Oh yeah Dew !!!
Alright you're giving me a run for my money, but I'm still not convinced. I see three key problems with your last argument:
1) You claim that the word 'persons' refers to articles on one's person without referring to one's body itself is the key empirical question here. I just don't buy it; at the very least it is an awfully metaphorical interpretation of the actual text. To begin with note that the same word is used both in the opening sentence describing the things to be kept secure and in the final sentence describing the objects to be seized. In the latter 'persons' is clearly distinguished from 'things', and even in the former 'effects' stands in the same list alongside 'persons'. In other words, the sort of objects which you regard as being the referents of 'persons' are mentioned using other terms placed alongside this word. By this logic, the term 'persons' would be a redundancy, and such constructions are not to be favored when a direct literal interpretation of the term in question would give it a separate meaning. If any thing, personal effects are protected by virtue of being on one's person, so even the prospect that the objects might be intended in the use of this word does not exclude the prospect that it also refers to one's body.
Additionally: Consider the following passages:
"The protection garunteed by the Amendments is much broader in scope. The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness.
They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions, and their sensations. They conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone - the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifyable intrusion by the government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment.'
Justice Holmes, dissenting in Olmstead v. United States. This was a case in which the court declined to apply the fourth amendment to wire taps on public phones. I mention it because the argument is a good one, not because it is actual case law, but of course the court reversed Olmstead in Katz:
"The Fourth Amendment protects people, not places."
Stewart in Katz v. United States.
Here the court is responding to a claim that the fourth amendment protects private places, but that indivisuals are not entitled to privacy when using public phones. The court denies the argument by specifically asserting that it is the people themselves that are protected in the fourth amendment. This same logic can be applied to your own claim that it is the objects owned by a person that are protected and not their persons.
Even the decision, Terry v. Ohio, which makes stop and frisk procedures acceptable under a variety of conditions does not involve a claim that a persons body is unprotected by the fourth amendment; the court merely ruled that such procedures could be justified when there was reasonable grounds for suspicion. This is very different from the claim that there simply is no right to protect your own body from a search. Take this passage, for example:
"It must be recognized that whenever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away, he has seized that person. And it is nothing less than shear torture of the English language to suggest that a careful exploration of the outer surfaces of the person's clothing all over his or her body in an attempt to find weapons is not a search."
Warren, in Katz v. U.S.
Note the role that ones body plays in making the exploration of clothing a search. The clothing is protected because it is on the body of the person in question. I would also argue that it is equally torture of the English language that a search for the chemical contents of a person's body is not a search. This does not mean that there are no conditions under which such a search can be justified; it does mean that the justification must be weighed against the rights garunteed in the fourth amendment. By your appoach no such balance takes place because we have no right to protect our bodies from state scrutiny.
Going back to some of your own arguments, I would say that saying our forefathers didn't intend the fourth amendment to cover chemical analysis is a bit like saying they intend the first amendment to cover telephones, TV, or computers. Since they didn't have this technology then, our forefathers did not have the opportunity to comment on the subject. The question is whether or not the principles they laid out woud apply to these developments, and how.
Regarding the production of medical information for medical procedures or funds accruing on the basis of medical conditions, there is a sound link here between the payment and the nature of the actual information. The information is actually necessary to justify the payment, whereas in the case of drug testing, it's relevance to functions of welfare payments is flimsy at best.
The prospect that information could be used to deny someone welfare isn't the issue. This is ansering the argument as though the problem rested solely in the use of the information. The problem is, however, that the potential use of the information does not justify compelling a person to produce it in the first place. (And note, that if you disagree, and argue it in terms of on-balanced criteria, that is at least accepting the prospect that the fourth amendment right applies in the first place, which is what I'm after).
I agree with your observation about SS numbers.
Affirmative Action would be best argued in a different context. We shall meet again.
You know I had two other arguments, but this rant is already perilously close to violating the 8th amendment, so I think I'll just save them.
