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Subject: 96-126.ZO Opinion
Date: 15 Apr 1997 14:18:18 GMT
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NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
ington, D.C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that
corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
--------
No. 96-126
--------
WALKER L. CHANDLER, et al., PETITIONERS
v. ZELL D. MILLER, GOVERNOR OF
GEORGIA, et al.
on writ of certiorari to the united states court
of appeals for the eleventh circuit
[April 15, 1997]
Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Fourth Amendment requires government to
respect -[t]he right of the people to be secure in their
persons . . . against unreasonable searches and sei-
zures.- This restraint on government conduct generally
bars officials from undertaking a search or seizure
absent individualized suspicion. Searches conducted
without grounds for suspicion of particular individuals
have been upheld, however, in -certain limited circum-
stances.- See Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489
U. S. 656, 668 (1989). These circumstances include brief
stops for questioning or observation at a fixed Border
Patrol checkpoint, United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428
U. S. 543, 545-550, 566-567 (1976), or at a sobriety
checkpoint, Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496
U. S. 444, 447, 455 (1990), and administrative inspec-
tions in -closely regulated- businesses, New York v.
Burger, 482 U. S. 691, 703-704 (1987).
Georgia requires candidates for designated state offices
to certify that they have taken a drug test and that the
test result was negative. Ga. Code Ann. 21-2-140
(1993) (hereinafter 21-2-140). We confront in this case
the question whether that requirement ranks among the
limited circumstances in which suspicionless searches
are warranted. Relying on this Court's precedents
sustaining drug-testing programs for student athletes,
customs employees, and railway employees, see Vernonia
School Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U. S. ___, ___ (1995) (slip
op., at 3, 19-20) (random drug testing of students who
participate in interscholastic sports); Von Raab, 489
U. S., at 659 (drug tests for United States Customs
Service employees who seek transfer or promotion to
certain positions); Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives'
Assn., 489 U. S. 602, 608-613 (1989) (drug and alcohol
tests for railway employees involved in train accidents
and for those who violate particular safety rules), the
United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
judged Georgia's law constitutional. We reverse that
judgment. Georgia's requirement that candidates for
state office pass a drug test, we hold, does not fit within
the closely guarded category of constitutionally permissi-
ble suspicionless searches.
I
The prescription at issue, approved by the Georgia
Legislature in 1990, orders that -[e]ach candidate
seeking to qualify for nomination or election to a state
office shall as a condition of such qualification be
required to certify that such candidate has tested
negative for illegal drugs.- 21-2-140(b). Georgia was
the first, and apparently remains the only, State to
condition candidacy for state office on a drug test.
Under the Georgia statute, to qualify for a place on
the ballot, a candidate must present a certificate from a
state-approved laboratory, in a form approved by the
Secretary of State, reporting that the candidate submit-
ted to a urinalysis drug test within 30 days prior to
qualifying for nomination or election and that the results
were negative. 21-2-140(c). The statute lists as
-[i]llegal drug[s]-: marijuana, cocaine, opiates, amphet-
amines, and phencyclidines. 21-2-140(a)(3). The desig-
nated state offices are: -the Governor, Lieutenant
Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, State
School Superintendent, Commissioner of Insurance,
Commissioner of Agriculture, Commissioner of Labor,
Justices of the Supreme Court, Judges of the Court of
Appeals, judges of the superior courts, district attorneys,
members of the General Assembly, and members of the
Public Service Commission.- 21-2-140(a)(4).
Candidate drug tests are to be administered in a
manner consistent with the United States Department
of Health and Human Services Guidelines, 53 Fed. Reg.
11979-11989 (1988), or other professionally valid proce-
dures approved by Georgia's Commissioner of Human
Resources. See 21-2-140(a)(2). A candidate may
provide the test specimen at a laboratory approved by
the State, or at the office of the candidate's personal
physician, see App. 4-5 (Joint Statement of Undisputed
Facts). Once a urine sample is obtained, an approved
laboratory determines whether any of the five specified
illegal drugs are present, id., at 5; 21-2-140(c), and
prepares a certificate reporting the test results to the
candidate.
