alt Hacker News> US Constituion understands privacy as self-sovereignty. As in I am the boss of me.
It doesn't. The Bill of Rights does, and it was pushed by the anti-federalists. It is also constantly eroded, and the entire package put together in the context of slavery, a group of people born with no rights. It certainly doesn't have an opinion about whether you have an intellectual property right over facts about yourself.
The Constitution isn't a metaphysical document that can be confused by this sort of psychedelic reasoning about some sort of natural property rights. It is a document that is enforced by Congress and the Judiciary. If they both agree that you shouldn't have any privacy, you won't have any privacy. Neither have been restraining the Executive since 9/11; and they've only barely restraining the states and local municipalities, and not always in a good way.
Your privacy rights come from the psychedelic reasoning of the Judiciary, and can be taken away if they switch drug preferences. It has been decided that privacy rights are written in shadows* cast by the constitution. Really. And only since 1965 - you might be older than your constitutional privacy rights.
Thanks, that's important history.
I've read that article before. I've worked on both voter and patient privacy, so have thought about privacy well enough for a layperson. IANAL, obviously.
We don't have the explicit right to vote either. Is that a problem? I don't know. Though I favor the notion that since we had to vote the Constitution into law, the right to vote is an unstated precursor (or whatever lawyerly language applies).
So it is with privacy. Privacy is a modern term. But the founders were certainly against unlawful search and seizure, compelled testimony, etc. Quacks like a duck...
I'll concede that, with a few exceptions, SCOTUS has historically been actively hostile towards individual rights.