Targeting Yuppie Drug Users
March 21 will go down as a sad day in American history. On that day, the Supreme Court of the United States threw the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (“the right of the people to be secure in their persons . . . shall not be violated . . . but upon probable cause”) upon a funeral pyre, sacrificed to the hysteria of drug testing (Part I, March 22).
The court, in its wisdom, has turned the fundamental precept of innocent until proven guilty upside down. Guilty until proven innocent is now the law of the land, probable cause be damned.
Where is it all going to end? Today it is railroad workers and customs agents, tomorrow, perhaps workers in the private sector; next, maybe unskilled laborers.
The Bush Administration and Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh applauded these decisions. I think Justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall had it right in their dissent--that “the need for vigilance against unconstitutional excess is great.”
Yes, this country has a drug problem, but is tearing down the constitutional guarantees that made this nation different and great going to solve the problem? There should be a tombstone erected in front of the Supreme Court Building, reading “Fourth Amendment, 1791-1989, R.I.P.”
GARY A. LYNCH
Los Angeles
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