ACLU Criticizes Ueberroth’s Drug Testing Program

The Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union Wednesday assailed baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth’s new drug testing program for baseball as an invasion of privacy.

“The question it raises is whether or not it is permissible to invade the privacy of thousands who are innocent of drug use in order to find a hand full of drug users,” the ACLU’s Ira Glasser said. “There’s an old Southern song--’If you hang ‘em all, you get the guilty.’ ”

Glasser called Ueberroth’s plan to force all baseball personnel--except major league players--to submit to a comprehensive drug testing program an example of “unreasonable search and seizure.”

The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution prohibits unreasonable search and seizure by the government. But Glasser, speaking from New York, said that because the drug program is in the private sector, “I don’t think there’s anything to prohibit them from testing.

“This is the sort of cynical stuff that people in power are doing to make a public relations point,” he added. “It’s like shooting a fly with a cannon. And when you do that, a lot of innocent people get hit by the shrapnel.”

Under Ueberroth’s program, which was announced Tuesday, more than 3,000 baseball people will be asked to submit to drug tests. That includes Ueberroth himself, club owners, front office personnel, managers, coaches, scouts and minor league players.

Ueberroth did not announce details of the testing program, but many drug testing programs include urinalysis.

Glasser said that while the program may be constitutional, it potentially has civil rights ramifications involving the discrimination against those with disabilities, in this case drug users “because drug use is defined as a disability in many laws.”

Griffin Bell, as attorney general during the Carter Administration, interpreted federal civil rights statutes to include alcoholism as a disability.

Glasser called the commissioner’s program “a classic abuse of power.”

“The whole idea to allow people to search whoever they want is the type of thing done in a totalitarian country,” he said.

Glasser attacked Ueberroth’s contention that the drug testing program will bolster the integrity of baseball.

“People in power always say things like that, as if violating the rights of innocent people increases integrity,” Glasser said. “He’s not being tough on drug users--he’s being tough on innocent people.”