DRUG TESTS WITHOUT PROBABLE CAUSE

In its decision on random drug testing for schoolchildren, the U.S. Supreme
Court has turned the right to privacy on its head, evoking memories of a
line from the movie "Casablanca," by empowering school officials to round
up the usual suspects -- probable cause be damned.

The high court ruling -- upholding mandatory drug tests for middle and high
school students who participate in extracurricular activities -- rattles
the long-held guarantee against personal invasion. Explicitly, the court
said that the students have no such right, making us wonder what these
justices would regard as "unreasonable search and seizure."

The justices decided a student's individual rights are outweighed by the
schools' need to stamp out drug use. The ruling expands a 1995 decision on
drug tests for athletes, adding marching bands, chess clubs and other
groups to those who must submit urine samples even without the suspicion of
wrongdoing.

This intrusion is "negligible" and trumps the Fourth Amendment ban on
unreasonable searches and seizures, the court declared.

Neither the drug-testing policy nor the legal ruling makes any sense.
Various studies have shown that students in extracurricular activities are,
if anything, far less likely to use drugs in the first place.

If there is any solace in the ruling, it is that victory was narrow -- 5-4
- - - and suggests that future attempts to erode civil rights will meet at
least some resistance.

The young people who proudly salute the flag in elementary school -- "and
to the republic for which it stands" -- deserve to have their
constitutional rights protected in their high-school years. The founding
fathers did not put an age requirement on constitutional rights.

As they say in grade school each morning, "with liberty and justice for all. "