You mean privately held as in not government owned, or privately held in that they are not owned by stockholders of openly traded stock?
If the latter, much of the economy, is connected to "public" corporations. If people acting in such corporations don't have constitutional rights then directly and indirectly protections for rights are greatly reduced, both for officers and owners of the corporations, but also for customers, employees, and to an extent anyone with any connection to them.
Also even closely held companies are often corporations. So if an amendment, or more aggressive legislation combined with a change in supreme court decision making, removes rights "from corporations" then
1st amendment - Where there goes much of the freedom of the press. Arguably even much of freedom of religion (for religious corporations, sure you could worship any way you want by yourself or in non-incorporated groups, but for example, the Catholic Church, or one of its orders or dioceses could be shut down or have its doctrine or worship practices regulated. You also would get rid of much of the "petition to redress grievances" if the attempt is by a corporation or is organized in a corporate form (including the NRA, NARAL, the ASPCA, the US Chamber of Commerce, many charitable foundations etc.
2nd amendment - Guns could be forbidden from corporate owned property.
3rd amendment - Corporate owned apartments and condos could be subject to a requirement to quarter soldiers.
4th amendment - Anything stored by a corporation physically (storage companies, your property at your place of work, maybe your property at you apartment, or more likely at least your property in a storage area at your apartment complex that isn't actually in your apartment) or logically (your data at work, your g-mail account, any data SI has about you, your cloud stored files etc.), could be subject to search and seizure with out warrant, court order, or probable cause. Even if your personal property was somehow protected (and that's a big if, already 4th amendment protections are generally considered weaker or non-existent for a lot of your data "in the cloud"), the government could seize property from or ownership of GE, or Walmart, or Exxon-Mobil, or "private" corporations like Kargill, Koch Industries, Mars, etc. or even 501c companies.
How far this actually would go is very uncertain. Some of the possibilities would likely be very unpopular and probably wouldn't be enacted even if constitutional, but a move to make them constitutional would be a bad idea, at the least creating greater risk and uncertainty. |