Petitioners were Libertarian Party nominees in 1994
for state offices subject to the requirements of
21-2-140. The Party nominated Walker L. Chandler
for the office of Lieutenant Governor, Sharon T. Harris
for the office of Commissioner of Agriculture, and James
D. Walker for the office of member of the General
Assembly. In May 1994, about one month before the
deadline for submission of the certificates required by
21-2-140, petitioners Chandler, Harris, and Walker
filed this action in the United States District Court for
the Northern District of Georgia. They asserted, inter
alia, that the drug tests required by 21-2-140 violated
their rights under the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth
Amendments to the United States Constitution. Naming
as defendants Governor Zell D. Miller and two other
state officials involved in the administration of
21-2-140, petitioners requested declaratory and
injunctive relief barring enforcement of the statute.
In June 1994, the District Court denied petitioners'
motion for a preliminary injunction. Stressing the
importance of the state offices sought and the relative
unintrusiveness of the testing procedure, the court found
it unlikely that petitioners would prevail on the merits
of their claims. App. to Pet. for Cert. 5B. Petitioners
apparently submitted to the drug tests, obtained the
certificates required by 21-2-140, and appeared on the
ballot. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 5. After the 1994 election,
the parties jointly moved for the entry of final judgment
on stipulated facts. In January 1995, the District Court
entered final judgment for respondents.
A divided Eleventh Circuit panel affirmed. 73 F. 3d
1543 (1996). It is settled law, the court accepted, that
the drug tests required by the statute rank as searches.
But, as was true of the drug-testing programs at issue
in Skinner and Von Raab, the court reasoned, 21-2-140
serves -special needs,- interests other than the ordinary
needs of law enforcement. The court therefore endeav-
ored to -`balance the individual's privacy expectations
against the Government's interests to determine whether
it [was] impractical to require a warrant or some level
of individualized suspicion in the particular context.'-
73 F. 3d, at 1545 (quoting Von Raab, 489 U. S., at
665-666).
Examining the state interests involved, the court
acknowledged the absence of any record of drug abuse
by elected officials in Georgia. Nonetheless, the court
observed, -[t]he people of Georgia place in the trust of
their elected officials . . . their liberty, their safety, their
economic well-being, [and] ultimate responsibility for law
enforcement.- 73 F. 3d, at 1546. Consequently, -those
vested with the highest executive authority to make
public policy in general and frequently to supervise
Georgia's drug interdiction efforts in particular must be
persons appreciative of the perils of drug use.- Ibid.
The court further noted that -[t]he nature of high public
office in itself demands the highest levels of honesty,
clear-sightedness, and clear-thinking.- Ibid. Reciting
responsibilities of the offices petitioners sought, the
Court of Appeals perceived those -positions [as] particu-
larly susceptible to the `risks of bribery and blackmail
against which the Government is entitled to guard.'-
Ibid. (quoting Von Raab, 489 U. S., at 674).
Turning to petitioners' privacy interests, the Eleventh
Circuit emphasized that the tests could be conducted in
the office of the candidate's private physician, making
the -intrusion here . . . even less than that approved in
Von Raab.- 73 F. 3d, at 1547. The court also noted the
statute's reference to federally approved drug-testing
guidelines. Ibid. The drug test itself would reveal only
the presence or absence of indicia of the use of particu-
lar drugs, and not any other information about the
health of the candidate. Furthermore, the candidate
would control release of the test results: Should the
candidate test positive, he or she could forfeit the
opportunity to run for office, and in that event, nothing
would be divulged to law enforcement officials. Ibid.
Another consideration, the court said, is the reality that
-candidates for high office must expect the voters to
demand some disclosures about their physical, emotional,
and mental fitness for the position.- Ibid. Concluding
that the State's interests outweighed the privacy
intrusion caused by the required certification, the court
held the statute, as applied to petitioners, not inconsis-
tent with the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Ibid.
Judge Barkett dissented. In her view, a balance of
the State's and candidates' interests was not appropri-
ate, for the State had failed to establish a special
governmental need for the regime. -There is nothing so
special or immediate about the generalized governmental
interests involved here,- she observed, -as to warrant
suspension of the Fourth Amendment's requirement of
individualized suspicion for searches and seizures.- Id.,
at 1551.
We granted the petition for certiorari, 518 U. S. ___
(1996), and now reverse.
