National Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab

Justice Scalia,

with whom Justice Stevens joins, dissenting.

The issue in this case is not whether Customs Service employees can constitutionally be denied promotion, or even dismissed, for a single instance of unlawful drug use, at home or at work. They assuredly can. The issue here is what steps can constitutionally be taken to detect such drug use. The Government asserts it can demand that employees perform “an excretory function traditionally shielded by great privacy,” Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives’ Assn., ante, at 626, while “a monitor of the same sex . . . remains close at hand to listen for the normal sounds,” ante, at 661, and that the excretion thus produced be turned over to the Government for chemical analysis. The Court agrees that this constitutes a search for purposes of the Fourth Amendment— and I think it obvious that it is a type of search particularly destructive of privacy and offensive to personal dignity.

Until today this Court had upheld a bodily search separate from arrest and without individualized suspicion of wrongdoing only with respect to prison inmates, relying upon the uniquely dangerous nature of that environment. See Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S. 520, 558-560 (1979). Today, in Skinner, we allow a less intrusive bodily search of railroad employees involved in train accidents. I joined the Court’s opinion there because the demonstrated frequency of drug and alcohol use by the targeted class of employees, and the demonstrated connection between such use and grave harm, rendered the search a reasonable means of protecting society. *681 I decline to join the Court’s opinion in the present case because neither frequency of use nor connection to harm is demonstrated or even likely. In my view the Customs Service rules are a kind of immolation of privacy and human dignity in symbolic opposition to drug use.

The Fourth Amendment protects the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” While there are some absolutes in Fourth Amendment law, as soon as those have been left behind and the question comes down to whether a particular search has been “reasonable,” the answer depends largely upon the social necessity that prompts the search. Thus, in upholding the administrative search of a student’s purse in a school, we began with the observation (documented by an agency report to Congress) that “[m]ain-taining order in the classroom has never been easy, but in recent years, school disorder has often taken particularly ugly forms: drug use and violent crime in the schools have become major social problems.” New Jersey v. T. L. O., 469 U. S. 325, 339 (1985). When we approved fixed checkpoints near the Mexican border to stop and search cars for illegal aliens, we observed at the outset that “the Immigration and Naturalization Service now suggests there may be as many as 10 or 12 million aliens illegally in the country,” and that “[interdicting the flow of illegal entrants from Mexico poses formidable law enforcement problems.” United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543, 551-552 (1976). And the substantive analysis of our opinion today in Skinner begins, “[t]he problem of alcohol use on American railroads is as old as the industry itself,” and goes on to cite statistics concerning that problem and the accidents it causes, including a 1979 study finding that “23% of the operating personnel were ‘problem drinkers.’” Skinner, ante, at 606, and 607, n. 1.

The Court’s opinion in the present case, however, will be searched in vain for real evidence of a real problem that will be solved by urine testing of Customs Service employees. *682 Instead, there are assurances that “[t]he Customs Service is our Nation’s first line of defense against one of the greatest problems affecting the health and welfare of our population,” ante, at 668; that “[m]any of the Service’s employees are often exposed to [drug smugglers] and to the controlled substances [they seek] to smuggle into the country,” ante, at 669; that “Customs officers have been the targets of bribery by drug smugglers on numerous occasions, and several have been removed from the Service for accepting bribes and other integrity violations,” ibid,.; that “the Government has a compelling interest in ensuring that front-line interdiction personnel are physically fit, and have unimpeachable integrity and judgment,” ante, at 670; that the “national interest in self-protection could be irreparably damaged if those charged with safeguarding it were, because of their own drug use, unsympathetic to their mission of interdicting narcotics,” ibid.; and that “the public should not bear the risk that employees who may suffer from impaired perception and judgment will be promoted to positions where they may need to employ deadly force,” ante, at 671. To paraphrase Churchill, all this contains much that is obviously true, and much that is relevant; unfortunately, what is obviously true is not relevant, and what is relevant is not obviously true. The only pertinent points, it seems to me, are supported by nothing but speculation, and not very plausible speculation at that. It is not apparent to me that a Customs Service employee who uses drugs is significantly more likely to be bribed by a drug smuggler, any more than a Customs Service employee who wears diamonds is significantly more likely to be bribed by a diamond smuggler — unless, perhaps, the addiction to drugs is so severe, and requires so much money to maintain, that it would be detectable even without benefit of a urine test. Nor is it apparent to me that Customs officers who use drugs will be appreciably less “sympathetic” to their drug-interdiction mission, any more than police officers who exceed the speed limit in their private cars are appreciably less *683 sympathetic to their mission of enforcing the traffic laws. (The only difference is that the Customs officer’s individual efforts, if they are irreplaceable, can theoretically affect the availability of his own drug supply — a prospect so remote as to be an absurd basis of motivation.) Nor, finally, is it apparent to me that urine tests will be even marginally more effective in preventing gun-carrying agents from risking “impaired perception and judgment” than is their current knowledge that, if impaired, they may be shot dead in unequal combat with unimpaired smugglers — unless, again, their addiction is so severe that no urine test is needed for detection.

