NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Seven contractors have expressed interest in the state's $2.5 million pilot project that would use a global positioning system, or GPS, to keep track of violent sex offenders that have been paroled. [snip]

nitially, about half of the state's 1,200 registered sex offenders will be fitted with bracelets that will be tracked constantly by a GPS system monitored by law enforcement.


"You all are the first in the nation to do this," Mandy Wettstein of General Dynamics, one of the potential bidders on the project, told a news reporter. "The country will be watching to see how successful this sex offender tracking program is."


Tennessee is expected to award the contract by the end of the year.


The system would let law enforcement build maps with "zones of exclusion" for the sex offenders, such as playgrounds, schools, day-care centers or the homes of victims. It also would allow probation officers to determine whether the felons they are supervising are going to work during the day, going home at night and staying away from restricted areas.[snip]

The probation board will collect data on the program for a year before reporting to Gov. Phil Bredesen and the Legislature. If the program is taken statewide, it could include other types of offenders such as those convicted of domestic violence or behind in child support payments

Mexico's attorney general has taken the unusual step of having an "anti-kidnap" chip stuck in his arm and then making the fact public - thereby ensuring that anyone lifting señor Rafael Macedo de la Concha will be certain to remove said limb at their earliest convenience.

Mexico is suffering a kidnapping epidemic, with up to 3,000 people abducted every year. Thousands of the country's citizens recently took to the streets to demand action.

Accordingly, Concha announced that several senior members of his staff plus 160 employees at a new crime database centre have also received the chips, which allegedly "serve both as an identity device and a tracking mechanism should they be kidnapped", the Guardian reports.

Concha did, however, admit that the principal role of the system was to restrict access to the database centre in an attempt to fight widespread corruption - considered a major factor in the authorities' lack of success in tackling the kidnap problem.

Which makes sense, because there is no indication as to exactly how the chip can be "tracked", nor any evidence to suggest that it can be tracked at all. Furthermore, the widespread publicity surrounding the chips has provoked one gang - known as "el chip" - to strip its victims and aggressively demand if they are tagged. Presumably, once they have accrued enough funds from their illicit activities, el chip will buy a chip scanner and save everyone a lot of time and needless upset.