FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
Since reading about the reasoning of the privacy cases, I've always had my doubts as to the logical soundness of the reading of the constitution that provided us with the right to privacy. There were two differing opinions as to its origin. The majority view, written by Harlan, was that it comes from the "penumbras" and "emanations" of the constitution. Those are some nice penumbras and emanations, I guess, but it's simply not written in the text.
The other view, from Goldberg, is that it comes from the 9th. This view hasn't really been taken as seriously. I think that the 9th was simply there to explicitly make clear that these weren't the only rights, and it was legitimate for people to argue for others, but I don't think that it gives judges the ability to simply make up rights that they think would be awfully nice and enforce them with the weight of law. Taking such a view too seriously would undermine the legitimacy of the court, as using such vague and expansive powers liberally would muck the court up in the political process, making themselves just another political actor, like the legislator, but without the legitimacy of a democratic mandate to back them up.
The strongest reasoning I can come up with would probably be something with a conservative basis, much like O'Connor's, who defends it primarily on Stare Decisis grounds. It is not good, after all, for the court to be changing its mind all the time, with little consistency. And, after 50 years, the right to privacy is, arguably, part of the American tradition now. However poorly I may perceive their initial reasoning, it's not like the justices who found the right were insane. And, having survived for 50 years, essentially becoming one of our most sacred rights, and having numerous positive effects, I think it'd be kind of crazy to reverse course now.
Anyway, that's my bipolar and overly lengthy vyvanse induced analysis of the right to privacy. I imagine that pretty much no one is going to agree with it, in favor of denying it in totality or pretending that there can be objectivity on the subject, but whatever.
The other view, from Goldberg, is that it comes from the 9th. This view hasn't really been taken as seriously. I think that the 9th was simply there to explicitly make clear that these weren't the only rights, and it was legitimate for people to argue for others, but I don't think that it gives judges the ability to simply make up rights that they think would be awfully nice and enforce them with the weight of law. Taking such a view too seriously would undermine the legitimacy of the court, as using such vague and expansive powers liberally would muck the court up in the political process, making themselves just another political actor, like the legislator, but without the legitimacy of a democratic mandate to back them up.
The strongest reasoning I can come up with would probably be something with a conservative basis, much like O'Connor's, who defends it primarily on Stare Decisis grounds. It is not good, after all, for the court to be changing its mind all the time, with little consistency. And, after 50 years, the right to privacy is, arguably, part of the American tradition now. However poorly I may perceive their initial reasoning, it's not like the justices who found the right were insane. And, having survived for 50 years, essentially becoming one of our most sacred rights, and having numerous positive effects, I think it'd be kind of crazy to reverse course now.
Anyway, that's my bipolar and overly lengthy vyvanse induced analysis of the right to privacy. I imagine that pretty much no one is going to agree with it, in favor of denying it in totality or pretending that there can be objectivity on the subject, but whatever.
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