What is absent in the Government’s justifications — notably absent, revealingly absent, and as far as I am concerned dis-positively absent —is the recitation of even a single instance in which any of the speculated horribles actually occurred: an instance, that is, in which the cause of bribetaking, or of poor aim, or of unsympathetic law enforcement, or of compromise of classified information, was drug use. Although the Court points out that several employees have in the past been removed from the Service for accepting bribes and other integrity violations, and that at least nine officers have died in the line of duty since 1974, ante, at 669, there is no indication whatever that these incidents were related to drug use by Service employees. Perhaps concrete evidence of the severity of a problem is unnecessary when it is so well known that courts can almost take judicial notice of it; but that is surely not the case here. The Commissioner of Customs himself has stated that he “believe[s] that Customs is largely drug-free,” that “[t]he extent of illegal drug use by Customs employees was not the reason for establishing this program,” and that he “hope[s] and expect[s] to receive reports of very few positive findings through drug screening.” App. 10, 15. The test results have fulfilled those hopes and expectations. According to the Service’s counsel, out of 3,600 employees *684 tested, no more than 5 tested positive for drugs. See ante, at 673.

The Court’s response to this lack of evidence is that “[t]here is little reason to believe that American workplaces are immune from [the] pervasive social problem” of drug abuse. Ante, at 674. Perhaps such a generalization would suffice if the workplace at issue could produce such catastrophic social harm that no risk whatever is tolerable — the secured areas of a nuclear power plant, for example, see Rushton v. Nebraska Public Power District, 844 F. 2d 562 (CA8 1988). But if such a generalization suffices to justify demeaning bodily searches, without particularized suspicion, to guard against the bribing or blackmailing of a law enforcement agent, or the careless use of a firearm, then the Fourth Amendment has become frail protection indeed. In Skinner, Bell, T. L. O., and Martinez-Fuerte , we took pains to establish the existence of special need for the search or seizure— a need based not upon the existence of a “pervasive social problem” combined with speculation as to the effect of that problem in the field at issue, but rather upon well-known or well-demonstrated evils in that field, with well-known or well-demonstrated consequences. In Skinner, for example, we pointed to a long history of alcohol abuse in the railroad industry, and noted that in an 8-year period 45 train accidents and incidents had occurred because of alcohol- and drug-impaired railroad employees, killing 34 people, injuring 66, and causing more than $28 million in property damage. Ante, at 608. In the present case, by contrast, not only is the Customs Service thought to be “largely drug-free,” but the connection between whatever drug use may exist and serious social harm is entirely speculative. Except for the fact that the search of a person is much more intrusive than the stop of a car, the present case resembles Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648 (1979), where we held that the Fourth Amendment prohibited random stops to check drivers’ licenses and motor vehicle registrations. The contribution of this practice to highway *685 safety, we concluded, was “marginal at best” since the number of licensed drivers that must be stopped in order to find one unlicensed one “will be large indeed.” Id., at 660 .

