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Why is this right to privacy exclusive to activities around reproduction? Where else do you enjoy this implied right of privacy? Why not quote the direct text t

Why is this right to privacy exclusive to activities around reproduction? Where else do you enjoy this implied right of privacy? Why not quote the direct text that provides this right to privacy if it's so clear and obvious?

fzeroracer 4y ago
It's also part of the 9th amendment. The point is that the courts ruled that people have an implicit right to privacy within their own home. That's literally why it exists, because it was to directly counter people who take the constitution at face value as being the ONLY rights it gives.
- pkulak 4y ago
  But I can be prohibited from doing all sorts of things in my own home.
  - camgunz 4y ago
    The Court's job is to balance your right to privacy with the state's interests. Let's say you're running a meth lab: meth is very bad for people, it's hard to cook it safely and you might grievously harm others in your house or those nearby. Therefore, if law enforcement has probable cause to enter your home (e.g. they have an informant who's provided evidence), they can obtain a warrant for the express purpose of ascertaining whether or not you have a meth lab. If you don't have a meth lab but you are smoking weed (in a State where that's not legal), they can't arrest you, because that's not what the warrant is for. Hooray 4th Amendment!
    - pkulak 4y ago
      Sure, but I said "prohibited", not searched. Even in your example, I'm federally prohibited from smoking weed in my home.
      - camgunz 4y ago
        The War on Drugs is uniquely stupid, though there is an argument that the state has a compelling interest in making sure its citizens aren't all addicted to drugs. The legal theory on which the right to privacy mostly stands is called "substantive due process", which more or less says the state can't abridge your liberties without trying pretty hard not to. So liberties here can be contraception use, or drug use. Indeed United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative had the coop arguing that the Controlled Substances Act "violates the substantive due process rights of patients, and offends the fundamental liberties of the people under the Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments". This has generally (and maybe oddly) been at odds with the Commerce Clause, pretty well typified by Wickard v. Filburn where the Court held that even though Filburn was only growing wheat on his own land for his own use, the US could impose a quota on him because it was regulating the price of wheat federally. This extends interpretation of the Commerce Clause from mere interstate commerce to production and consumption. Here's a good quote: "Hence, marketing quotas not only embrace all that may be sold without penalty, but also what may be consumed on the premises." I'm not an expert, but I believe this is the constitutional leg on which the CSA stands: the gov't can regulate what you consume. I'm personally sympathetic to the substantive due process challenge argument, but probably still too young to be on the Supreme Court. Call your senator! :)
camgunz 4y ago
It's not, see Lawrence v. Texas (same-sex relationships) and Obergefell v. Hodges (same-sex marriages). You should honestly just read Griswold [0]. It is a strikingly conservative opinion if, for example, you think privacy is also about "the government has to show a compelling governmental interest to regulate firearms". Here are some gems: "The association of people is not mentioned in the Constitution nor in the Bill of Rights. The right to educate a child in a school of the parents' choice -- whether public or private or parochial -- is also not mentioned. Nor is the right to study any particular subject or any foreign language. Yet the First Amendment has been construed to include certain of those rights." "In NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U. S. 449, 357 U. S. 462 we protected the 'freedom to associate and privacy in one's associations,' noting that freedom of association was a peripheral First Amendment right. Disclosure of membership lists of a constitutionally valid association, we held, was invalid 'as entailing the likelihood of a substantial restraint upon the exercise by petitioner's members of their right to freedom of association.' Ibid. In other words, the First Amendment has a penumbra where privacy is protected from governmental intrusion." "The foregoing cases suggest that specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance. See Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497, 516—522, 81 S.Ct. 1752, 6 L.Ed.2d 989 (dissenting opinion). Various guarantees create zones of privacy. The right of association contained in the penumbra of the First Amendment is one, as we have seen. The Third Amendment in its prohibition against the quartering of soldiers 'in any house' in time of peace without the consent of the owner is another facet of that privacy. The Fourth Amendment explicitly affirms the 'right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.' The Fifth Amendment in its Self-Incrimination Clause enables the citizen to create a zone of privacy which government may not force him to surrender to his detriment. The Ninth Amendment provides: 'The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.'" "In presenting the proposed Amendment, Madison said: 'It has been objected also against a bill of rights that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration, and it might follow, by implication, that those rights which were not singled out were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government, and were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard urged against the admission of a bill of rights into this system, but I conceive that it may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the Page 381 U. S. 490 last clause of the fourth resolution [the Ninth Amendment]." "Madison himself had previously pointed out the dangers of inaccuracy resulting from the fact that 'no language is so copious as to supply words and phrases for every complex idea.' The Federalist, No. 37 (Cooke ed.1961) at 236." I could go on. I urge you to read it. [0]: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/381/479/ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/381/479/

fzeroracer 4y ago

It's also part of the 9th amendment. The point is that the courts ruled that people have an implicit right to privacy within their own home. That's literally why it exists, because it was to directly counter people who take the constitution at face value as being the ONLY rights it gives.

