Miami, FL asked in Civil Rights, Constitutional Law and Civil Litigation for Florida

Q: For the USA Constitution 9th Amendment, it should allow an individual person the right to privacy if possible?

Privacy If Possible as an individual right is not mentioned in the other amendments. All aspects of privacy should be mentioned as a way to allow an individual person to choose who or what to associate with. The first amendment addresses consent to join a group or organization. I am wondering if that also means an individual person is free to choose who to associate with in general.

1 Lawyer Answer

A: Are you asking just an academic question, or you have a real-life situation that you need assistance with? If it's the latter, you'd need to provide some factual context to obtain any meaningful information. As a purely academic matter, it is the First Amendment that provides freedom of association based on US Supreme Court case law interpreting that Amendment. That includes both joining formal organizations and simply associating with others socially. That right does NOT derive from the right of privacy, which is a right that the Supreme Court ruled is implied in the the Ninth Amendment. However, the right of privacy might come into play if there's some issue of whether the government can pry into your decisions to associate with others.

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