Today’s decision would be wrong, but at least of more limited effect, if its approval of drug testing were confined to that category of employees assigned specifically to drug interdiction duties. Relatively few public employees fit that description. But in extending approval of drug testing to that category consisting of employees who carry firearms, the Court exposes vast numbers of public employees to this needless indignity. Logically, of course, if those who carry guns can be treated in this fashion, so can all others whose work, if performed under the influence of drugs, may endanger others — automobile drivers, operators of other potentially dangerous equipment, construction workers, school crossing guards. A similarly broad scope attaches to the Court’s approval of drug testing for those with access to “sensitive information.” 1 Since this category is not limited to *686 Service employees with drug interdiction duties, nor to “sensitive information” specifically relating to drug traffic, today’s holding apparently approves drug testing for all federal employees with security clearances — or, indeed, for all federal employees with valuable confidential information to impart. Since drug use is not a particular problem in the Customs Service, employees throughout the Government are no less likely to violate the public trust by taking bribes to feed their drug habit, or by yielding to blackmail. Moreover, there is no reason why this super-protection against harms arising from drug use must be limited to public employees; a law requiring similar testing of private citizens who use dangerous instruments such as guns or cars, or who have access to classified information, would also be constitutional.

There is only one apparent basis that sets the testing at issue here apart from all these other situations — but it is not a basis upon which the Court is willing to rely. I do not believe for a minute that the driving force behind these drug-testing rules was any of the feeble justifications put forward by counsel here and accepted by the Court. The only plausible explanation, in my view, is what the Commissioner himself offered in the concluding sentence of his memorandum to Customs Service employees announcing the program: “Implementation of the drug screening program would set an important example in our country’s struggle with this most serious threat to our national health and security.” App. 12. Or as respondent’s brief to this Court asserted: “[I]f a law enforcement agency and its employees do not take the law seriously, neither will the public on which the agency’s effectiveness depends.” Brief for Respondent 36. What better way to show that the Government is serious about its “war on drugs” than to subject its employees on the front line of that war to this invasion of their privacy and affront to their dignity? To be sure, there is only a slight chance that it will prevent some serious public harm resulting from Service employee drug use, but it will show to the world that the *687 Service is “clean,” and — most important of all — will demonstrate the determination of the Government to eliminate this scourge of our society! I think it obvious that this justification is unacceptable; that the impairment of individual liberties cannot be the means of making a point; that symbolism, even symbolism for so worthy a cause as the abolition of unlawful drugs, cannot validate an otherwise unreasonable search.

There is irony in the Government’s citation, in support of its position, of Justice Brandéis’ statement in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438, 485 (1928) that “[f]or good or for ill, [our Government] teaches the whole people by its example.” Brief for Respondent 36. Brandéis was there dissenting from the Court’s admission of evidence obtained through an unlawful Government wiretap. He was not praising the Government’s example of vigor and enthusiasm in combatting crime, but condemning its example that “the end justifies the means,” 277 U. S., at 485 . An even more apt quotation from that famous Brandéis dissent would have been the following:

“[I]t is . . . immaterial that the intrusion was in aid of law enforcement. Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.” Id., at 479 .

Those who lose because of the lack of understanding that begot the present exercise in symbolism are not just the Customs Service employees, whose dignity is thus offended, but all of us — who suffer a coarsening of our national manners that ultimately give the Fourth Amendment its content, and who become subject to the administration of federal officials whose respect for our privacy can hardly be greater than the small respect they have been taught to have for their own.

The Court apparently approves application of the urine tests to personnel receiving access to “sensitive information.” Ante, at 677. Since, however, it is unsure whether “classified material” is “sensitive information,” it remands with instructions that the Court of Appeals “examine the criteria used by the Service in determining what materials are classified and in deciding whom to test under this rubric.” Ante, at 678. I am not sure what these instructions mean. Surely the person who classifies information always considers it “sensitive” in some sense — and the Court does not indicate what particular sort of sensitivity is crucial. Moreover, it seems to me most unlikely that “the criteria used by the Service in determining what materials are classified” are any different from those prescribed by the President in his Executive Order on the subject, see Exec. Order No. 12356, 3 CFR 166 (1982 Comp.) — and if there is a difference it is probably unlawful, see § 5.4(b)(2), id., at 177. In any ease, whatever idiosyncratic standards for classification the Customs Service might have would seem to be irrelevant, inasmuch as the rule at issue here is not limited to material classified by the Customs Service, but includes (and may well apply principally to) material classified elsewhere in the Government — for example, in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, or the State Department — and conveyed to the Service. See App. 24-25.