The right to privacy is included in with these:

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.

Admittedly, it's a little nebulous, but most people agree that something's there. If you disagree, try to advocate taking it away.

Nebulous?

Can't have freedom without privacy.

On a more picayune note: "... downhold non-defense spending ..."

Did he, usage maven that he is, really write that? Perhaps "limit" has been expunged from the dictionary when I wasn't looking.

Privacy is the enemy of freedom--ask an aborted baby.

I had copied the text of the tenth amendment into my previous post. You know, about powers reserved to the states and the people. My post makes a little more sense if you include that.

I should remember to preview before I post.

Brandon:

What does that have to do with privacy though?

The US had freedom before modern notions of privacy, when the vast majority of people lived in small towns where everyone knew everyone else's business.

It remains to be seen if we'll keep freedom with post-modern notions of privacy, when, potentially, anyone could know anything about anyone else.
I'm told that already one can put together a pretty good dossier on most normal people for under a hundred bucks, on the internet, trolling through public records.
That trend will only increase.

Plus, with technology to moniter people's movements and interactions getting smaller and cheaper, anyone who wants to know, can.

Privacy is a con game.

The point was that we have rights that are not enumerated in the Constitution. And the Constitution acknowledges that fact in the tenth amendment. The right to privacy is generally considered one of those rights.

I'm not discussing the legal issues, nor am I defending the "emanantions and penumbras" basis of Roe v. Wade. I'm saying that most Americans believe we have a "right to privacy."

Yes, we have enumerated rights. Privacy is not one of them. It was created recently and anticonstitutionally. It isn't conservative in any sense of the word.

Right to Privacy = Abortion

What are the limits of this right? What does it mean and why do we care? What does it stop the government from doing, and which government? Says who?

David:

Pretend the government may intrude whenever it wants into whatever it wants. That is, there is no privacy anywhere at any time.

What freedom is left?

Privacy is a pre-requisite for freedom. Freedom means people can make atrocious choices.

The only known alternative is tyranny.

Jeff:

Privacy rights were invented in the 60s contraception and 70s abortion cases. Privacy is the cover under which we practrice evil.

The ninth and tenth amendments are dead letters believed to be superceeded by the fourteenth. The court sees no pre-existing right to privacy other than that which is defined by the courts. The so-called "privacy" right is a statist con-game which has accomplished nothing other than diminishing the ability of citizens to govern themselves at the state and local level.

Jeff -- I agree with everything Tom says.

Also, I'm not saying get rid of the 4th Amendment (at least, I'm not saying that right now) or that the federal government shouldn't be a government of limited, enumerated powers. I'm saying that "privacy" in current American politics means either a coup against democracy or a limitation of free speech.

I'm not a constitutional scholar, but the Constitution does protect against illegal searches of homes and private property, correct? To me, that defines the private space. This does not protect that space from government intrusion when there is reason to believe that a crime has been committed.

To defend abortion on privacy concerns is ridiculous. The question is to whether the killing of a fetus is a crime or not. If it is a crime, then privacy cannot protect it. It is like saying that the government cannot make killing a person in your home a crime, since it would require an invasion of privacy to uncover the crime.

Robert:

Even that is a limitation only upon the State, not a form of privacy broadly speaking.

Robert - The "right to privacy" works just like the "right to private property" -- i.e. "my womb is my property and I can decide who will inhabit it, just like my living room, and I can kill womb-occupiers just as I could kill a housebreaker" -- except that liberals don't want to allow anyone's property to be beyond their grasp, so they had to rename the right and give it a very narrow scope. But the "penumbras and emanations" which support it are all supports for private property, like the "private space" you mention.