More importantly, are there any laws banning outsourcing American incarceration?
Yes. The US Constitution:
- Fifth Amendment (prohibits imprisonment without due process and indictment by a grand jury)
- Sixth Amendment (enumerates rights entailed in due process for any criminal facing prosecution)
- Eighth Amendment ("Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.")
The Eighth is the most clearly in play, supposing the courts actually follow the US Constitution, which they've been flagrantly ignoring for several decades (ex. there is no good faith interpretation of the Fourth Amendment that allows civil asset forfeiture or compelling anyone in the US to unlock a smartphone or surrender it for cloning, nor for the Fifth and Sixth which allow removing individuals to a military base to be held without trial).
I think that tunnel magneto-resistance (TMR) are more favored for 3rd-party sticks. They've significant advantages over Hall Effect sensors in latency, power consumption, and, apparently, resolution. Plus, they operate on more similar electrical principles to the traditional pot-based sticks, so, they require less effort to design around.