Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-96-05249/USCOURTS-caDC-96-05249-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued December 17, 1996 Decided April 15, 1997

No. 96-5249

ARTHUR W. STIGILE AND 

ELLEN BALIS,

APPELLEES

v.

WILLIAM J. CLINTON,

PRESIDENT, ET AL.,

APPELLANTS

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 96cv01328)

Lowell V. Sturgill, Jr., Attorney, United States Department of Justice, argued the cause for appellants, with whom 

Frank W. Hunger, Assistant Attorney General, Stephen W. 

Preston, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Eric H. Holder, 

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Jr., United States Attorney, and Leonard Schaitman, Attorney, United States Department of Justice, were on the briefs.

Benjamin S. Boyd argued the cause for appellees, with 

whom Arthur B. Spitzer was on the brief.

Before: SENTELLE, RANDOLPH and ROGERS, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SENTELLE.

Concurring opinion filed by Circuit Judge ROGERS.

SENTELLE, Circuit Judge: This is an appeal from the district court's grant of an injunction prohibiting the Office of 

Management and Budget from subjecting certain of its employees to random drug testing. The district court held that 

such drug testing violated the employees' Fourth Amendment 

right to be free from unreasonable searches. Because we 

believe the random drug testing at issue here is justified as a 

means of protecting the safety of the President and the Vice 

President, we reverse.

Background

In 1986 President Reagan issued an executive order requiring the head of each executive agency to "establish a program 

to test for the use of illegal drugs by employees in sensitive 

positions." Exec. Order No. 12,564, 51 Fed. Reg. 32,889, 

32,890 (1986). Acting pursuant to this order, the Executive 

Office of the President ("EOP") issued its Drug-Free Workplace Plan in July 1988. The Plan authorized mandatory 

testing of all job applicants and "random testing" of all 

applicants in sensitive positions. Testing under the plan is 

done in accordance with the Department of Health and 

Human Services' ("HHS") mandatory guidelines for drug 

testing by urinalysis.

The Office of Management and Budget ("OMB") is one of 

the entities covered by the EOP plan. In the 1992 Appendix 

to that plan, OMB indicated which of its employees would be 

subject to random testing:

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With minor exceptions, all of the positions in OMB ... 

have been identified as testing designated positions 

["TDP"].... OMB ... [has] considered the extent to 

which the positions considered give employees access to 

sensitive information at the classified level; require employees, as a condition of employment, to obtain a security clearance; require employees to engage in activities 

affecting public health or safety; or give employees 

access to areas that are frequented by the President or 

Vice President or areas to which access is controlled by 

the United States Secret Service in its role of protecting 

the work environment of the President and the Vice 

President. Presently, the only OMB positions not identified as TDP are those where an employee does not have 

passholder access to the Old Executive Office Building 

(OEOB) and there are no other testing criteria applicable 

to the position.

Many of the OMB's senior staff have offices in the OEOB, 

which is next to the White House and within the White House 

security perimeter. Other OMB employees are given passes 

because of their frequent need to visit the building for 

meetings with their supervisors. The OMB singles out 

OEOB passholders for testing because the President and the 

Vice President are frequently in the building. The Vice 

President has his office there and is in the OEOB on a daily 

basis. The President frequently visits for meetings with the 

Vice President and other officials.

OEOB passholders are able to enter the building at any 

time. When they enter, they are subject to magnetometer 

and x-ray security screening measures. OEOB passholders 

are also able to arrange for non-passholders to enter the 

building. These non-passholders must go through the normal 

security procedures and also have their names run through a 

National Crime Information Center background check.

The OMB's concern is that OEOB passholders might use 

their access to harm the President or the Vice President. 

They contend that this harm could come in one of three ways: 

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drug-using OEOB passholders might (1) harm the President 

or the Vice President themselves, (2) clear into the OEOB 

someone intent on harming the President or the Vice President, or (3) collect information on the comings and goings of 

either official for some third party intent on rendering such 

harm.

Appellees Arthur Stigile and Ellen Balis are Financial 

Economists with the OMB. While their offices are in the 

New Executive Office Building, they each have permanent 

passholder access to the OEOB. The OMB originally tested 

only those employees hired after 1992. In 1995, however, the 

OMB reviewed its testing policies and decided that all OEOB 

passholders, regardless of when they were hired, would be 

subject to testing. Stigile and Balis possess permanent 

OEOB passes and therefore became testing-eligible. They do 

not meet any of the OMB's other criteria.

