Just a thought, but...

It seems a large amount of the dissent between people these days vis a vis the Constitution rests with whether there is a right of privacy stated or implied by the Constitution.

One side says "Sure, it's there. You can infer it from the penumbra of several of the Bill of Rights".

The other side says "Ah, but it's not explicit, and as strict constructionists, we don't believe in anything that's not EXPLICITLY spelled out in the Constitution."

And some other folks chime in with "Yeah, but does it really matter? The Constitution does not grant rights. The Constitution merely LIMITS the power of the Federal (and to a lesser extent, State) government to take away rights."

And it's all well and good. Certainly I'm more with the last argument than the Scalia model of "You want a right? Pass a law!". The intent of the Constitution seems clear to me to be about limiting government rights, not enumerating citizens’. The ninth and tenth amendments explicitly say so:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

and

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

However...

Can someone tell me what’s WRONG with a right of privacy? If so many of our disagreements are based on that, why can’t we pass an amendment explicitly spelling out the right of privacy?

The right is already there, both inferred in many court decisions as well as being left open to the people by the fact that it’s not specifically RESTRICTED. So explicitly enumerating it wouldn’t harm anything.

So what I want to know is what are the down sides to an explicit citizen’s right to privacy? And why are more people not concerned that in the last five years, government seems to have taken a sharp turn AWAY from citizen’s privacy and TOWARDS governmental secrecy?

Please, someone, tell me why a right to privacy would be such an anathema to your view of the United States?

Liam.