II
We begin our discussion of this case with an uncon-
tested point: Georgia's drug-testing requirement, imposed
by law and enforced by state officials, effects a search
within the meaning of the Fourth and Fourteenth
Amendments. See Skinner, 489 U. S., at 617; Tr. of
Oral Arg. 36; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae
10 (collection and testing of urine to meet Georgia's
certification statute -constitutes a search subject to the
demands of the Fourth Amendment- (internal quotation
marks omitted)). As explained in Skinner, government-
ordered -collection and testing of urine intrudes upon
expectations of privacy that society has long recognized
as reasonable.- 489 U. S., at 617. Because -these
intrusions [are] searches under the Fourth Amendment,-
ibid., we focus on the question: Are the searches
reasonable?
To be reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, a
search ordinarily must be based on individualized
suspicion of wrongdoing. See Vernonia, 515 U. S., at
___-___ (slip op., at 5-6). But particularized exceptions
to the main rule are sometimes warranted based on
-special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforce-
ment.- Skinner, 489 U. S., at 619 (internal quotation
marks omitted). When such -special needs--concerns
other than crime detection-are alleged in justification
of a Fourth Amendment intrusion, courts must under-
take a context-specific inquiry, examining closely the
competing private and public interests advanced by the
parties. See Von Raab, 489 U. S., at 665-666; see also
id., at 668. As Skinner stated: -In limited circum-
stances, where the privacy interests implicated by the
search are minimal, and where an important governmen-
tal interest furthered by the intrusion would be placed
in jeopardy by a requirement of individualized suspicion,
a search may be reasonable despite the absence of such
suspicion.- 489 U. S., at 624.
In evaluating Georgia's ballot-access, drug-testing
statute-a measure plainly not tied to individualized
suspicion-the Eleventh Circuit sought to -`balance the
individual's privacy expectations against the [State's]
interests,'- 73 F. 3d, at 1545 (quoting Von Raab, 489
U. S., at 665), in line with our precedents most immedi-
ately in point: Skinner, Von Raab, and Vernonia. We
review those decisions before inspecting Georgia's law.
A
Skinner concerned Federal Railroad Administration
(FRA) regulations that required blood and urine tests of
rail employees involved in train accidents; the regula-
tions also authorized railroads to administer breath and
urine tests to employees who violated certain safety
rules. 489 U. S., at 608-612. The FRA adopted the
drug-testing program in response to evidence of drug
and alcohol abuse by some railroad employees, the
obvious safety hazards posed by such abuse, and the
documented link between drug- and alcohol-impaired
employees and the incidence of train accidents. Id., at
607-608. Recognizing that the urinalysis tests, most
conspicuously, raised evident privacy concerns, the Court
noted two offsetting considerations: First, the regulations
reduced the intrusiveness of the collection process, id.,
at 626; and, more important, railway employees, -by
reason of their participation in an industry that is
regulated pervasively to ensure safety,- had diminished
expectations of privacy, id., at 627.
-[S]urpassing safety interests,- the Court concluded,
warranted the FRA testing program. Id., at 634. The
drug tests could deter illegal drug use by railroad
employees, workers positioned to -cause great human
loss before any signs of impairment become noticeable to
supervisors.- Id., at 628. The program also helped
railroads to obtain invaluable information about the
causes of major train accidents. See id., at 630.
Testing without a showing of individualized suspicion
was essential, the Court explained, if these vital inter-
ests were to be served. See id., at 628. Employees
could not forecast the timing of an accident or a safety
violation, events that would trigger testing. The
employee's inability to avoid detection simply by staying
drug-free at a prescribed test time significantly enhanced
the deterrent effect of the program. See ibid. Further-
more, imposing an individualized suspicion requirement
for a drug test in the chaotic aftermath of a train
accident would seriously impede an employer's ability to
discern the cause of the accident; indeed, waiting until
suspect individuals could be identified -likely would
result in the loss or deterioration of the evidence
furnished by the tests.- Id., at 631.
In Von Raab, the Court sustained a United States
Customs Service program that made drug tests a
condition of promotion or transfer to positions directly
involving drug interdiction or requiring the employee to
carry a firearm. 489 U. S., at 660-661, 667-677.