In June 1995 Stigile and Balis received notice that their 

positions were now "Testing Designated." On June 12, 1996, 

Stigile was informed that he had been selected for testing. 

He and Balis (who has not yet been selected) immediately 

sought and received a temporary restraining order prohibiting the OMB from subjecting them to this testing. They also 

requested preliminary and permanent injunctions.

Stigile and Balis contended before the district court that 

the random testing of holders of permanent OEOB passes 

was an unreasonable search in violation of the Fourth Amendment. They noted that there are hundreds of interns and 

visitors who have access to the OEOB who are not required 

to go through this humiliating experience. The government 

responded by arguing that the search was justified as a 

means of protecting the safety of the President and the Vice 

President.

The district court agreed with appellees and granted a 

preliminary injunction barring the OMB from including them 

in its random drug testing program. This appeal followed.

Analysis

The Fourth Amendment states that the "right of the people 

to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, 

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against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not 

be violated...." U.S. CONST. amend. IV. Governmentcompelled urinalysis is a search for purposes of the Fourth 

Amendment. Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Ass'n,

489 U.S. 602, 617 (1989). As such, it is impermissible if it is 

unreasonable.

In criminal cases, a government search is ordinarily unreasonable unless it is conducted pursuant to a judicial warrant 

issued upon probable cause. Id. at 619; National Treasury 

Employees Union v. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 656, 665 (1989). In 

Skinner and Von Raab, however, the Court acknowledged 

that there are exceptions to the warrant requirement for 

cases where a search serves special governmental needs 

"beyond the normal need for law enforcement." Skinner, 489 

U.S. at 619; Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 665. In such cases the 

reasonableness of a search is determined by balancing "the 

public interest in the ... testing program against the privacy 

concerns implicated by the tests, without reference to [the] 

usual presumption in favor of the procedures specified in the 

Warrant Clause." Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 679. We have 

applied this same test to numerous other proposed drug 

testing programs in recent years. See, e.g., National Treasury Employees Union v. United States Customs Serv., 27 

F.3d 623, 626 (D.C. Cir. 1994); Willner v. Thornburgh, 928 

F.2d 1185, 1188 (D.C. Cir.), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 1020 (1991); 

Hartness v. Bush, 919 F.2d 170, 172 (D.C. Cir. 1990), cert. 

denied, 501 U.S. 1251 (1991); National Treasury Employees 

Union v. Yeutter, 918 F.2d 968, 971 (D.C. Cir. 1990); American Fed'n of Gov't Employees v. Skinner, 885 F.2d 884, 889 

(D.C. Cir. 1989), cert. denied, 495 U.S. 923 (1990); National 

Fed'n of Fed. Employees v. Cheney, 884 F.2d 603, 608 (D.C. 

Cir. 1989), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1056 (1990); Harmon v. 

Thornburgh, 878 F.2d 484, 487 (D.C. Cir. 1989), cert. denied,

493 U.S. 1056 (1990).

The public need advanced by the proposed search at issue 

here is the protection of the President and the Vice President. 

This is clearly "beyond the normal need for law enforcement." 

Von Raab and Skinner require therefore that we determine 

whether the search is reasonable by balancing the public 

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1This is not to suggest that ungrounded fears would justify 

searches. We only mean to make clear that we do not preclude the 

possibility that assurance of the public that the President's safety is 

being adequately protected could be a factor in a Fourth Amendment analysis. 

interest served by the testing against the OEOB passholders' 

privacy interest in not being tested.

The Interests

The public interest the government is seeking to protect is 

undoubtedly of the utmost importance. Few events debilitate 

the nation more than the assassination of a President. The 

Supreme Court has recognized the importance of this interest. In Watts v. United States, the Court said, "[t]he Nation 

undoubtedly has a valid, even an overwhelming, interest in 

protecting the safety of its Chief Executive and in allowing 

him to perform his duties without interference from threats of 

physical violence." 394 U.S. 705, 707 (1969) (per curiam); see 

also White House Vigil for ERA Comm. v. Watt, 717 F.2d 

568, 572 (D.C. Cir. 1983) ("The balance that must be struck 

between First Amendment rights and other public interests is 

especially delicate when one of those interests is the safety of 

the President."); Sherrill v. Knight, 569 F.2d 124, 130 (D.C. 

