Taking swift action, a federal district court judge last night granted an ACLU request and temporarily halted an unconstitutional policy at a public college in Missouri requiring all incoming students to submit to mandatory drug tests. Judge Nanette K. Laughrey ordered officials at Linn State Technical College in Jefferson City, Mo., to stop analyzing urine specimens that have already been collected and to instruct the drug testing company not to release any results it may have already compiled.
The ACLU is on fire.
Got Urine? ACLU Sues College Over Mandatory Drug Testing
Today the ACLU filed suit in federal court to stop Linn State Technical College, a public college in Missouri, from drug testing all of their incoming students with no suspicion of wrongdoing. Six brave students have stood up to administrators to demand that their Fourth Amendment rights not be violated, and that this senseless intrusion must end. […]
Our complaint demands that Linn State rescind their unconstitutional drug testing policy, refrain from testing anymore students, halt any analysis of the urine samples already collected, and return the $50 they charged all students.
But this case goes beyond Linn State. We filed our complaint in federal court not to just stop Linn State, but to stop any other college that thinks they can drug test their student body. It is illegal and they cannot.
Coming right on the heels of taking on the Florida welfare drug testing law, the ACLU is really stepping up to the plate here. These lawsuits are essential.
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In other drug testing news, Hawaii Teachers Defeat Random Drug Testing
In an agreement reached Monday, the state agreed to end its insistence on random drug and alcohol testing for teachers.
Negotiators for Gov. Abercrombie agreed to the settlement “to avoid further expense and risk of litigation,” according to KITV-4 in Honolulu.
“For the past four years, the HSTA the ACLU have been challenging the random drug testing,” said HSTA President Wil Okabe, who added the issue had become one of teachers’ rights and the constitutionality of random suspicionless drug tests.
Things to do tomorrow:
Get up
Water plants
Get Asha up and off to daycare
donate money to the ACLU
get baked
get baked some more
“I can say for a scientific fact that Sarah Palin is a Crackwhore with Jungle Fever.”
Could she see her dealer from her house?
Owing to her freakish religio-nazi world outlook and her vapidity, that news actually RAISES her in my estimations.
Plus, I knew there was some Nasty in there.
Sorry, Maria, 🙂
About 6 years ago, I wrote to the ACLU to call their attention to the general search warrants (“Writs of assistance”) used in drug raids, which, unlike random piss tests, are expressly prohibited by the constitution. The ACLU informed me that they only get involved when the Constitution is being violated; in other words, they have no interest in protecting the “rights” of the victims of drug raids. If these people want my support, they need to step up and speak up for ALL of us, including drug users, and stop concentrating only on cases they know they can win. Of course random drug testing is illegal. Prohibition itself is illegal; common sense would seem to dictate that anything stemming from it would be so as well.
well there’s actually a pretty good reason for that. Most judges will dismiss cases if no one involved in the suit is directly harmed.
So if they did it make some press then get quickly dismissed and it would be easy ammo for prohibitionists.
Combine that with that with the fact that even the ACLU has a limited budget/resources and that’s why. It’s simply much more effective/efficient use of money to take strong cases that can set a precedent for the long run.
Rita, the ACLU can only take a very tiny percentage of the cases presented to them. What you are really saying is: “Since they didn’t take MY case they aren’t worth supporting.”
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I’ve got a chip on my shoulder about the ACLU because in 1992 they refused to challenge the legality of forcing people in Court ordered drugs re-education programs to attend the religious services conducted by the Church of the 12 Steps. It really got lodged deep in there when a couple of the Federal Appellate Courts and at least one State’s Supreme Court (New York?) agreed that this did in fact violate the Establishment Clause. I was born and raised a Catholic. I know a flipping church service when I sit through one. Right down to the collection plate halfway through the service.
DC you are correct in your analysis at least as it applies to me. What’s your point? Since they didn’t take MY case they aren’t worth supporting. Indeed. Oh OK I might loosen up they’ve been doing some really good stuff lately.
I heard John Walters is going to be buried 18 feet underground because deep down, he’s really not a bad person.
Ya know, its gonna get to a point where you will have to do random pee tests just to stay in this country…that or they start jailing people just because they fail tests.
Ya go head and laugh.
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Well they do that in China. If you don’t like someone you can drop the dime and the police will compel him to urinate.
Say wouldn’t it be surreal if the Robert’s Court puts the kibosh on the death penalty once and for all? They’re making some really strange noises about that issue.
@ Justme — your comment is unbelievably offensive — to crack whores.
