[krapp]

I see controversy and a lot of dissent among Justices, but no decisions that explicitly declare a Constitutional right to anonymity.

And the modern Court explicitly declared that a Constitutional right to privacy does not exist, and one cannot have anonymity without privacy, so no.

[AnthonyMouse]

> I see controversy and a lot of dissent among Justices,

Precedent is set by the majority, not the dissent.

> but no decisions that explicitly declare a Constitutional right to anonymity.

Weird then that there are several decisions striking down laws that violate the right to anonymous speech?

> And the modern Court explicitly declared that a Constitutional right to privacy does not exist, and one cannot have anonymity without privacy

One cannot refuse to turn over one's papers and effects in the absence of probable cause without privacy either.

Consider the possibility that there could be a right to anonymous speech without a right to anonymous practice of medicine. A universal right to privacy would require both. Just because it isn't both doesn't mean it's neither.

[krapp]

>One cannot refuse to turn over one's papers and effects in the absence of probable cause without privacy either.

Yes. I believe a right to privacy once existed, but it was nullified as it formed the basis of the case for Roe V. Wade. As a result even the Fourth Amendment is weakened because it must be interpreted in the light of a right to privacy no longer existing.

What I'm trying to put forth is that the assumptions you're working under are no longer valid and we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater.

[AnthonyMouse]

> I believe a right to privacy once existed, but it was nullified as it formed the basis of the case for Roe V. Wade.

It was kind of the other way around. There is clearly no explicit right to abortion in the constitution, so to find one it would have to be implicit, but the Court in Roe wanted to find one, so they made one up. The reasoning was something like, the constitution implies there is a general right to privacy and laws against abortion violate it. The people who liked the result were then stuck trying to defend its inconsistent reasoning for 50 years, because the same logic would cause all kinds of other laws to be a violation of the same right. Obvious example would be drug prohibition; government invading your privacy by trying to control what you put into your own body. Same logic as Roe.

But Roe was never actually extended to any of that stuff, so overturning it didn't re-enable drug prohibition after it was struck down, since it was (inconsistently) never struck down to begin with.

The cases having to do with anonymous speech are independent and use entirely different logic. The general idea is that people are deterred from speaking (chilling effects) if people can associate what they have to say with a physical person who can then be harassed for expressing an unpopular opinion. It doesn't have any of the same problems because there is no First Amendment right to morphine, which they could ban outright under the same justification as they ban heroin, so having to show your ID to get morphine isn't deterring you from exercising your right to free speech.