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But President Bush's nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court may soon call into question whether privacy rights exist.

For some time now, conservatives who favor a "strict constructionist" view of the Constitution have been arguing that they do not. The Constitution doesn't mention privacy rights, they say. Rather, they were invented by the Supreme Court in the 1960s and '70s.

PRIVACY AND THE LAW 1789-91: Bill of Rights adopted to include protection for various forms of privacy; Ninth Amendment affirms rights "retained by the people." 1878: Supreme Court rules mail private. 1891: Court rules in forced-surgery case that "no right is more sacred than the right to control of his own person." 1925: Family privacy ruled to include right to determine children's education. 1965-72: State bans on birth control overturned as privacy violations. 1973: Bans on abortion overturned. 2003: Bans on gay sex overturned.

The conservatives' primary grievance is with Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that women, not the state, get to decide whether to end their pregnancies by abortion. But by questioning the unpinning of Roe, they call into doubt many earlier rulings that keep the government from meddling in people's lives.

Three current justices — William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — have questioned whether a right to privacy exists. The court doesn't need a fourth, not least because the anti-privacy argument is a denial of history and basic American values.

In fact, the right to privacy is older than the republic, protected in the Constitution and affirmed repeatedly in a century of court rulings before the abortion controversy. Though the word privacy isn't in the Constitution, the "right to be let alone," as Justice Louis Brandeis put it, permeates the document.

What are freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom from unlawful searches and the like other than respect for privacy? Leading Founders urged adoption of the Constitution as necessary to protect "private rights." And the Ninth Amendment was added to assure that other rights already taken for granted were "retained by the people."

Starting in the 19th century, the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution protects the privacy of the mail and that individuals have a right to refuse medical treatment.

Thus it was no stretch when, in 1965, the court overturned a Connecticut law banning birth control. Surely, the court ruled, the right of privacy prohibited police searches of "the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms." That decision, Griswold v. Connecticut, was the foundation for Roe.

To the anguish of those who want government in the bedroom and other personal places, privacy rights now protect unmarried and same-sex couples and individuals.

Roberts' record on the issue is scanty, but legal briefs he worked on and memos he wrote raise questions as to whether he accepts current law on privacy. As a Justice Department lawyer in 1981, for example, Roberts drafted an article that referred to "the so-called 'right to privacy,' " and asserted that "such an amorphous right is not to be found in the Constitution." Whether that was Roberts' view, or merely what his bosses wanted to hear, isn't clear.

Far clearer is that few would want a nation in which there was no limit on government intrusion into personal lives. In the confirmation hearings that begin next month, the Senate has an obligation to explore where John Roberts would draw the line.