Re:U.S. Used Patriot Act to Gather Logs of Website Visitors
by humanrebar on Wednesday December 09, 2020 @06:53AM
(#25357668)
Also note that constitutional amendments basically dropped off at that point as the legislature abrogated responsibility of protecting natural rights in favor of blaming others, especially the court system.
Why hasn't a right to privacy amendment been discussed at all? Or even a Privacy Rights Act? Those would clarify things too.
Re:U.S. Used Patriot Act to Gather Logs of Website Visitors
by rayiner on Wednesday December 09, 2020 @08:56AM
(#25358433)
Because progressives (and I mean that in a negative way) don’t want to spend political capital on legislation when they can get courts to do that work for free.
I suspect that approach will have to change with the current composition of the Supreme Court.
Re:U.S. Used Patriot Act to Gather Logs of Website Visitors
by sagarm on Wednesday December 09, 2020 @01:13PM
(#25361672)
Actually it's because the structure of the US Constitution makes it so rural types with an decidedly authoritarian bent have veto power over any amendments.
Re:U.S. Used Patriot Act to Gather Logs of Website Visitors
by humanrebar on Thursday December 10, 2020 @08:16AM
(#25373345)
Rural voters are actually sympathetic to privacy concerns, at least on some issues like fun registries and healthcare records.
Note that the constitution gives any 25% of the country "veto power" as far as amendments go. Folks are, yes, going to actually have to find privacy laws and amendments that significantly benefit almost everyone. And actually convince them of that.
It takes a pretty creative reading of the constitution to infer a right to privacy, then infer that that grants the right to an abortion.
One of the criticisms of Roe is that states were legalizing abortion on their own already, so doing it through the court angered people more than if it had happened in each state, and it's build on shaky constitutional underpinning, so it's not necessarily a robust decision.