"Dave" wrote
On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 10:01:43 -0500, "Vito" said:

Should you read the case, you'll find that neither the Declaration of
Independence nor the common law is cited as precedent for the
decision.

Thanks. I'll read it more carefully and get back.

Having done so I'll quote part of that decision "We deal with a right of
privacy older than the Bill of Rights - older than our political parties,
older than our school system." The whole is at
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/proj.../griswold.html

Yes. I've read it several times. As I said the first time, they said
nothing
about either the Declaration of Independence or common law.

You are right. The decision doesn't mention DoI or common law so you have a
right to assume that neither were considered no matter how unlikely such an
assumption might be. There goes the old VMAT2 gene again.

I suppose it's a matter of semantics but the court "created" nothing.

Not at all a matter of semantics. The Constitution walled off specific
areas
from State interference, and left the protection of other "rights" to the
States. Douglas created out of whole cloth, with no textual or historical
support, an entirely new area that was to be walled of from the States.
Calling this so-called "right" old doesn't mean that its protection was
assigned to the federal government by the Constitution.

The Constitution does not assign protection of our rights to fedgov! Fear of
that erroneous interpretation is why many didn't want any Bill of Rights.
The Constitution itself simply assigns certain powers to the federal
government. ( see
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/c...n/amendment09/ for
discussion). If a power is not so granted then it is reserved to the states
and the people. The BoR was only approved after mucho haggling and the
addition of Ammendments 9 & 10:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be
construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

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.

Thus the absents of of any mention of privacy "shall not be construed to
deny or disparage" that right.