The Ninth Amendment and Enumerated Rights

This post from the marvelous Ed Brayton of Dispatches from the Culture Wars is a good discussion of the Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is often forgotten. When the Bill of Rights was written, one of the concerns was that it was impossible to enumerate all the rights due a free people, and that enumerating some rights might imply those were the only legal rights. Madison saw that could be a problem, and therefore he added the 9th Amendment, which says "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." This is where the courts find such things as a right to privacy.