Court OKs Random Drug Testing

The Supreme Court Monday let stand a U.S. Appeals Court ruling that allows the random drug testing of federal employees with access to the Old Executive Office Building next to the White House.

In the original appeals court ruling, Judge Charles R. Richey said that the drug tests are justified as one way to protect the president and vice president.

"The harm that the government is seeking to avoid has the necessary immediate connection to the risk posed by a drug-using employee," the appeals court said.

President Reagan issued an executive order in 1986 requiring the heads of executive branch agencies to establish drug-testing programs for employees in sensitive jobs.

However, when Office of Management and Budget financial economist Arthur Stigile was selected for testing, he filed suit, arguing random drug tests violated his privacy.

A federal judge agreed, ruling that the tests violate the Fourth Amendment. But the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed that decision last April. Stigile appealed to the Supreme Court, but the justices declined to hear the case.

Stigile's appeal argued that random testing of OMB staffers with access to the Old Executive Office Building "massively expands the narrow exceptions ... recognized to the Fourth Amendment's general requirement of probable cause."

"Taken to its logical end, the appeals court decision would permit random testing of virtually any federal employee in the Washington area, since almost any such employee may have access to buildings frequented by members of the Cabinet, members of Congress or justices of this court, whose safety are important government interests," the appeal said.

Government lawyers, however, argued that agencies are permitted to anticipate novel security threats.

"No president was ever killed in a theater until Lincoln, in a railway station until Garfield, in a reception line until McKinley, in an open car until Kennedy. The government is entitled to address such threats before they materialize into actual assassination attempts," they said.