demand. Just what these limits are we do not attempt to define in the abstract. But it is safe to say that they would stop the Commission considerably short of the extravagant example used by one of the respondents of what it fears if we sustain this orderthat the Commission may require reports from automobile companies which include filing automobiles. In this case we doubt that we should read the order as respondents ask to require shipment of extensive files or gifts of expensive books. This is not a necessary reading certainly, and other parties to the decree seem to have been able to satisfy its requirements. If respondents had objected to the terms of the order, they would have presented or at least offered to present evidence concerning any records required and the cost of their books, matters which now rest on mere assertions in their briefs. The Commission would have had opportunity to disclaim any inadvertent excesses or to justify their demands in the record. We think these respondents could have obtained any reasonable modifications necessary, but, if not, at least could have made a record that would convince us of the measure of their grievance rather than ask us to assume it. It is argued that if we sustain this use of § 6, the power will be unconfined and its arbitrary exercise subject to no judicial review or control, unless and until the Government brings suit, as here, for penalties. The Government, it is said, may delay such action while ruinous penalties accumulate and defendant runs the risk that his defenses will not be sustained. However, we are not prepared to say that courts would be powerless if after an effort to clarify or modify such an order it still is considered to be so arbitrary as to be unlawful and the Government pursues a policy of accumulating penalties while avoiding a judicial test by refusing to bring action to recover them. Since we do not think this record presents the question, we do not undertake to determine whether the Declaratory Judgment Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, or general equitable powers of the courts would afford a remedy if there were shown to be a wrong, or what the consequences would be if no chance is given for a test of reasonable objections to such an order. Cf. Oklahoma Operating Co. v. Love, 252 U. S. 331. It is enough to say that, in upholding this order upon this record, we are not to be understood as holding such orders exempt from judicial examination or as extending a license to exact as reports what would not reasonably be comprehended within that term as used by Congress in the context of this Act. The judgment accordingly is Reversed. MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS and MR. JUSTICE MINTON took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.