While the Service's regime was not prompted by a
demonstrated drug abuse problem, id., at 660, it was
developed for an agency with an -almost unique mis-
sion,- id., at 674, as the -first line of defense- against
the smuggling of illicit drugs into the United States, id.
at 668. Work directly involving drug interdiction and
posts that require the employee to carry a firearm pose
grave safety threats to employees who hold those
positions, and also expose them to large amounts of
illegal narcotics and to persons engaged in crime; illicit
drug users in such high-risk positions might be unsym-
pathetic to the Service's mission, tempted by bribes, or
even threatened with blackmail. See id., at 668-671.
The Court held that the government had a -compelling-
interest in assuring that employees placed in these
positions would not include drug users. See id., at
670-671. Individualized suspicion would not work in
this setting, the Court determined, because it was -not
feasible to subject [these] employees and their work
product to the kind of day-to-day scrutiny that is the
norm in more traditional office environments.- Id., at
674.
Finally, in Vernonia, the Court sustained a random
drug-testing program for high school students engaged
in interscholastic athletic competitions. The program's
context was critical, for local governments bear large
-responsibilities, under a public school system, as
guardian and tutor of children entrusted to its care.-
515 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 19). An -immediate
crisis,- id., at ___ (slip op., at 17), caused by -a sharp
increase in drug use- in the school district, id., at ___
(slip op., at 1), sparked installation of the program.
District Court findings established that student athletes
were not only -among the drug users,- they were
-leaders of the drug culture.- Id., at ___ (slip op., at 2).
Our decision noted that -`students within the school
environment have a lesser expectation of privacy than
members of the population generally.'- Id., at ___ (slip
op., at 10) (quoting New Jersey v. T. L. O., 469 U. S.
325, 348 (1985) (Powell, J., concurring)). We emphasized
the importance of deterring drug use by schoolchildren
and the risk of injury a drug-using student athlete cast
on himself and those engaged with him on the playing
field. See Vernonia, 515 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 16).
B
Respondents urge that the precedents just examined
are not the sole guides for assessing the constitutional
validity of the Georgia statute. The -special needs-
analysis, they contend, must be viewed through a
different lens because 21-2-140 implicates Georgia's
sovereign power, reserved to it under the Tenth Amend-
ment, to establish qualifications for those who seek state
office. Respondents rely on Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501
U. S. 452 (1991), which upheld against federal statutory
and Equal Protection Clause challenges Missouri's
mandatory retirement age of 70 for state judges. The
Court found this age classification reasonable and not
barred by the federal legislation. See id., at 473.
States, Gregory reaffirmed, enjoy wide latitude to
establish conditions of candidacy for state office, but in
setting such conditions, they may not disregard basic
constitutional protections. See id., at 463; McDaniel v.
Paty, 435 U. S. 618 (1978) (invalidating state provision
prohibiting members of clergy from serving as delegates
to state constitutional convention); Communist Party of
Ind. v. Whitcomb, 414 U. S. 441 (1974) (voiding loyalty
oath as a condition of ballot access); Bond v. Floyd, 385
U. S. 116 (1966) (Georgia Legislature could not exclude
elected representative on ground that his antiwar
statements cast doubt on his ability to take an oath).
We are aware of no precedent suggesting that a State's
power to establish qualifications for state offices-any
more than its sovereign power to prosecute
crime-diminishes the constraints on state action
imposed by the Fourth Amendment. We therefore reject
respondents' invitation to apply in this case a framework
extraordinarily deferential to state measures setting
conditions of candidacy for state office. Our guides
remain Skinner, Von Raab, and Vernonia.
Turning to those guides, we note, first, that the
testing method the Georgia statute describes is relatively
noninvasive; therefore, if the -special need- showing had
been made, the State could not be faulted for excessive
intrusion. Georgia's statute invokes the drug-testing
guidelines applicable to the federal programs upheld in
Skinner and Von Raab. See Brief for United States as
Amicus Curiae 20-21; Von Raab, 489 U. S., at 661-662,
n. 1. The State permits a candidate to provide the
urine specimen in the office of his or her private
physician; and the results of the test are given first to
the candidate, who controls further dissemination of the
report. Because the State has effectively limited the
invasiveness of the testing procedure, we concentrate on
the core issue: Is the certification requirement warranted
by a special need?
Our precedents establish that the proffered special
need for drug testing must be substantial-important
enough to override the individual's acknowledged privacy
interest, sufficiently vital to suppress the Fourth
Amendment's normal requirement of individualized
suspicion. See supra, at 7-11. Georgia has failed to
show, in justification of 21-2-140, a special need of
that kind.
