Is the Right to Privacy Implied in the Constitution?

[teknomanzer]

During the Senate confirmation hearings questions concerning a citizens right to privacy were brought up. There is an argument about whether the right to privacy is implicit in the constitution. Article XI of the bill of rights is pointed to as the part which implies the right to privacy. However the constitution is quite clear and rather explicit about the right to privacy as spelled out in Article IV.

It is for this reason I find it rather disturbing that the argument is whether or not the constitution implies a right to privacy. It is true the Constitution never mentions the word privacy, but privacy is clearly defined in Article IV as being "secure in there persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures..." How else could one define privacy?

What should be even more alarming to us is how irrelevant Article IV has become in the eyes of politicians these days. The War on Drugs was the first lethal blow to our right to privacy, but now The Patriot Act has all but cut Article IV (along with other sections of the bill of rights) out of the constitution.

There is a big black hole where my rights used to be... perhaps that is why the argument is about whether the right to privacy is implied... in those tattered remains of our constitution.

[Rich Hunt]

1. oh, you know..

you can always find some sophist to nitpick and say it's still not clear enough what 'privacy' is.....

nothing can ever be clear enough to people who have fundamental difficulties using language in the first place.

[ewagner]

2. Good post!

I have always assumed that the entire bill of rights "implied" privacy. That is, these rights, as enumerated, belonged privately to individuals and could not be taken away by any action of the government. To be perfectly honest, I had forgotten about the specific language of Article IV.

[Finder]

3. There is no Liberty without Privacy...

and liberty is most definitely in the Constitution.

[Yupster]

4. I think yes in the Fourth Amendment

I think using the Fourteenth Amendment in the abortion debate is ridiculous though as the Fourteenth Amendment was passed for a few specific reasons having to do with the Civil War.

It made freedmen citizens of the states the resided in.

It made it illegal for the government to pay off the Confederate war debt.

It made it illegal for Confederate leaders to run for US offices.

Jumping from that to say that hidden within that amendment is the right tp privacy and therefore legal abortion is in my opinion ridiculous.

The Fourth Amendment bans unreasonable searches and makes people secure in their person and property. To me that's where the right to privacy resides.

[Vickers]

5. The 9th Amendment is the important one

Pretty much says, just because we forgot to explicitly mention any rights doesn't mean you don't have 'em.

:)

[leftofthedial]

6. it is assumed and underpins the entire Bill of Rights

[maine_raptor]

7. What's really sad about this is;

that while the RW wants "strict constructionist Judges", because there is no mention of the word "privacy" in that document, a strict constructionist would then say there is no "right to privacy" for American Citizens. Never mind the "implied" stuff in the 5th Amendment, it ain't there so forgit it, a strict constructionist would say.

Now here's what's so sad......

It's these same RW'ers that want to REDUCE the size of government, yet by selecting these strict constructionists judges, there are in fact expanding the role of government, along with diminishing everybody's right in the process.


Tisk, tisk,

Forgive them, for they no not what they do.

:sarcasm: :cry:

[teach1st]

8. I don't think you can find the terms..

"bill of rights" or "fair trial" or "religious liberty" in the Constitution, either

[teknomanzer]

9. Correct...

And yet all of the above are spelled out in the constitution. The definition of the terms are there but the term itself is not present. Are some people so dense that they need such summarizations or is it just a flimsy excuse to circumvent our rights as citizens.

[maine_raptor]

10. I'd go with the second reason, teknomanzer

Citizen rights just in the way of corporate greed.

[Sal316]

11. Yes it is.

It's in the section that creates the Post Office.

Odd place, but it's there.

I read an article someone here at DU posted about a month or two ago.

[Silverhair]

12. It is a difficult right to precisely define, so it is not specifically

listed. However, it is obvious that the framers intended the gov't to leave people alone as much as possible, because of the many limitations that are placed on the gov't.

The difficulty arises in exactly where that line is drawn in different issues. And what is "private" in an age when information gathering is increasingly easy due to databases. And the increasing complexity of modern society further erodes what is private. There are no easy answers. There are some issues that RW's consider to be private, and others that the left considers to be private.

Sometimes, some people on the left are willing to lose a right for a very small and temporary political gain. Example: Rush's medical records. Many here at DU are ready to let the gov't have his records, even at the cost of losing the right to the privacy of their own medical records.

It is that right to medical privacy that Roe is based on, so getting Rush's records released to the gov't could erode Roe. To defend our own right to privacy, we have to defend his too.