Cir. 1977) ("Clearly, protection of the President is a compelling, even an overwhelming interest ...." (internal quotations 

and citations omitted)).

We note, lest we create an inadvertent precedent by negative implication, that the government may have an additional 

interest not asserted in this case. That is, in addition to 

actually protecting the President, the government also has an 

interest in assuring the public that it is taking every possible 

precaution to ensure that he is safe. The assassination of a 

President has an enormously disruptive impact on the life of 

the nation; the government has an interest in reducing the 

public's fear that it will have to endure this sort of disruption. 

Public measures to protect the President play an important 

role in accomplishing this goal.1 Cf. Harmon, 878 F.2d at 497 

(Silberman, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) 

(arguing that the American people's interest in ascertaining 

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the full commitment of "drug warriors" to the war against 

drugs justifies search by urinalysis).

It is also true, however, that the appellees have a serious 

and legitimate privacy interest in not being subject to urinalysis. The HHS regulations that govern the EOP's testing 

minimize the intrusion into this interest. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 

at 672 n.2. In addition, appellees' expectation of privacy is 

lessened because they occupy positions that require stringent 

background checks. United States Customs Serv., 27 F.3d at 

629. These factors do not, however, eliminate the appellees' 

privacy interest altogether. Urinalysis still requires an employee to perform a quintessentially private act in the presence of another. In Skinner the Court noted that it would 

"not characterize [the] additional privacy concerns [raised by 

urinalysis] as minimal in most contexts." 489 U.S. at 626. In 

Vernonia Sch. Dist. 47J v. Acton, 115 S. Ct. 2386, 2396 (1995), 

the Court cautioned "against the assumption that suspicionless drug testing will readily pass constitutional muster in 

other contexts."

Balancing the Interests

As we have previously noted, the Supreme Court in Von 

Raab and Skinner did not "articulate an analytical rule by 

which legitimate drug-testing programs could be distinguished from illegitimate ones." Harmon, 878 F.2d at 488. 

Skinner and Von Raab require us rather to perform a caseby-case balancing of interests. Despite the fact-specific nature of this inquiry, there are certain broad themes in the 

case law that guide us in our disposition of this case.

Appellees urge us to rely on the principle that there must 

be a "causal connection between the employees' duties and 

the feared harm." National Fed'n of Fed. Employees, 884 

F.2d at 614. In every case where the Supreme Court or this 

court has upheld a drug testing program for federal employees, the feared harm has been directly related to the employee's execution of his job. In Skinner the Department of 

Transportation mandated testing of employees involved in 

serious accidents and authorized testing of employees who 

had violated certain safety rules. 489 U.S. at 606. The Court 

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decided that this testing was reasonable because it helped the 

government both to deter future accidents and to learn the 

cause of accidents that had already occurred. Id. at 628-30. 

In Von Raab the Customs Service required urinalysis of 

employees who sought transfer or promotion to positions that 

involved drug interdiction, use of a gun, or access to sensitive 

information. 489 U.S. at 660-61. The Court allowed the 

program for the first two categories and remanded for more 

information for the third. It held, "[i]n light of the extraordinary safety and national security hazards that would attend 

the promotion of drug users to positions that require the 

carrying of firearms or the interdiction of controlled substances, the [program] cannot be deemed unreasonable." Id.

at 674.

In the cases from our circuit on this question, the link 

between the harm to be avoided and the employee's execution 

of his job has been just as close. See, e.g., Willner, 928 F.2d 

at 1188 ("In our ... decisions concerning random drug testing of incumbents, the balance we struck turned to a large 

extent on the nature of the employee's position."). In National Treasury Employees Union v. United States Customs 

Serv., we allowed testing of employees with access to the 

computer databases the Customs Service used to determine 

which ships were to be searched for drugs. 27 F.3d at 630. 

In American Fed'n of Gov. Employees v. Skinner, we referred to the "extraordinary safety sensitivity of the bulk of 

the" positions covered by a program held to be reasonable. 

885 F.2d at 890; see also National Fed'n of Fed. Employees,

884 F.2d at 610 (allowing drug testing for some employees for 

whom a "single drug-related lapse by any covered employee 

could have irreversible and calamitous consequences"); Harmon, 878 F.2d at 490 ("Von Raab ... suggests that the 

government may search its employees only when a clear, 

direct nexus exists between the nature of the employee's duty 

and the nature of the feared violation.").

