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Florida Law Mandating Drug Testing for Assistance Applicants Ruled Unconstitutional

posted by janrinok on Thursday December 04 2014, @05:31PM   Printer-friendly
from the unreasonable-searches-and-seizures dept.

"gewg_" writes:

Via Common Dreams, the American Civil Liberties Union reports

[December 3], a three-judge panel at the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that a 2011 Florida law mandating that all applicants for the state's Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program submit to suspicion-less drug tests violates the Constitution's protection against unreasonable government searches.

[...]The 11th Circuit panel's order rejects arguments made by attorneys for the State of Florida that government has the authority to require people to submit to invasive searches of their bodily fluids without suspicion of wrongdoing, stating "the warrantless, suspicionless urinalysis drug testing of every Florida TANF applicant as a mandatory requirement for receiving Temporary Cash Assistance offends the Fourth Amendment."

[...]A 2012 review of the TANF mandatory urinalysis program found that the state of Florida spent more money reimbursing individuals for drug tests than the state saved on screening out the extremely small percentage.

 
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  • (Score: 2) by melikamp on Friday December 05 2014, @06:12AM

    by melikamp (1886) on Friday December 05 2014, @06:12AM (#122852) Journal
    Oh, absolutely. Endangering yourself is one thing, and endangering others is a whole different matter. So operating a 2-ton motor vehicle while impaired should still be illegal, regardless of the drug, and even with no drug at all (say, when low on sleep). And with drugs like alcohol, which are proven to impair the users, operating under the influence should also be illegal, pretty much as it is now. For people who cannot make mistakes at their job without affecting our safety (drivers, pilots, heavy equipment operators, police, to name a few) drug tests can be replaced by competence tests, and those who fail them should be sent home, and fired after they fail them repeatedly. This is THE right way to do this, since competence tests will weed out tired or otherwise impaired people as well as those who are dysfunctional because of a drug. At the same time, they will be fair to those who used drugs in the past, but are perfectly sober at the moment. Shit will still happen, but I think we are on the same page here. And of course, there may be "free zones" where anything goes, but that would be a pure bonus.
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