Bill Would Allow Government to Locate People With Tracking Devices

A bill meant to help those with developmental disabilities would allow government agencies to locate people with tracking devices, which has some concerned the measure gives the federal government too much authority and power.

[...] “The new language calls for ‘non-invasive and non-permanent types of tracking devices,'” said Robert Romano, senior editor of Americans for Limited Government. “But that is still not good enough. There shouldn’t be any bill, because there shouldn’t be a program, no matter how well-intentioned, overseen by the attorney general electronically tracking people in this manner.”

“The legislation still represents vast overreach by the federal government as none of this is necessary, when individuals, families and doctors can decide to use such non-invasive products on their own, like Angel Sense, under individual, limited circumstances when it is medically necessary to track patients who many become lost due to a lack of mental capacity,” Romano said.

see http://freebeacon.com/issues/bill-allow-government-locate-people-trackin... for more on this story

Here is the bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/4919/text

Here is the "Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994" which this proposes to amend: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Crime_Control_and_Law_Enforcement_Act (Wikipedia, with links) and this is the paragraph that they base this new act upon:

The Attorney General shall, subject to the availability of appropriations, award a grant to an eligible organization to assist the organization in paying for the costs of planning, designing, establishing, and operating a Missing Alzheimer's Disease Patient Alert Program, which shall be a locally based, proactive program to protect and locate missing patients with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. -- http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:42%20section:14181%20edition:prelim)