Appellees use these cases to argue that because the harm 

the government is seeking to prevent has nothing to do with 

the performance of their duties as economists for the OMB, 

the drug testing program must be unreasonable. They conUSCA Case #96-5249 Document #265769 Filed: 04/15/1997 Page 8 of 19
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tend that random drug testing of government employees 

should be upheld only when there is a clear nexus between 

the employee's performance of his job and the harm that is 

sought to be avoided; that there is no such clear nexus here; 

and that therefore this search must be unreasonable. We 

reject this argument.

Appellees misunderstand the nature of the nexus requirement. The nexus requirement is not a mechanical test, 

requiring the court to ask nothing more than whether the 

harm to be avoided is a result of the tested employee's 

inability to perform his job properly. The nexus to be 

examined is not that between the job and the harm, but 

rather that between the risk posed by a drug-using employee 

and the evil sought to be prevented by the testing. We note 

that even in Harmon, arguably the strongest case in favor of 

appellees' position, the court cited Von Raab as "suggest[ing] 

that the government may search its employees only when a 

clear, direct nexus exists between the nature of the employees' duty and the nature of the feared violation." 878 F.2d at 

490. Thus, the Harmon formulation describes the nexus as 

between the duty and the danger, not between the performance level and the danger. In this case, and perhaps 

others, a duty which places the employee in a position to 

render harm can give rise to that nexus even when the feared 

act by the employee would not itself be a normal part of that 

duty. When the link between the risk and the evil has been 

direct and immediate we have determined that a proposed 

government search is reasonable.

What the nexus requirement demands then is that there be 

an immediate, non-attenuated connection between the employee's drug use and the danger to be avoided. This is why 

in Harmon we allowed the Department of Justice to test 

employees holding top secret national security clearances, but 

did not allow the Department to test all federal prosecutors 

and all employees having access to grand jury proceedings. 

878 F.2d at 496. For employees with access to top-secret 

information, a single mistake could be disastrous, while for 

many other Department of Justice employees the risk was 

not so immediate. As we said there:

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The public safety rationale adopted in Von Raab and 

Skinner focused on the immediacy of the threat. The 

point was that a single slip-up by a gun-carrying agent or 

a train engineer may have irremediable consequences.... Von Raab provides no basis for extending 

this principle to the Justice Department, where the chain 

of causation between misconduct and injury is considerably more attenuated.

Id. (emphasis in original). Likewise, in National Fed'n of 

Fed. Employees, we allowed the Department of the Army to 

test randomly many different categories of employees, but did 

not allow it to extend the program to employees who worked 

in the Army's Drug Testing Laboratories. We acknowledged 

the interest that the government had in ensuring that these 

employees were drug-free, but still did not allow the testing, 

because "a drug-related lapse by such an employee does not 

portend either direct or irreparable harm, as would, for 

example, a lapse by an air traffic controller, pilot, or guard." 

884 F.2d at 614. 

In this case, the harm that the government is seeking to 

avoid has the necessary immediate connection to the risk 

posed by a drug-using employee. If the horrifying scenario 

that the government envisions were ever to come to pass, 

there would be no buffer between the drug-induced lapse by 

the employee and the injury to the nation's interests. There 

would be no opportunity for other government employees to 

stop or make up for the damage done by the errant employee. 

See, e.g., Skinner, 489 U.S. at 628; Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 

670-71. The harm would be both "direct" and "irreparable." 

National Fed'n of Fed. Employees, 884 F.2d at 614. The 

appellees' nexus argument therefore fails.

Appellees also argue that the feared harm in this case is no 

more than "sophistic speculation." They seem to suggest 

that because it is extremely unlikely that an OEOB passholder would use that access to harm the President, then it must 

be unreasonable for the OMB to require testing on this basis. 