It’s not my comment; if you had been paying attention you would have noticed that it was presented as a quote (in italics with inverted comers) and a live link for you to check out where it came from.
Thud!
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You should not be able to force someone to submit a biological specimen.
That this college felt empowered to start rounding people up in groups to analyse their urine (for substances they don’t like) is very disturbing.
Have we learnt nothing from the McCarthy era?
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Yes. They’ve learned that it’s much easier to harass people if there’s a urine test performed by someone wearing a lab coat involved. Loyalty oaths are just so 1950s. Also there are a lot more people who like to get high than were ever commies. Getting high is a lot of fun. Commies are just plain weird.
Fricking cool rocking news yes.
God Bless the ACLU,and six students who stood up to this tyranny.
I’ll celebrate with my favorite Holy Trinity of chemicals Booze,Pot,E-Cigs.
It is not the job of institutions of higher learning to be the police. Only a dysfunctional, totalitarian society conflates colleges and law enforcement motives. Hitler did it, of course. There was no separation of anything for the fascists.
Prohibitionists, like Nazis, failed to achieve their fanciful, drug-free society. It is unfair, dangerous, and probably unconstitutional, for anyone to foist responsibility for a futile prohibition imperative onto ordinary citizens who will suck mightily at doing law enforcement.
And let us not forget that the Number 2 Nazi, Hermann Goering, was a morphine addict. Hitler’s inner circle were believed to have been frequent users of various psychotropics in their religious ceremonies (Nazism was as much a religious cult as a political philosophy) as well as giving the orders for the testing of all manner of horrid concoctions on their captives. All the while they were railing against drug use by the masses.
Hypocrisy on the part of the governors – and contempt for those they govern – is always to be expected…
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I think they should stop harassing the teachers. They’re very organized (Dad was a member of the NEA) and if they get really pissed they might stop telling the children that drugs are bad, mmm-kay? Without that early indoctrination of our children in play the whole war on (some) drugs house of cards is not likely to survive long.
All puns intended.
When are they going to surgically implant all of us with devices that continuously monitor our bloodstream for the presence of illicit drugs and transmit that information (along with our location) in real-time to the appropriate federal and local law authorities? If you have nothing to hide, what possible objection could you have?
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Francis, I recall an episode of CSI:Miami that was centered around the murder of a probation officer. One of the people investigated was wearing an electronic monitoring device which emailed the PO’s blackberry because it detected that the probationer was using drinking alcohol. No doubt that’s pure fantasy but there’s no reason to presume that the technology to do that sort of thing is all that far from reality. I’m actually more skeptical about the emailing the blackberry part than I am about the ankle bracelet detecting the presence of drinking alcohol.
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OK I’ve gotten over it. Kicking ass and taking names indeed.
…dig it, they have to be very careful to pick their fights. They get a mind numbing number of cases sent to them. There’s no POSSIBLE way they can take all of them…even all the good and deserving ones. But once they have picked their theme, look out. I support the ACLU, they do a damn good job.
Except for “Citizen’s United”…they fucked up royally there.
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Oh I understand that DC, after all there’s only 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 17 seconds in a day. I suppose that when they turn down a case that it’s SOP for the ACLU to include a condescending paternalistic lecture that the people violating your rights protected by the Constitution are only genuinely concerned with helping and that you should do your best to cooperate rather than filing lawsuits with little merit. I think it was the lecture part that had me confused.
I guess I didn’t make it clear that the reason they turned me down was because I obviously needed rehab if the Commonwealth’s Circuit Court Judge had come to that conclusion in his differential diagnoses.
Hmm, “they”, for all I know it was just the one man’s opinion. Of course had I known that in less than a decade that there would be decisions from Federal and State Courts of Appeals that found that the very thing that I wanted to challenge was in fact valid I would have moved up the chain of command. But my darn crystal ball was in the shop for a tune up that week.
Lots and lots of people make up the ACLU. My experience would have been in 1992 which meant Mr. Reagan and then Mr Bush the 41st were 12 years into escalation of the war on (some) drugs. It would have been just around the time of the discovery of the endogenous cannabinoid system but definitely before I learned of that. That particular discovery of research into human medicine really made all the difference in the world to me. It was that event that cemented my decision to believe my own eyes when people tell me that I’m seeing things that aren’t there. I don’t know if you recall (or have even heard) my description of the first time that I met Mary Jane that there was a most definite perception of “completing a circuit” in my brain. Dr. Drew can kiss my ass, it’s obvious to me from what I’ve seen with my own two eyes that this particular phenomenon is due to a defect in the endogenous cannabinoid system.
