A Modest Addition to the Bill of Rights

Just a thought -- instead of relying on the "penumbras and emanations" of the Ninth Amendment (all rights not assigned to the feds reside in the people) to find a right to personal privacy and freedom, maybe it's time for a formal amendment enshrining the right to privacy. Like any good amendment, make it short and broad -- Congress and the courts can fill in the shifting parameters, informed by our history with an amorphous right currently found in a shadow of an unenumerated right.

A well-drafted amendment would enshrines the libertarian, rugged individualist ethos that many Americans currently mistake for a core value of the Republican Party. It would also provide explicit support for cases like Griswold and Roe and even Lawrence v. Texas (striking down criminal sodomy laws that target consentual behavior), insulating them from further attack.

The Amendment would also provide the explicit textual test to flush out Scalia and Thomas as conservative ideologues. A clear right to privacy strips them of the nominally-objective robes of "original intent of the framers" and "strict constructionism." I'm not objecting to their presence on the Court (in this context) -- I just want them to be honest with themselves and with the country when it comes to their judicial philosophies.