While we agree that the likelihood that the feared harm will 

occur is a factor to be considered, we do not agree that the 

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low probability in this case makes the government's search 

unreasonable. The Supreme Court has suggested that the 

more serious the harm that is sought to be avoided, the more 

likely it is that a search that is designed to prevent the harm 

will be thought to be reasonable. In Von Raab the Court 

wrote, "[w]here, as here, the possible harm against which the 

Government seeks to guard is substantial, the need to prevent 

its occurrence furnishes an ample justification for reasonable 

searches calculated to advance the Government's goal." 489 

U.S. at 674-75. The Von Raab Court elaborated on this point 

by citing in a footnote to circuit court opinions upholding 

suspicionless searches of passengers and their baggage at 

airports. The Court quoted the following passage from one 

of these opinions:

When the risk is the jeopardy to hundreds of human lives 

and millions of dollars of property inherent in the pirating or blowing up of a large airplane, that danger alone

meets the test of reasonableness, so long as the search is 

conducted in good faith for the purpose of preventing 

hijacking or like damage....

Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 675 n.3 (quoting United States v. 

Edwards, 498 F.2d 496, 500 (2d Cir. 1974) (Friendly, J.) 

(emphasis in original)).

In this case the government is trying to prevent an extremely serious harm. Given this, we should hold for the 

government so long as there is an adequate connection between the harm sought to be avoided and the drug testing 

program. Here the connection is clear. This court has 

before noted the possibility that a drug user could be vulnerable to bribery or intimidation. United States Customs Serv.,

27 F.3d at 629. It is possible that a drug-using OEOB 

passholder could be blackmailed into using his access to the 

building to assist in an attack on the President. Given the 

importance of protecting the President's safety, this is all that 

is required to make this particular search reasonable. It 

therefore does not violate the Fourth Amendment.

Appellees make one final argument that must be addressed. They argue that random drug testing of OEOB 

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passholders cannot be reasonable because the EOP does not 

test the hundreds of interns, temporary visitors, reporters, 

and contractors who have the same access to the OEOB as do 

holders of permanent OEOB passes. There are two reasons 

why this argument fails. First, this case is about whether it 

is reasonable to administer tests to the holders of permanent 

passes. What the OMB does with other groups cannot 

control a Fourth Amendment challenge to the drug testing of 

permanent passholders. We cannot require the government 

to attack all aspects of a problem before we will uphold its 

right to act against a single aspect. Second, there is a 

significant difference between the access given to permanent 

passholders and the access given to these other groups. 

Non-permanent passholders can enter the building on a temporary basis only. Interns are granted the most access of 

any other group, and they have access for a maximum of 

three months. Permanent passholders are able to observe 

the interior of the building for months on end. They are thus 

in a superior position to acquire information on the comings 

and goings of the President and the Vice President. They 

are therefore a far more valuable source for blackmailers who 

wish to harm either official.

Conclusion

Because the government's interest in protecting the safety 

of the President and the Vice President within the White 

House security perimeter outweighs appellees' interest in not 

being subject to urinalysis, the suspicionless drug testing of 

OEOB passholders is not an unreasonable search. It does 

not, therefore, violate the Fourth Amendment. The district 

court's order is reversed.

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1 National Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 

656 (1989); Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Ass'n, 489 U.S. 

601 (1989). 

2 The security measures include a background check by the 

Federal Bureau of Investigation of every employee who is issued a 

permanent OEOB pass; the employee and all other persons interviewed are asked about illegal drug use, and the background checks 

are updated at five-year intervals. Entry into the OEOB is restricted to passholders and pre-approved visitors who are cleared 

by passholders. Further, an OEOB passholder can only "clear" a 

non-OEOB passholder into the building for a specific appointment, 

and the Secret Service conducts a background check on that person 

with the National Crime Information Center. In addition, all 

persons entering the building must pass through a magnetometer 

and place any bags or packages in an x-ray machine. Once inside, 

persons are free to move about the building, except for certain 

restricted areas, such as the Vice President's office. However, 

attendance at any function or event attended by the President or 

Vice President requires a special invitation. At all times, moreover, 

the President and the Vice President are protected by Secret 

Service agents.

Although the President and Vice President, by the nature of their 

positions, are always at some risk, a 1995 report by the Treasury 

Department states that:

[a]lthough ... Presidents have been exposed to deadly or lifethreatening assaults with frightening regularity, not one of 

these assaults has occurred within the White House Complex. 

