alt Hacker NewsI've laughed ever since United States v. Jones (2012), the GPS tracker-stuck-to-vehicle case.
The justices actively debated what the historical equivalent of 24/7 digital tracking would look like in 1791. This prompted the famous hypothetical of an officer secretly squeezing into the trunk of a horse-drawn carriage to track someone's movements over several days.
The issue here is that there's no practical way to ever update the Bill of Rights in the 21st century. Bug or feature?
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Well it's a feature in that the ratification rules were part of an intentional illicit rewrite of the constitution. We could make it easier to modify like other nations, but that also makes it easier to repeal.
I think the fix is to require more political parties to be involved, so a 51% majority of a single party can't remove federal laws whenever they have a majority. Then you wouldn't need an amendment to solve controversial problems.
>The justices actively debated what the historical equivalent of 24/7 digital tracking would look like in 1791.
Redcoats in your home, comparing notes with all the other redcoats who live in your buddies house and hassle your bartender, watch the comings and goings of everyone else around town, etc, etc.
>The issue here is that there's no practical way to ever update the Bill of Rights in the 21st century. Bug or feature?
Given that this isn't an issue in any other modern democracy, I'd say "bug."
This reads the same way as people who say things like “we just have to accept that Congress is broken and can’t pass new legislation.” Like hell we do!