The only mistake I made was giving any credence to the Dr. Drews of the world from 1977 to 1992. One of the drug rehab group therapy “leaders” who I was forced to endure, a Mr. Ron Smith, actually had occasion to say to my face, “who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?” :0 He seemed on the verge of a conniption fit when I said, “my eyes, 100% of the time, without doubt”. That one was most definitely subsequent to my learning of the existence of anandamide. My eyes do deceive me from time to time but are accurate approaching 100% of the time. On this particular subject that ratio is reversed when I give credence to the claims of the Dr. Drews of the world. But they wear scientific looking lab coats and speak with a somber tone of gravitas and authority and so are very confusing to the ignorant.
Oh, speaking of Dr. Drew the clown, if you want to hear an excellent description of my first time with Mary Jane, Dr. Drew really does describe it very accurately. He has helped me realize that endogenous shortages of anandamide aren’t a particularly rare occurrence in people. He puts on his clown face when he reaches the conclusion that this phenomenon is proof of the fiction of merrywanna addiction rather that what it is, the completion of a brain circuit that’s disconnected or not firing correctly.
Hey, I’m still learning. Did you know that:
“the highest concentrations of anandamide are not found in the brain, but in the womb, just before the count of the implantation embryo?”
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anandamide
Also I either just learned or I may have known but had forgotten that:
Holy nellie that god fella really likes to give infants a lot of endo-cannabinoids. When will the DEA issue an arrest warrant? Is almighty god above the law? I think not. At the very least Children’s Protective Services needs to step in and show him that he’s not the omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent deity that he seems to think that he is.
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Our opinions of Citizen’s United are most certainly diametrically opposed. I don’t see any other possible ruling without a Constitutional Amendment unless we approve of the Courts rewriting the law to suit their own opinion. Don’t you realize that had the ruling gone the other way that the ACLU would be prohibited from using the media to make their opinion known with regard to a candidate?
Unlike the 2nd Amendment “militia” thing there’s no language that can even be misinterpreted as saying that 1st Amendment protection of free speech rights are exclusively reserved for natural human beings. The 56 old white men in Philadelphia were most certainly aware of corporations. You can ask anyone standing under a buttonwood tree, he’ll tell you that assertion is correct.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buttonwood_Agreement
If you don’t like it you need to get the Constitution amended.
RE: citizens united. SOME believe that the concept of corporate personhood is NOT rooted in case law as the government and corporations would have you believe. And that every decision that has come down since 1886 has been illegal and based on a deliberate misreading of Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific:
http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/node/664
“As Hartmann details in Unequal Protection, the railroads pushed hard in this unheralded case to get the court to rule that corporations have equal taxation and other human rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. Chief Justice Morrison Waite, a failed Ohio politico and former railroad lawyer, seemed a likely bet to do the corporate bidding—but he did not. The court decided in favor of Southern Pacific on the mundane fence-post matter, but it specifically dodged the immense issue of personhood. It held no open court discussion about it, wrote no opinions mentioning it, and rendered no judgment on it.
But a court reporter, J.C. Bancroft Davis (a former railroad official), wrote the headnote to the decision—a headnote being a summary of the case, for which reporters like Davis received a commission from the publisher of these legal documents. Davis’s lead sentence declares: “The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a state to deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
That’s it. A clerk’s personal opinion, carrying no weight of law and misinterpreting what the court said—this is the pillar on which rests today’s practically limitless assertions of corporate “rights.” Davis later asked Chief Justice Waite whether he was correct in saying that the court had ruled on corporate personhood, and Waite responded that “we avoided meeting the Constitutional questions.””
Look Duncan, I’m sorry you feel slighted and wronged. Truly you are right and I am wrong. Based on that nasty lecture you received I have revised my opinion of the ACLU and will be writing them presently to request all of my contributions over the years back.
Oh fer gawds sake. Maybe they were wrong. Maybe the guy who reviewed your case didn’t see the merits. It happens. But I’m afraid it didn’t happen to me. And even if it had, I’ve been slighted when I’ve been right more than once by people with authority. That’s life. Personalizing shit just makes you bitter. By that reasoning, I would hate the Salvation Army, because a Salvation Army truck ran over my dog when I was seven. I loved my dog, but I got over it. Maybe you loved your case more than a seven year old loved a dog, I don’t know.
Sorry, that was a bit harsh..