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ACLU Denounces Drug Testing Rulings

by ACLU


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March 21, 1989

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) today said that the U.S. Supreme Court's rulings in two federal government drug testing decisions issued this morning "have made the Fourth Amendment the latest and most senseless casualty of the nation's so-called `war on drugs.'"

The decisions, which upheld separate testing programs under regulations issued by the Customs Service and the Federal Railroad Administration, explicitly rejected any need for a judicial warrant or even a finding of individualized reasonable suspicion of drug or alcohol use to justify mandatory urinalysis and blood testing requirements for Customs Service employees in certain sensitive positions and railroad workers following the occurrence of an accident.

"Although the Court's holdings in these cases ostensibly allow suspicionless testing only of individuals in certain occupations and circumstances involving `special needs,'" the ACLU noted, "the sweeping language of the majority opinion in the railroad case appears to legitimize such mandatory testing in any area of employment that the government claims authority to regulate for `safety-related' reasons."

"Moreover," the ACLU continued, "the Court's decisions today will severely undermine personal privacy interests beyond the drug testing issue. The majority opinions do nothing less than rewrite the Fourth Amendment by ignoring traditional restraints on government search authority and, as Justice Marshall observed, `eliminating altogether the probable-cause requirement for civil searches.'"

In the wake of these decisions, the ACLU will continue its efforts to fight the spread of government-mandated drug testing by seeking to distinguish the Court's rulings today as they may be applied to other occupations and circumstances. The ACLU will also urge Congress and state and local legislative bodies to reject the Court's cramped reading of the Fourth Amendment and to provide citizens with the traditional protections against unreasonable searches that have endured through other past national crises.

Allan Adler or Janlori Goldman (202) 544-1681

 
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