ACLU sues to stop Florida welfare drug tests

[editec]

Drug testing Public assistance folks is the camels nose under the tent.

Next?

People applying for licenses.

After all, " driving isn't a right, its a previlege".

Then, once the American public buys into that invasion of privacy by Government, what next?

Drugs tests to vote.

 

[edjax1952]

Considering the very tiny number of people found to be on drugs, every test makes the Republican governor look more and more stupid. The ACLU is unknowingly protecting Republicans.

Please quit trying to protect us from ourselves. It is a condecending and aristocratic attitude. The 'we know what is better for you than you do' attitude always makes my skin crawl. Besides being of a somewhat dictatorial nature.

 

[yidnar]

A new Florida law that requires welfare recipients to pass a drug test violates their constitutional rights, the American Civil Liberties Union is charging in a lawsuit.

The suit asserts that the mandatory drug testing is a violation of the right against unreasonable search and seizure.

ACLU sues to stop Florida welfare drug tests - Tim Mak - POLITICO.com

And legal precedent is on the side of those filing suit:

Policies like Florida's will almost certainly end up in court - and there is a good chance that they will be struck down. The Fourth Amendment puts strict limits on what kind of searches the state can carry out, and drug tests are considered to be a search. In 1997, in Chandler v. Miller, the Supreme Court voted 8-1 to strike down a Georgia law requiring candidates for state offices to pass a drug test.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the majority, said that the drug testing was an unreasonable search. The state can impose drug tests in exceptional cases, when there is a public-safety need for them (as with bus and train operators, for instance). But the Fourth Amendment does not allow the state to diminish "personal privacy for a symbol's sake," the court said.

Drug testing welfare applicants does not seem to meet the Chandler test since there is no particular safety reason to be concerned about drug use by welfare recipients. In 2003, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Michigan's drug testing of welfare applicants as a Fourth Amendment violation.

Is Drug Testing Welfare Applicants Unconstitutional? - Yahoo! News

millions of simian welfare drug addicts just breathed a sigh of relief ...

 

[driveby]

The ACLU defended NAMBLA, what did you expect from them?

Dude....are you seriously comparing families that have fallen on hard times to nambla?

Only in the sense of illustrating that these are areas the ACLU should stay the hell out of.......

 

[hortysir]

they did sue, when it was all happening and employers began their push....they won some cases and lost some cases if memory serves....

and i have never worked a job that drug tested, though some did drug test the lower level workers in their distribution centers but this was supposedly due to the potential hazards with machinery there...so we were told.....

Management, was NEVER drug tested....and still are never drug tested at any corporation...i worked for 6 different ones....and have friends at others.....that's just the way it is.

hasn't it been proven that 95 plus percent of those on welfare are NOT drug users....and are passing the tests? it's a waste of taxpayer's money, and it is wrong to put all those innocent people through that kind of crap as far as i am concerned and it is unequal treatment....the bankers taking gvt money will NEVER be drug tested. The kids in college on gvt grants will NEVER be required a drug test, the families getting food stamps are not being subject to it, the corporations getting gvt booty will not be subject to it....

singling out only one small group of people receiving gvt money is unjust, along with a waste of time and money.

and unless you are working in a hazardous occupation, or are handling money....businesses can not request you to take one, is my understanding...though this could be state law, which may vary?

Managers are the ONLY ones drug tested, pre-hire only, at my company.