FEDERAL WORKERS LOSE BID TO HALT DRUG TESTING

Government: U.S. Supreme Court rejects appeal of bureaucrats with access to
the White House complex. The safety of president, vice president is cited.

WASHINGTON--The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the government to continue
drug tests on federal white-collar employees whose occasional access to the
White House complex could in theory pose a security risk to the president.

Economists, budget analysts and other white-collar bureaucrats with passes
to the Old Executive Office Building "are uniquely well positioned to
threaten the president and the vice president," Clinton administration
lawyers had asserted in asking the court to uphold a lower-court ruling.

"Mind-altering drugs could induce a pass-holder to take actions that would
jeopardize the safety of those officials," the lawyers said.

The court, without comment, refused to hear a plea from two budget analysts
who contended that the rationale behind the drug tests was far-fetched.
"Suspicionless drug testing must be based upon real, not imaginary or
symbolic, dangers," they argued.

The case illustrates how uncertain the law on drug testing remains. The
high court has insisted that the 4th Amendment protects the privacy of
public employees from "unreasonable searches," including mandatory drug
tests. But when there is a true threat to public safety, such as in the
case of airline pilots or train engineers, the court has said that the
government can require workers to undergo drug tests.

Despite that invocation, the justices also have refused to block
drug-testing programs that go much further and include, for example,
teachers, student athletes and now some white-collar federal workers.

The case rejected Monday had its moments of unintended humor. White House
interns are not forced to take drug tests, Clinton administration lawyers
conceded, even though they sometimes can move freely in the West Wing of
the White House, where the president's office is located.

The budget analysts who challenged the drug tests, Arthur Stigile and Ellen
Balis, are not confidants of the president. They do not brief him on the
budget or even visit the main White House. They work one block away in the
New Executive Office Building. Their security passes also allow them to
enter the ornate Old Executive Office Building next door to the White
House. The mandatory drug-testing program began under President Reagan in
1986. He adopted the goal of having a drug-free federal workplace and
allowed federal agencies to test employees in "sensitive" posts. At the
White House, this included officials who worked with the president or who
had a top-level security clearance.

In 1995, the Clinton White House expanded that program to include the
budget analysts and other white-collar workers. Lawyers said that 7,000
full-time workers are covered by the order. A federal judge initially
blocked the broader testing as unwarranted and unconstitutional, but the
U.S. appeals court revived it last year. The appeals court opinion, written
by Judge David Sentelle, agreed that bureaucrats working a block away pose
a greater danger to the president than the White House interns.

These "permanent pass-holders are in a superior position to acquire
information on the comings and goings of the president and vice president,"
said Sentelle, the conservative North Carolinian who heads the panel that
appointed Kenneth W. Starr as an independent counsel. "They are therefore
far more valuable sources for blackmailers who wish to harm either
official," Sentelle said.

Without comment Monday, the justices dismissed the appeal in the case
(Stigile vs. Clinton, 97- 837).

Arthur Spitzer, an ACLU lawyer who represented the two budget analysts,
said he was disappointed by the court's action but doubts that it has broad
significance.

"Maybe they think the White House already has enough trouble without trying
to explain this," he said.

Copyright Los Angeles Times