dan savage proposes right to privacy amendment

...consider the fact that sending strong encryption software overseas (via email) is considered arms trafficking (not actually that related, but still).

It would severely limit the gov'ts ability to track your behavior (library usage, purchasing habits), which, for some wingers, is basically like giving terrorists a blow-job. A GAY blow-job.

xpost I agree. Not likely, though. Especially since the Right would want an amendment all its own (marriage).

Oh, and deliberately ignoring the fact that the word "privacy" had MUCH different connotations 200+ years ago..

And while I feel that what's good for the goose is good for the gander, the less politicizing of the unifying document of our country, the better. If you start having a LOT of amendments to the thing, its broad applicability and therefore overall strength could become dilluted.

Amazing that I did VERY well in Constitutional Law.

Viz. - if (generic southern state) says sodomy is illegal, and some cop walks by and sees you in the window doing your neighbor in the butt, he's not invading your privacy if he arrests you. It'd be (legally) no different from arresting you for building a bomb in front of your bay window.

xpost BLMA OTM w/r/t geese and politicizing the Const.

...or am I missing something?

Should have come before the xpost

But from a purely academic standpoint, what a fascinating possibility - I mean, who knows how it would be worded, what it could apply to (realms - homes, workplace, other "spheres" of privacy), what types of prosecutorial tools it would vitiate or severely hobble - man. That shit would be amazing to study. The ramifications would assure a whole generation of law students publication in their respective school journals.

x-post

So, you believe Roe is overturned.

One of the better misspellings I've seen in a while.

And thats just the point about proposing such an Amendment.

The entire tenure of the Rehnquist court has been about strengthening law enforcement (among other things) and a large portion of that has been through the compromise of civil liberties related to privacy. One need only look at the progress in the ability of a police officer to monitor your house for drug activity or the ability to get inside your car at a traffic stop for examples.

If this Amendment were proposed, it might just be pointless, b/c it might run afoul of a lot of decided law, or it might be SO narrowly tailored that it would be functionally toothless. A Right to Privacy is SUCH a broad idea that it would be like attempting to protect the right to print instead of write in cursive/longhand. It extends to SO many already well-established bodies of caselaw (abortion, sodomy, 4th Amendment, 5th Amendment, 6th Amendment), that it is really not a blanket right, but a potential defense against an encroachment by other abilities of the government - in that way, it is not so much defined as definable. And therefore, how the hell are you supposed to word, much less propose and get ratified, an Amendment defending this sort of thing?

I respect Dan Savage and his work a lot, but this is the sort of thing that can't really be solved one way or the other for good. It is simply another front on the war between ideologies in this country.

So, although I cannot remember exactly the holding in the Roe/Casey line of law, I guess I think that it may be left to the states to decide IF AT ALL.

Scary things can happen when you get this many Roman Catholic men in the same room deciding a whole lot of important shit.

PENUMBRA.

Penumbra penumbra penumbra.

God I love that word.

I'm not sure that I agree with that in the long term Gabbnebb. Yes, it would undoubtedly bring out the religious right, but there are a number of libertarians and moderate Republicans, particularly women I imagine, who might not be adverse to a constitutional right to privacy. Inasmuch as the Democratic base was fired up, and a progressive change was made to the constitution, it might be exactly the kind of courageous and principled deed that the Dems seem incapable of making in their present 'trimming' incarnation.

The opening is there for the Democrats to pull off the kind of breathtaking political jujitsu that you only get a couple of shots at in a generation -- suddenly, the Republicans would be the party of "big government" and the Democrats would be about individual liberties.

the ERA was popular, too.

meaning what? you seem to acknowledge that the benefits here, as well as the drawbacks, are primarily political. Given that we're not talking about much that's underlying (we already have a right to privacy in the Constitution; it's not necessarily going anywhere; it's contours, amendment or not, are going to be defined by the Court), I'm not sure why it's courageous or principled to take a primarily political stand where it's not at all clear that it's to your benefit, and it might well be to your detriment. Crazy brave, perhaps.

do I need to point out that it doesn't help that the idea is proposed by a gay sex columnist?

Since the RTP is popular (unlike the anti-gay marriage amendment), the Dems should put it out there and let the Republicans run around the country explainging why they're against a right to privacy—not a winning position.

sure, that would be great. what makes you think that it would end up framed that way? this might be a bit defeatist, but the proposal seems to recognize only one scenario.

So far as I can tell, this would be a terrible idea.

yeah when did we start allowing faggots to influence progressive politics

gabbneb OTM.

what exactly is a right to privacy, anyway? It's time we owned up to the fact that abortion isn't about privacy, it's about abortion.

ding ding ding ding This is the key bit.

It's time we owned up to the fact that abortion isn't about privacy, it's about abortion.

feel free to tell that to rick santorum.

??? Roe vs. Wade is predicated on finding a right to privacy in the Constitution.

Anti-abortion people may think it's not about privacy but murder, but the decision that prevents the Congress and the States from outlawing abortion is about privacy.

You don't need to have a RTP amendment proposal to make these points. I think it would be a colossal tactical error for the Democrats to burn away whatever political leverage they may be gaining by starting yet another enormous battle about abortion. No thanks.

It is, but R v Wade is under assault precisely because there isn't an enumerated right to privacy in the Constitution. Whatever your opinion about abortion, it was a shoddily written decision.

So a law against sodomy under this interpretation would breach the right. A law against indecent exposure (which have butt sex in front of your street window probably constitutes) wouldn't.

Or an enumerated right to an abortion.

Which is why the essence of the debate has never been about privacy in the first place, and why Savage's idea is ultimately irrelevant. That the SCOTUS made abortion legal on a national basis via privacy isn't relative to Savage's argument given that the scope of privacy is narrow here--Savage wants a RTP amendment to make abortion legal. Does he want to keep the federal government from snooping elsewhere--the bedroom, watching my bank account without a warrant, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.?

I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a single American who wanted to offer the state any say whatsoever in the medical decisions he or she makes about his or her body -- whether or not it's an explicit right, it's one we assume and depend on entirely

So that means we can give the finger to the FDA or other regulatory groups then? Privacy, or privacy to have autonomy over medical decisions is in the eye of the beholder.

(x-post)