Comment by bell-cot

Yeah. In theory, the Constitution very clearly says that that kinda stuff is utterly verboten.

In practice, the Courts (supposedly sworn to uphold that Constitution) will happily accept 'most any hare-brained theory, so long is the bottom line is that the gov't and its chums are free to do as they wish unto the weak and expendable.

And this situation is nothing like unique to the past 2-3 decades. Nor to the Federal gov't. Nor to the US of A. I'd bet it was SOP in most places, back when the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi was first being written down.