pkulak 4y ago
But I can be prohibited from doing all sorts of things in my own home.
- camgunz 4y ago
  The Court's job is to balance your right to privacy with the state's interests. Let's say you're running a meth lab: meth is very bad for people, it's hard to cook it safely and you might grievously harm others in your house or those nearby. Therefore, if law enforcement has probable cause to enter your home (e.g. they have an informant who's provided evidence), they can obtain a warrant for the express purpose of ascertaining whether or not you have a meth lab. If you don't have a meth lab but you are smoking weed (in a State where that's not legal), they can't arrest you, because that's not what the warrant is for. Hooray 4th Amendment!
  - pkulak 4y ago
    Sure, but I said "prohibited", not searched. Even in your example, I'm federally prohibited from smoking weed in my home.
    - camgunz 4y ago
      The War on Drugs is uniquely stupid, though there is an argument that the state has a compelling interest in making sure its citizens aren't all addicted to drugs. The legal theory on which the right to privacy mostly stands is called "substantive due process", which more or less says the state can't abridge your liberties without trying pretty hard not to. So liberties here can be contraception use, or drug use. Indeed United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative had the coop arguing that the Controlled Substances Act "violates the substantive due process rights of patients, and offends the fundamental liberties of the people under the Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments". This has generally (and maybe oddly) been at odds with the Commerce Clause, pretty well typified by Wickard v. Filburn where the Court held that even though Filburn was only growing wheat on his own land for his own use, the US could impose a quota on him because it was regulating the price of wheat federally. This extends interpretation of the Commerce Clause from mere interstate commerce to production and consumption. Here's a good quote: "Hence, marketing quotas not only embrace all that may be sold without penalty, but also what may be consumed on the premises." I'm not an expert, but I believe this is the constitutional leg on which the CSA stands: the gov't can regulate what you consume. I'm personally sympathetic to the substantive due process challenge argument, but probably still too young to be on the Supreme Court. Call your senator! :)

camgunz 4y ago

It's not, see Lawrence v. Texas (same-sex relationships) and Obergefell v. Hodges (same-sex marriages). You should honestly just read Griswold [0]. It is a strikingly conservative opinion if, for example, you think privacy is also about "the government has to show a compelling governmental interest to regulate firearms". Here are some gems: "The association of people is not mentioned in the Constitution nor in the Bill of Rights. The right to educate a child in a school of the parents' choice -- whether public or private or parochial -- is also not mentioned. Nor is the right to study any particular subject or any foreign language. Yet the First Amendment has been construed to include certain of those rights." "In NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U. S. 449, 357 U. S. 462 we protected the 'freedom to associate and privacy in one's associations,' noting that freedom of association was a peripheral First Amendment right. Disclosure of membership lists of a constitutionally valid association, we held, was invalid 'as entailing the likelihood of a substantial restraint upon the exercise by petitioner's members of their right to freedom of association.' Ibid. In other words, the First Amendment has a penumbra where privacy is protected from governmental intrusion." "The foregoing cases suggest that specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance. See Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497, 516—522, 81 S.Ct. 1752, 6 L.Ed.2d 989 (dissenting opinion). Various guarantees create zones of privacy. The right of association contained in the penumbra of the First Amendment is one, as we have seen. The Third Amendment in its prohibition against the quartering of soldiers 'in any house' in time of peace without the consent of the owner is another facet of that privacy. The Fourth Amendment explicitly affirms the 'right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.' The Fifth Amendment in its Self-Incrimination Clause enables the citizen to create a zone of privacy which government may not force him to surrender to his detriment. The Ninth Amendment provides: 'The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.'" "In presenting the proposed Amendment, Madison said: 'It has been objected also against a bill of rights that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration, and it might follow, by implication, that those rights which were not singled out were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government, and were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard urged against the admission of a bill of rights into this system, but I conceive that it may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the Page 381 U. S. 490 last clause of the fourth resolution [the Ninth Amendment]." "Madison himself had previously pointed out the dangers of inaccuracy resulting from the fact that 'no language is so copious as to supply words and phrases for every complex idea.' The Federalist, No. 37 (Cooke ed.1961) at 236." I could go on. I urge you to read it. [0]: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/381/479/ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/381/479/