[UPDATE: Moved this back up. You can read the report yourself here (PDF).]

Will this make the wingers sh*t bricks or yawn? This is writing from 1971, but if Alito is strong on privacy issues, it doesn’t bode well for a reversal of Lawrence v. Texas at the very least. We all know that’s going to make the freaks on the Right that are ready to roll out sodomy laws again very queasy. Any amount of squirming that can be induced is fine by me. (Boston Globe):

As a senior at Princeton University, Samuel A. Alito Jr. chaired an undergraduate task force that recommended the decriminalization of sodomy, accused the CIA and the FBI of invading the privacy of citizens, and said discrimination against gays in hiring ”should be forbidden.”

The report, issued in 1971 by Alito and 16 other Princeton students, stemmed from a class assignment to study the ”boundaries of privacy in American society” and to recommend ways to protect individual rights.

The far-ranging report, which satisfied a requirement for public policy students and which was stored in the university’s Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, provided a glimpse of a more liberal Alito than the jurist is now perceived.

”We sense a great threat to privacy in modern America,” Alito wrote in a foreword to the report, in 1971. ”We all believe that privacy is too often sacrificed to other values; we all believe that the threat to privacy is steadily and rapidly mounting; we all believe that action must be taken on many fronts now to preserve privacy.”

A classmate, Jeffrey G. Weil, said yesterday that Alito, one of the top seniors in his class, had been selected to advise juniors writing the report, coaching them through the research and then writing an introduction explaining their recommendations.

The Freepi are doing some hand-wringing…

Actual Freeper Quotesâ?¢

“There’s no evidence Alito agreed with its recommendations. But the picture is one of a fair-minded young man and it will be hard for the Left to paint him as a privacy-busting and gay-hating zealot. A lot of us where like this in our youth. More to the point, its the Left that’s gotten more extreme with time while Alito has been consistent since across the board.”

“Before anyone gets crazy . . .in 1971 – the FBI / CIA and MI were all rountinely “invading privacy” – these invasions were part of the rational behind the prohibitions on investigations of “US Persons” (later Gorelick’s Wall, etc…) Expressing a desire for more protections against such invasions in no way contradicts with conservative values!!!” [Wha!? Does anyone here remember The Patriot Act?!]

“How is it we can read this report by Alito but Hillary’s graduate thesis is still locked a way in a court ordered vault?”

“I don’t have a problem with constitutional privacy, the 4th amendment suggests it. Privacy, however, does not imply a right to commit homicide. Only the idiots who decided Row could draw a link between privacy and homicide.”

“When I was much younger, I thought pro-life protestors were a bunch of kooks. But now I know the truth because I’ve actually had many years to think about the issue and learn.”

“This 1971 report of a young Alito doesn’t compare to the neoMarxist paper that a younger hitlery klintoon wrote during her college days.”

“Oh no! Am I going to be held accountable for some over the top remarks I may have made or written when I was a FRESHMAN in College and 17 years old. I certainly hope not. Please get off Alito’s case. Leave the trashing to the Dims; it so much demeans you.”

“This is an effort by the Media (and Dems) to get Alito in trouble with the same people who were nervous about Roberts and rejected Miers. Look at these points; there’s not much there, there. It expresses a concern of that timeframe…the invasion of privacy by very powerful and secretive government agencies. This privacy had nothing to do with abortion rights but was USED AS A RATIONALE for the unquestioned right of a woman to abort at any time for any reason.”

“It says to decriminalize sodomy. That shows that in many places it was a crime. To say it is wrong or socially undesirable (homosexual sodomy) is one thing. For it to be a crime is arguable. This comes down on the noncrime side. Not exactly a blockbuster.”

“Finally, it says don’t discriminate against homosexuals in hiring. That sounds good and very few college students would see any pitfalls there, though there certainly are some. The “gay agenda” is a bit different, though.”

“This does not really address the modern-day, gay agenda. But the headline is meant to imply that it does.”

“Speaking of Alito in general, and Roberts as well for that matter…some have suggested that neither man would, under almost any conceived circumstances, vote to overturn Roe. They say you can tell that by their very restrained, very precedent- respectful, very careful jurisprudence, and by their own demeanors and personalities. These prognosticators come from both sides of the political spectrum. I would like to know what others think of this analysis of the two men.”

“If you are 20 and not a liberal, you have no heart. If you are 40 and not a conservative, you have no brain.”

“In you were young in the mid-20th century, these words made sense. Now, in the 21st century, no matter how young or old you are, with everything we now know, you have to be a mental defective to be a liberal.”

“You do realize that Harriet would have been eviscerated by many of the people defending Alito had she been the author of that piece when she was in college. 🙂 I support Alito’s nomination, BTW.”

“Ronald Reagan harbored the same thoughts in 1980 as he did in 1945.”

“True, but the distinction is that in 1945 Reagan was an adult – even ‘old’, as he was 34 (born 1911). That’s why when he joined the Army (achieved Captain IIRC) he was assigned to Hollywood to make training films and such, he was too old for combat.”

“This sentence directly contradicts the title, which leads me to believe that the BG is trying to split the conservatives.”