Indeed, each assassination or potentially deadly assassination 

ROGERS, Circuit Judge, concurring: Given the precedents in 

which "this circuit has inched its way even farther from the 

core holdings in [Von Raab and Skinner1], repeatedly mollified by the fact that only a minuscule extra step was needed 

to arrive an at outcome arguably supported by precedent," 

National Treasury Employees Union v. United States Customs Serv., 27 F.3d 623, 631 (D.C. Cir. 1994) ("NTEU") 

(Wald, J. dissenting), the court's conclusion in the instant case 

is predictable. Cf. Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 680-87 (Scalia, J., 

dissenting); Hartness v. Bush, 919 F.2d 170, 180 (D.C. Cir. 

1990) (Edwards, J., dissenting), cert. denied, 501 U.S. 1251 

(1991). Following the Supreme Court in Von Raab, this 

court has already accepted the proposition that drug users 

pose a security risk by reason of their increased susceptibility 

to blackmail or bribery. Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 669-70; 

NTEU, 27 F.3d at 629. Given the unique access to areas 

within the White House security perimeter that an Old Executive Office Building ("OEOB") pass provides, the court could 

scarcely avoid concluding that the drug testing program of 

the Executive Office of the President ("EOP") is reasonably 

related to the goal of preventing harm to the President and 

Vice President. Despite the security procedures in place at 

the OEOB2and the absence of evidence of a specific threat 

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attempt has occurred when the Presidential protectee was 

away from the White House, in the proximity of a crowd.

U.S. DEP'T OF TREASURY, PUBLIC REPORT OF THE WHITE HOUSE 

SECURITY REVIEW 92 (1995). It is unclear from this statement 

whether less serious assaults have occurred within the White House 

security perimeter; however, recent events by outside attackers 

indicate that but for intervention more serious harm could have 

resulted. See, e.g, United States v. Duran, 96 F.3d 1495 (D.C. Cir. 

1996). 

3 The government advises that there were six positive drug 

tests by EOP employees under the EOP plan between 1989 and 

1996. Among OMB employees, drug testing has shown less than a 

1% positive testing rate since 1987. As the government notes, 

however, one of the principal justifications for random drug tests is 

their deterrent effect, and it is impossible to know with certainty 

what the incidence of drug use would have been in the absence of 

such tests. 

caused by a drug-using employee of the Office of Management and Budget ("OMB"),3

the devastating impact that an 

assassination of the President would have on this country and 

its people, and people and nations throughout the world, 

weighs in favor of special precautions. See Von Raab, 489 

U.S. at 674-75 & n.3.

That is not the end of our inquiry, however. In Von Raab,

the Supreme Court instructed that "where a Fourth Amendment intrusion serves special governmental needs, beyond the 

normal need for law enforcement, the court must balance the 

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4 There is no reason to address whether the government has 

"an interest in assuring the public that it is taking every possible 

precaution to ensure that [the President] is safe." Majority opinion 

at 6. The government has not asserted that interest and there is no 

evidence whether the public is even aware that OMB employees are 

subject to drug testing. 

individual's privacy expectations against the Government's 

interests to determine whether it is impractical to require a 

warrant or some level of individualized suspicion in the particular context." Id. at 665-66; see also Skinner, 489 U.S. at 

619-20. The question here is whether the privacy interests of 

OMB employees holding OEOB passes in not being subjected 

to random urine testing outweighs the possible risk of physical harm to the President and Vice President.

It is undeniable that protection of the President and Vice 

President is of paramount importance. The government has 

a compelling interest not only in protecting the lives of the 

President and Vice President, but in providing them a safe 

working environment where they can carry out their official 

duties without fear of physical danger.4 Still, some governmental actions in the name of Presidential security would not 

pass constitutional muster. Few today would argue, for 

example, that the government could conduct a random suspicionless search of an OMB employee's home merely on the off 

chance that the search might reveal evidence of a threat to 

the President.

I write separately, therefore, to emphasize the limits of our 

holding in applying Von Raab's balancing test to a threat that 

relates to the situs of employment and not the nature of the 

job itself, and to make clear that under Von Raab even a 

governmental interest of the most compelling order must still 

be weighed against the competing privacy interests at stake. 

Three main factors influenced our holding and help define its 

limits: (1) the need to enable the President and Vice President to do their jobs; (2) the access needs of and consequences for OMB passholders; and (3) the nature of the drug 

testing program.