Respondents' defense of the statute rests primarily on
the incompatibility of unlawful drug use with holding
high state office. The statute is justified, respondents
contend, because the use of illegal drugs draws into
question an official's judgment and integrity; jeopardizes
the discharge of public functions, including antidrug law
enforcement efforts; and undermines public confidence
and trust in elected officials. Brief for Respondents
11-18. The statute, according to respondents, serves to
deter unlawful drug users from becoming candidates and
thus stops them from attaining high state office. Id., at
17-18. Notably lacking in respondents' presentation is
any indication of a concrete danger demanding departure
from the Fourth Amendment's main rule.
Nothing in the record hints that the hazards respond-
ents broadly describe are real and not simply hypothet-
ical for Georgia's polity. The statute was not enacted,
as counsel for respondents readily acknowledged at oral
argument, in response to any fear or suspicion of drug
use by state officials:
-QUESTION: Is there any indication anywhere in
this record that Georgia has a particular problem
here with State officeholders being drug abusers?
-[COUNSEL FOR RESPONDENTS]: No, there is no
such evidence. . . . and to be frank, there is no such
problem as we sit here today.- Tr. of Oral Arg. 32.
See also id., at 31 (counsel for respondents affirms
absence of evidence that state officeholders in Georgia
have drug problems). A demonstrated problem of drug
abuse, while not in all cases necessary to the validity of
a testing regime, see Von Raab, 489 U. S., at 673-675,
would shore up an assertion of special need for a
suspicionless general search program. Proof of unlawful
drug use may help to clarify-and to substantiate-the
precise hazards posed by such use. Thus, the evidence
of drug and alcohol use by railway employees engaged
in safety-sensitive tasks in Skinner, see 489 U. S., at
606-608, and the immediate crisis prompted by a sharp
rise in students' use of unlawful drugs in Vernonia, see
515 U. S., at ___-___ (slip op., at 16-17), bolstered the
government's and school officials' arguments that drug-
testing programs were warranted and appropriate.
In contrast to the effective testing regimes upheld in
Skinner, Von Raab, and Vernonia, Georgia's certification
requirement is not well designed to identify candidates
who violate antidrug laws. Nor is the scheme a credible
means to deter illicit drug users from seeking election to
state office. The test date-to be scheduled by the
candidate anytime within 30 days prior to qualifying for
a place on the ballot-is no secret. As counsel for
respondents acknowledged at oral argument, users of
illegal drugs, save for those prohibitively addicted, could
abstain for a pretest period sufficient to avoid detection.
See Tr. of Oral Arg. 44-46. Even if we indulged
respondents' argument that one purpose of 21-2-140
might be to detect those unable so to abstain, see Tr. of
Oral Arg. 46, respondents have not shown or argued
that such persons are likely to be candidates for public
office in Georgia. Moreover, respondents have offered no
reason why ordinary law enforcement methods would not
suffice to apprehend such addicted individuals, should
they appear in the limelight of a public stage. Section
21-2-140, in short, is not needed and cannot work to
ferret out lawbreakers, and respondents barely attempt
to support the statute on that ground.
Respondents and the United States as amicus curiae
rely most heavily on our decision in Von Raab, which
sustained a drug-testing program for Customs Service
officers prior to promotion or transfer to certain high-
risk positions, despite the absence of any documented
drug abuse problem among Service employees. 489
U. S., at 660; see Brief for Respondents 12-14; Brief for
United States as Amicus Curiae 18; see also 73 F. 3d,
at 1546. The posts in question in Von Raab directly
involved drug interdiction or otherwise required the
Service member to carry a firearm. See 489 U. S., at
670 (-Government has a compelling interest in ensuring
that front-line interdiction personnel are physically fit,
and have unimpeachable integrity and judgment.-); id.,
at 670-671 (-[T]he public should not bear the risk that
employees who may suffer from impaired perception and
judgment will be promoted to positions where they may
need to employ deadly force.-).
