Just wondering what everyone thought about the right to privacy, seeing as it is a kind of "implied right" and wasn't included in the bill of rights. Why do you think it wasn't included? In a legal sense, does this mean that other rights supercede it?

isn't the right to be secure in my persons, papers and affects and free from unreasonable searches and seizures a right to privacy? that is how I always interpreted the fourth amendment.

unabomber,

Yep, that's the accepted interpretation of the 4th. I think the arguments come in regarding your "right to be secure," so that if you don't secure your privacy, anyone can grab onto your private information.

Marketing forces rely on this. It's an ongoing point of contention with Internet commerce--who has a right to use your private information?

Also, in my mind, drug screens. Hey, that urine contains my private information! It isn't free, and you shouldn't coerce it out of me. Pony up my going rate of $20,000 per ml. Same for genetic information. Twenty grand per gene, cummon, pay the piper! I give a 25% discount for the junk genes recently discovered--those remnants of genetic code that don't really do anything.

I tend to take the constitution literally. When they say "free speech" I think that means verbal mouth movements, and not expression.

When it says illegal search and seizures, I think it means just that.

Why do I think it wasn't included? Because the framers couldn't think of everything!

--cheers

dp,



So the written word isn't covered? No freedom of the press?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Freedom of the press is explicitly covered. That's one they did think of.

I agree with Digital Patriot; the Constitution doesn't need to be interpreted at all, but simply read and taken literally. That means of course that sometimes it won't cover today's needs and I understand that. So did the Founders, that's why they provided an amendment process.

The First Amendment:

and the Fourth Amendment:

Now, I only wanted to refer to the emboldened sections above, but feel it responsible to include the entire amendments for those not familiar with their constitutional rights.
It's my view that the First Amendment and the Fourth Amendment work in conjunction to provide American citizens with the right to privacy. As we have the freedom of speech and the right "to be secure in our persons, houses, papers and effects," we have the right to privacy unless our actions can be questioned as unlawful by our government -- and even then only with probable cause.
This may not go further than saying the right to privacy is an "implied right" but the wording certainly seems to verify the right. Privacy is, after all

Please take note of 1b, "freedom from unauthorized intrusion." And as the Fourth Amendment states, intrusion can only be authorized when "there is probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particulary describing" those items which are to be intruded upon.

Right, Abs, the Fourth Amendment does cover the most critical privacy issues. However, I don't believe in using implied constitutional rights to try to make it cover other privacy issues than those explicitly stated since that would necessarily be variable, being based on someone's notion of the implications of the text, rather than on a literal reading of the text. Perhaps it's time for a privacy amendment?

If I might ask, what do you consider the most critical privacy issues?
I'm pretty new to debates over the Amendments, but I guess it seemed to me (as I tried to state in my previous post) that the Fourth Amendment, in "securing persons, houses, papers and effects," generally covered our privacy issues.
Perhaps you could also offer an example of what you would like to see a "Privacy Amendment" say or cover?

The ones I consider most important are those specifically mentioned in the Fourth Amendment, and I'm satisfied with them. I just wish they'd be more zealously enforced and respected.

And I'm going to reverse myself to this extent on constitutional interpretation: on reading over Griswold v. Connecticut I find myself in agreement with Justice Douglas' reasoning on the right of privacy, though not with his application of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Thus, with that as precedent, I don't see the necessity for such an amendment now, though perhaps we need test cases to overrule some anti-privacy legislation, or simply to reverse it legislatively.