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Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Well, it's too late now
Posted by Jill | 7:07 AM

Last year, when McPaper and the rest of the MSM were reporting the Swift Boat Lies as "alternative facts" and touting George W. Bush as a "strong leader", feeding the inclination of many voters to not change horsement during the Apocalypse, the issue of the Supreme Court was completely ignored.

NOW, all of a sudden, they care:

Three current justices — William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — have questioned whether a right to privacy exists. The court doesn't need a fourth, not least because the anti-privacy argument is a denial of history and basic American values.

In fact, the right to privacy is older than the republic, protected in the Constitution and affirmed repeatedly in a century of court rulings before the abortion controversy. Though the word privacy isn't in the Constitution, the “right to be let alone,” as Justice Louis Brandeis put it, permeates the document.

What are freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom from unlawful searches and the like other than respect for privacy? Leading Founders urged adoption of the Constitution as necessary to protect “private rights.” And the Ninth Amendment was added to assure that other rights already taken for granted were “retained by the people.”

Starting in the 19th century, the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution protects the privacy of the mail and that individuals have a right to refuse medical treatment.

Thus it was no stretch when, in 1965, the court overturned a Connecticut law banning birth control. Surely, the court ruled, the right of privacy prohibited police searches of “the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms.” That decision, Griswold v. Connecticut, was the foundation for Roe.

To the anguish of those who want government in the bedroom and other personal places, privacy rights now protect unmarried and same-sex couples and individuals.

Roberts' record on the issue is scanty, but legal briefs he worked on and memos he wrote raise questions as to whether he accepts current law on privacy. As a Justice Department lawyer in 1981, for example, Roberts drafted an article that referred to “the so-called ‘right to privacy,' ” and asserted that “such an amorphous right is not to be found in the Constitution.” Whether that was Roberts' view, or merely what his bosses wanted to hear, isn't clear.

Far clearer is that few would want a nation in which there was no limit on government intrusion into personal lives. In the confirmation hearings that begin next month, the Senate has an obligation to explore where John Roberts would draw the line.


Conservatives have framed the "right to privacy" SOLELY in terms of controlling women's sexuality (read: Roe v. Wade, Griswold v. Connecticut), and they believe that a woman's body is the property of the state, which has an interest in it being used solely by husbands for the purpose of reproduction within the confines of marriage. They've conveniently avoided the other implications of "the right to be left alone", particularly in the aftermath of 9/11, when they've cynically exploited people's fears to get them to accept warrantless searches of their persons, belongings, and homes, in the name of "security."

The time for hue and cry over the Supreme Court was the summer and fall of 2004. When the people standing on line in Ohio for twelve hours weren't allowed to vote last November, the die was cast. If you didn't vote for Bush, you didn't vote for this. But if you did, thinking he'd make you "safer", then you asked for this. It's just too bad that those who were foolish enough to be manipulated by fear dragged the rest of us along with them.
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