Hardly a decision opening broad vistas for
suspicionless searches, Von Raab must be read in its
unique context. As the Customs Service reported in
announcing the testing program, -[Customs employees],
more than any other Federal workers, are routinely
exposed to the vast network of organized crime that is
inextricably tied to illegal drug use.- National Treasury
Employees Union v. Von Raab, 816 F. 2d 170, 173 (CA5
1987) (internal quotation marks omitted), aff'd in part,
vacated in part, 489 U. S. 656 (1989). We stressed that
-[d]rug interdiction ha[d] become the agency's primary
enforcement mission,- id., at 660, and that the employ-
ees in question would have -access to vast sources of
valuable contraband,- id., at 669. Furthermore, Customs
officers -ha[d] been the targets of bribery by drug
smugglers on numerous occasions,- and several had
succumbed to the temptation. Ibid.
Respondents overlook a telling difference between Von
Raab and Georgia's candidate drug-testing program. In
Von Raab it was -not feasible to subject employees
[required to carry firearms or concerned with interdiction
of controlled substances] and their work product to the
kind of day-to-day scrutiny that is the norm in more
traditional office environments.- Id., at 674. Candidates
for public office, in contrast, are subject to relentless
scrutiny-by their peers, the public, and the press.
Their day-to-day conduct attracts attention notably
beyond the norm in ordinary work environments.
What is left, after close review of Georgia's scheme, is
the image the State seeks to project. By requiring
candidates for public office to submit to drug testing,
Georgia displays its commitment to the struggle against
drug abuse. The suspicionless tests, according to
respondents, signify that candidates, if elected, will be
fit to serve their constituents free from the influence of
illegal drugs. But Georgia asserts no evidence of a drug
problem among the State's elected officials, those
officials typically do not perform high-risk, safety-
sensitive tasks, and the required certification immediate-
ly aids no interdiction effort. The need revealed, in
short, is symbolic, not -special,- as that term draws
meaning from our case law.
In Von Raab, the Customs Service had defended its
officer drug-test program in part as a way to demon-
strate the agency's commitment to enforcement of the
law. See Brief for United States in Treasury Employees
v. Von Raab, O. T. 1988, No. 86-1879, pp. 35-36. The
Von Raab Court, however, did not rely on that justifica-
tion. Indeed, if a need of the -set a good example-
genre were sufficient to overwhelm a Fourth Amendment
objection, then the care this Court took to explain why
the needs in Skinner, Von Raab, and Vernonia ranked
as -special- wasted many words in entirely unnecessary,
perhaps even misleading, elaborations.
In a pathmarking dissenting opinion, Justice Brandeis
recognized the importance of teaching by example: -Our
Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For
good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its
example.- Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438,
485 (1928). Justice Brandeis explained in Olmstead why
the Government set a bad example when it introduced
in a criminal proceeding evidence obtained through an
unlawful Government wiretap:
-[I]t is . . . immaterial that the intrusion was in aid
of law enforcement. Experience should teach us to
be most on our guard to protect liberty when the
Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to
freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their
liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers
to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of
zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.- Id.,
at 479.
However well-meant, the candidate drug test Georgia
has devised diminishes personal privacy for a symbol's
sake. The Fourth Amendment shields society against
that state action.
III
We note, finally, matters this opinion does not treat.
Georgia's singular drug test for candidates is not part of
a medical examination designed to provide certification
of a candidate's general health, and we express no
opinion on such examinations. Nor do we touch on
financial disclosure requirements, which implicate
different concerns and procedures. See, e.g., Barry v.
City of New York, 712 F. 2d 1554 (CA2 1983) (upholding
city's financial disclosure law for elected and appointed
officials, candidates for city office, and certain city
employees); Plante v. Gonzalez, 575 F. 2d 1119 (CA5
1978) (upholding Florida's financial disclosure require-
ments for certain public officers, candidates, and employ-
ees). And we do not speak to drug testing in the
private sector, a domain unguarded by Fourth Amend-
ment constraints. See United States v. Jacobsen, 466
U. S. 109, 113 (1984).
We reiterate, too, that where the risk to public safety
is substantial and real, blanket suspicionless searches
calibrated to the risk may rank as -reasonable--for
example, searches now routine at airports and at
entrances to courts and other official buildings. See
Von Raab, 489 U. S., at 674-676, and n. 3. But where,
as in this case, public safety is not genuinely in jeopar-
dy, the Fourth Amendment precludes the suspicionless
search, no matter how conveniently arranged.
* * *
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of
Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit is
Reversed.