Bill of Rights Day Follow-up

Tam points to a post at New Paltz Journal re: A Right To Privacy, etc.

It's the Ninth Amendment.

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

(Yes, I use big type for the Constitution.  Don't push, I might start using red letters...)

Wikipedia expounds:

When the U.S. Constitution was sent to the states for ratification after being signed on September 17, 1787, the Anti-Federalists argued that a Bill of Rights should be added. One argument of Federalists against the addition of a Bill of Rights, during the debates about ratification of the Constitution, was that a listing of rights could problematically enlarge the powers specified in Article One, Section 8 of the new Constitution, by implication. For example, in Federalist 84, Alexander Hamilton asked, "Why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?"^[1] Likewise, James Madison explained to Thomas Jefferson, "I conceive that in a certain degree ... the rights in question are reserved by the manner in which the federal powers are granted"^[2] in Article One, Section 9 of the Constitution. The Anti-Federalists persisted in favor of a Bill of Rights during the ratification debates, but also were against ratification, and consequently several of the state ratification conventions gave their assent with accompanying resolutions proposing amendments to be added. In 1788, the Virginia Ratifying Convention attempted to solve the problem that Hamilton and the Federalists had identified by proposing a constitutional amendment specifying:^[3]

That those clauses which declare that Congress shall not exercise certain powers be not interpreted in any manner whatsoever to extend the powers of Congress. But that they may be construed either as making exceptions to the specified powers where this shall be the case, or otherwise as inserted merely for greater caution.

The debate in a nutshell was that if you say that these things may (or may not)be done, then by implication, nothing (or everything) else may be done.

Certainly, governmental activity recently has tended to take the tack that "anything that is not prohibited is permitted, and even if it is prohibited, well, there's an app clause for that, and anyway, it's a living document..."

And by "recently", I mean the last 50 90 years.

I was not aware of the fact that some so-called "conservative pundits" were gassing about "No Constitutional Right to Privacy"; the first time the issue occurred to me, I quickly figured out that Amendments Four and Five--Kelo notwithstanding--as well as Nine and Ten, pretty much covered it, with some assist from One. Two, Three, Six, Seven, and Eight.

In other words, the whole thing is about the rights of the private citizen, and includes "privacy"!

I'll let Alan Gura put it into pretty, Supreme Court Justice-convincing language.