The death of American Freedom

photo by Torben Hansen  snipped from wikipedia

         I had an interesting conversation with an Afghanistan war veteran today.  He told me everyone should be drug tested for every job.  I disagreed, saying instead that jobs should be performance based, not based on some superficial moral judgement.  Eventually my friend and I agreed to disagree.  So, I lost one convert.  Let me try to win some more.  My thoughts are essentially this, nobody has the right to search me, (a drug test is essentially a search of my blood or urine.) unreasonably.

       It's fair to say that many Americans have been desensitized to the fact that their fourth amendment protection against unreasonable searches has been trampled upon to the point where they are no longer applicable. The vast majority of the population that cannot defend themselves from bullying by those in authority.  People without a solid education on the law, their rights, and a nice chunk of cash to back it up don't stand a chance against people armed with those very things.  In American law, might makes right.  Doesn't sound much like the American dream does it?

      Drug testing in the work place is one example.  In jobs where a person's impairment could cause harm to the interests of both the company, and the community in general, it is commonly accepted practice to screen employees and applicants for use of illegal drugs.  This, in the words of Supreme Court Justice Anton Scalia constitutes an unreasonable search.

    “The impairment of individual liberties cannot be the means of making a point" Scalia wrote. "Symbolism, even symbolism for so worthy a cause as the abolition of unlawful drugs, cannot validate an otherwise unreasonable search.” 

      Scalia wrote these words as part of a dissenting opinion at the conclusion of the Nationial Treasury Employees v. Von Raab case back in 1989.  He felt that drug testing was being used as a symbol of social and corporate responsibility among firms.  I use his quote because he agrees with my opinion that drug testing constitutes an unreasonable search, but it seems as though the idea of drug testing goes beyond symbolism though, it goes more to the point of control.  Employers want control of their employees personal lives, something they're not supposed to have.

     Now, this post stemmed from one conversation about drug testing in the work place.  But the freedom Americans are supposed to enjoy from unreasonable search and seizure isn't the only protection to be subjected to what I view as a sinister demand for "the public good."  Gun ownership and the right to self defense in general spring to mind.  I just wonder how many people really think they are free in this country.  I certainly don't feel that way. 

With that said, it also must be said that America, with all its warts, still offers one of the freest and fairest systems in the world to live under and I fully understand what a privileged it is to live there.