‘Degrading’ and ‘Unconstitutional’: Trump Reviewing Rule That Would Allow Drug Testing for Unemployment Benefits

Common Dreams – by Jake Johnson

The Trump White House is reportedly reviewing a Labor Department rule that would give states the power to force people to pass a drug test before they can receive unemployment benefits, ignoring protests that such screenings would amount to demeaning and unconstitutional invasions of privacy. 

“The rule itself would not automatically impose drug tests on the jobless but would let states screen people who file claims for unemployment benefits―fulfilling a GOP dream from the Obama years,” HuffPost‘s Arthur Delaney reported. “In the wake of the Great Recession, after the national unemployment rate surged to 10 percent, several Republican-led states clamored for the right to obtain the bodily fluids of people laid off through no fault of their own.”

The proposed rule was published the Federal Register last November and immediately came under fire from the ACLU and worker advocacy groups, which condemned the measure as overly broad and likely illegal. The Labor Department finalized the rule last week after a public comment period and sent it to the White House for review.

“The Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable searches by the government. Courts have said drug testing is a search and subject to Fourth Amendment protections,” the ACLU’s Kanya Bennett and Charlotte Resing wrote in a blog post earlier this year. “So unless there are probable cause and individualized suspicion, there should be no search.”

“Exceptions to this rule have been made when the government can show it has a ‘special need’ and that need outweighs individual privacy rights, but that is not the case here either,” they added. “Simply put, the government is on very shaky ground if it thinks it can subject the unemployed to blanket drug testing.”

In addition to constitutional concerns, Bennett and Resing also argued the Trump administration’s rule would add “an unnecessary and degrading toll to the existing stigma of being out of work.”

“Blanket drug testing just further demeans people who the government has no reason to suspect of using drugs,” said Bennett and Resing. “This type of futile and unconstitutional intrusion into people’s privacy simply because they are out of work is unacceptable.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/12/degrading-and-unconstitutional-trump-reviewing-rule-would-allow-drug-testing

6 thoughts on “‘Degrading’ and ‘Unconstitutional’: Trump Reviewing Rule That Would Allow Drug Testing for Unemployment Benefits

  1. How about first we drug test all of congress
    The house , the senate
    The president all of his staff
    And every FBI and Pig
    With zero notice
    FIRST!

    1. ANYONE that gets gov funds should be tested period!

      Now if you are looking for benefits then you should be tested as well. {State laws pending kind of? MJ}

      If you take money from any side of the gov that being ss, pension, paycheck or anything else then you should be tested PERIOD.

      If they have a war on drugs then they should be testing anyone who is getting money!!!

      Don’t like it WELL don’t get involved with gov to support your LIFE.

      Make your own instead of relying on them.

      1. Now there is buying into tyranny to the extreme.
        No, only those who choose to be members of the fiduciary could ever be tested. You see, there is this little thing called due process of the law which requires a f-king action in a common law court before an American national can be forced to do any f-king thing.
        Our world is not their world and bottom line, all that f-king wealth belongs to us and we don’t have to satisfy any mother f-ker’s contention as to what we put in our bodies because it is just none of their f-king business as long as we are not violating someone’s rights.
        And don’t tell me that the American national is taking your money, because they are not. The unlawful treacherous occupational United States Corporation is taking your f-king money.
        What is it you like? Beer? Maybe I’ll decide you should be cut off from the access to your country because you drink beer.
        No, you just can’t perform any kind of search upon my person unless that search is procured through a common law process, which is to say you have filed an action against me for a civil crime and filled out two affidavits to obtain evidence that you know absolutely exist in order to prove your accusation. And if that evidence doesn’t exist, I get to sue you for unlawful seizure of my person in violation of my 4th Article right.
        This f-king unlawful corporation has zero authority to forcibly examine the contents of anyone’s body, as it is an unlawful entity operating as a continuously running act of treason.
        No, you don’t get to look up my ass without due process of the law, and anything that any poor son of a bitch is getting out of these bastards is not a drop in the ocean to what is being stolen from them. I suppose you just can’t see this, huh?

  2. THEY GOTTA RIP OFF SOMEONE……………… THE NASTY BASTARDS OWE THE JEW(THEY THINK) TRRRRRRRIIIIILLLLLLIIIIIIIOOOOONNNNNNSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
    ITS GOT TO WHERE IF YOU HAVE A DIME IN YOUR POCKET YOU CAN ALMOST FEEL A BONY HAND
    TRYING TO DIG AROUND FOR IT…………(thats creepy as hell)

  3. “… would let states screen people who file claims for unemployment benefits…”

    F%&K YOU THIEVING NIGGERS… THAT MAMMON CAME OUT OF THEIR EARNINGS – ANY INCIDENTAL DRUG USE HAS F%&K-ALL TO DO WITH IT!!!!! 😡

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