As far as the anti-kidnapping device, it would work a bit like an EPIRB.
GPS devices need only RECEIVE a signal from GPS satellites. A feeble signal that is readily blocked by moving inside a building or even the back of a van with no windows, or a car trunk.
A kidnap-detector device, like an ankle bracelet would only need to communicate as far as the local cellular network. However, cellular devices can readily be jammed by off-the-shelf jammers, and naturally won’t work if you’re in an area not covered by the cellular network.
A single-use lithium button battery could run the device, probably strobe last known location to the nearest cellular tower every minute for maybe up to an hour. That’s a tiny window of opportunity for police to react, organize a chase and do something about the kidnapping. Kidnapping gangs would quickly adopt countermeasures.
Cellular jamming, faraday cages for transporting the kid, etc. Of course, the most natural countermeasure would be searching for the device and cutting it off. If the device is too tough, then the hand or foot, arm or leg below the device would have to do. If implanted, it would still leave a lump and would necessarily still be directly under the skin. Kidnappers would search for those lumps and cut them out or sever the whole limb.
These kidnappers, members of drug gangs fleeing or pursuing murder, rapists, child rapists, etc. are among the people who illegally cross our borders among the economic refugees every day. Many already fleeing Mexican justice. THEY are why ‘illegals’ have such a bad name. Maybe one in a thousand are criminals, but that’s plenty enough trouble to poison relations.
I suspect that someone who rejects the standard (and literal) reading of the Eighth Amendment* will not be persuaded by a United Nations Declaration that has not been formally adopted into U.S. law.
Note that the Eight Amendment does not guarantee rights to anyone, it simply puts an unqualified limit on the actions of government:
No mention is made regarding the status of persons who are to be held with bail or punished.
Didn’t we just jump through some rather tenuous Eighth Amendment hoops recently? Textualists arguing that torture wasn’t punishment or something. Or maybe that the Eighth didn’t kick in for certain things. Anyway, I mention it to highlight the inherent insight of your first sentence.
Eh, Tom, I admitted that Wong Wing puts me pretty squarely in the minority on the applicability of the Eighth Amendment. My reading is based on the Constitution’s use of the word “the people” and my inference that this means the citizenry, and that all rights and prohibitions set forth in the Constitution are applicable only w.r.t. said citizenry (it is not, for instance, “unconstitutional” to use white phosphorous or napalm to, say, evict a holdout Japanese soldier from a cave on Guam). I’ve gotten pretty comfortable being out of stride with prevailing SCOTUS doctrine, given how ridiculous much of it is.
But you are right in your larger point that U.N. Declarations carry about as much weight for me as a resolution of the Superfriends, backed by a threat to take me to the League of Justice.
There have been a few blood-powered fuel cells in the news over the past few years. I don’t know how the output compares with what you need for a GPS beacon, but if the beacon is supposed to be operational for a long time the fuel cell may be smaller than a self-contained power source with sufficient battery life.
Interesting. The word “People” only appears twice in the body of the Constitution (preamble and on electing the House), then in Amendments 1, 2, 4, and 10 (and a couple others, again dealing with elections).
Isn’t it begging the question to say that the Amendments don’t apply to non-citizens because the Amendments only refer to “the People,” and “the People” as used by the Amendments means only citizens because non-citizens aren’t included?
You could try and instill significance to the two earlier uses, but it seems a stretch to suggest that they define “the People” as a term of art. The first use was a compromise at Framing (the original drafts listed the states, but the Framers weren’t sure all states would ratify resulting in a weaker preamble – the compromise bypassed the semantic issue and philosophically went over state’s heads), and the second is contextually specific.
I’m not necessarily suggesting that the Amendments apply to non-citizens, but I am not sure I agree with your reasoning.
Be that as it may, the Eighth does not use the term at all – so even if we accept that “the People” is limited to citizens, the term’s omission in the Eighth would strongly suggest that it is applicable without regard to citizenship. That is, while a non-citizen may not have the same right to speech and assembly as I, there are some things that as a country we just won’t do/some lines we just won’t cross.
Hey, stop laughing. I daresay there was a time when the majority of people actually believed that – that we were by default the “good guys” because of the protections inherent to the Constitution.
I’ve digressed this enough (admitting all the while that my constitutional reading is not the one that most people arrive at). Your larger point is the one I made in my first response – I don’t think most Americans would (even today) accept the measures discussed in the OP’s thought experiment. I just don’t think you’d even need to go to the Constitution to reach this conclusion.
I kind of felt like Americans were the good guys not just because of the Constitution, but because they actually believed in the shining city on the hill stuff. I hope that’s still true but the leadership may have lost sight of that particular beacon . . . .
I have noticed that here in the NE, illegals have taken a lot of jobs that American kids used to do-like lawn care, painting, general handyman-type stuff. The papers are reporting that a lot of HS kids could not get summer jobs, because the landscape and painting companies preferred to hire illegals.
So, any attmpt to hald illegal immigration has to start with the employers.
Not to mention the fact that illegals get free medical care-whereas, and American kid who breaks his arm working in your yard is SOL.
Someone’s going to have to describe better how this would be “cruel”. Unusual yes, but everything is unusual until it becomes standard practice.
It’s a non-life-threatening procedure akin to something people do to their dog or even themselves regularly. It leaves no physical mark, and does nothing more than show a blip on a map of the US should you be illegally present. It will have no lasting physical or mental effects, so it can’t be compared to torture or tattooing someone forehead with an ‘I’ or what-have-you.
Ummm, CITE??? Emergency rooms are required to provide treatment to those who need it. I have been treated for a broken bone in an emergency room, though I told them I hadno insurance.
Also, states have worker’s compensation laws. In IL an employer would be required to pay for necessary medical treatment for an employee who broke a limb in the course of employment.
The OP specified an unremovable brain implant. I don’t know anyone who routinely does that to themselves or Fido. Typical bioninformatics microchips are the size of a grain of rice and inserted subcutaneously in about five seconds (but, could, as you realize, be removed just about that quickly).
Do you have research showing that a RF device being implanted in the brain couldn’t have any physical/psychological impact?
Mind you, I’m the outlier who thinks the 8th Amendment doesn’t even apply here. (I could alternatively argue that your proposed measure does not qualify as “punishment” given that it is not intended to harm the subject or make him unhappy, but is instead a record-keeping procedure, but that may be a reach).
I’m just suggesting that to make this work, technically, you’d likely have to intrude upon the subject’s bodily integrity in a significant enough way that few in the public or the political sphere would see as acceptable or proportionate to the problem.
I’m a bit confused – at the income levels we’re talking about, how much would a documented worker/citizen pay in taxes?
If they’re not paying taxes, they’re being paid under the table – why aren’t high school kids competing for the same under the table jobs? Why does paying taxes have anything to do with it?
