From: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 12:56:35 -0800 (PST)
To: snow <snow@smoke.suba.com>
Subject: Constitution and a Right to Privacy
Message-ID: <199702172056.MAA13555@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 1:22 PM -0600 2/17/97, snow wrote:
>Mr. May wrote:
>> Some legal scholars are claiming that there is no provision in the
>> Constitution guaranteeing anonymity of purchases, and, indeed, a growing
>> number of purchases can no longer be anonymous--guns, explosives, chemicals
>> of various sorts, etc. How long before _all_ transactions must be recorded,
>> True Names revealed, etc.?
>
>	This is where I often get a little confused.
>
>	Correct me if I am wrong, but it was my understanding that the
>constitutuion was _not_ a document that explicitly spelled out what writes
>_I_ had, but rather spelled out fairly precisely what the _government_ was
>allowed to do.
>
>	In otherwords, the Constitution does not restrict _me_ rather it
>restricts the _feds_ (and the Feds alone).
>
>	My rights are WHATEVER ISN'T IN THE CONSTITUTION, and the government
>can only, ONLY do what the constitution says it can.
>
>	???

But why do you not object that the "right to free speech," "the right to
keep and bear arms," and so on, are specifically enumeratedin the Bill of
Rights? The privacy issue is that there is no such enumeration of a right
to privacy in the Bill of Rights, though many think it to be implicit in
some of the other enumerated rights, e.g,, the Fourth, and even in the
First.

Constitutional issues are not easily discussed in short messages like this.
Suffice it to say the issue of whether a "right to privacy" exists has been
long discussed, most recently by Bork, Posner, and others (I skimmed the
latest Posner book a while back, and liked his style).

The issue hit when abortion advocates argued that a "woman's right to
privacy" allowed abortions. However, none of the enumerated rights made
this obvious. Bork has opined that no right to privacy can be inferred from
the Constitution.

(And I always thought the "woman's right to privacy" argument for abortion
was flaky. Accepting such an argument, wouldn't infanticide be equally
protected by a woman's right to privacy?)

--Tim May



Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside"
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."