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5 As required by the EOP security plan, OMB considered four 

criteria in identifying which employees would be subject to drug 

testing:

the extent to which the positions considered give employees 

access to sensitive information at the classified level; require 

employees, as a condition of employment, to obtain a security 

clearance; require employees to engage in activities affecting 

public health or safety; or give employees access to areas that 

are frequented by the President or Vice President or areas to 

which access is controlled by the United States Secret Service 

in its role of protecting the work environment of the President 

and the Vice President.

First, the factual setting itself limits the holding. The 

OEOB is directly adjacent to the White House and inside the 

White House security perimeter. The security perimeter is 

marked by a fence that runs along Pennsylvania Avenue, 

Seventeenth Street, East Executive Avenue, and across the 

front of the White House in Northwest Washington, D.C. 

Apart from the Executive Mansion itself, the OEOB is the 

only building inside this perimeter. This is the area where 

the President and Vice President regularly work; it is where 

they regularly hold meetings and receive foreign dignitaries 

and members of Congress; it is the area where the President 

and his family live. In other words, for the President and 

Vice President to perform their jobs in a reasonable fashion, 

heightened security measures may be justified in this welldefined and limited geographic area.

Second, because senior officials in the OMB have their 

offices in the OEOB, OMB employees whose own offices are 

located outside of the security perimeter may from time to 

time be required to come within the perimeter in order to 

perform their jobs. Consequently, OMB requires that all of 

its employeesexcept a small number of temporary student 

employeeshave passes that give them free access to the 

OEOB. All of these employees are designated for random 

drug testing, notwithstanding the fact that many of them, like 

appellees, do not have access to any secret or top secret 

national security information.5 The OMB passholders have 

continual access to the OEOB that affords them unique 

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6

In acknowledging that "it is plain that certain forms of public 

employment may diminish privacy expectations," Von Raab, 489 

U.S. at 671, the Supreme Court stated that:

We ... agree that employees who seek promotions to positions 

where they would handle sensitive information can be required 

to submit to a urine test ... especially if the positions covered 

under this category require background investigations, medical 

examinations, or other intrusions that may be expected to 

diminish their expectations of privacy in respect of a urinanalysis test.

Id. at 677. 

7 Appellees' contention that they are willing to return their 

OEOB passes is unavailing. The court rejected a similar contention 

in Harmon with respect to holders of top secret clearances, noting 

that although many such employees rarely see top secret information, "[t]he whole point of granting top secret clearances in advance 

is to provide flexibility, to ensure that employees can be given 

access to top secret materials as soon as the need arises." 878 F.2d 

at 492. Similarly, the purpose of requiring OMB employees to hold 

OEOB passes is to provide their employer with flexibility so that 

they may enter the OEOB at any time on short notice. Furthermore, to the extent that appellees' duties require them to enter the 

OEOB, return of the passes would not eliminate the risk the 

government seeks to avoid. 

vantage points to observe the President and Vice President. 

Once inside the OEOB, OMB employees have an unrestricted 

view of the West Wing and grounds of the White House, as 

well as the opportunity to track the comings and goings of the 

President and Vice President. While this information is not 

"secret" in the literal sense of the word, it is "sensitive" 

information that is not readily available to the general public, 

and makes OEOB passholders, albeit in a limited way, analogous to government employees whose access to secret or top 

secret information causes them to be subject to random drug 

testing.6See Hartness, 919 F.2d at 172; Harmon v. Thornburg, 878 F.2d 484, 491 (D.C. Cir. 1989), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 

1056 (1990).

The access granted to OMB employees is not temporary, as 

is true for interns, or limited by a discrete task, as would be 

true of persons repairing a broken fixture, for example. 

Passholders also have authority to obtain access for others 

into OEOB, an authority non-passholders lack. While the 

purpose of such entries is limited to scheduled meetings, the 

passholders' authority is nonetheless unique as compared to 

others who have access to the OEOB. Here, the government 

has reasonably determined that appellees need this authority 

to perform their duties effectively, and that, consequently, 

they must be subject to the heightened security procedures 

that apply inside White House security perimeter.7

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Third, the drug testing program is conducted in a manner 

that minimizes intrusion into individual privacy. Under mandatory guidelines, EOP employees who are selected for random drug testing are permitted to provide urine samples in a 

rest room stall or similar enclosure. Although a monitor of 

the same gender may be present, the monitor is not permitted to observe the employee producing the sample unless 

there is reason to believe the employee will alter or substitute 

the urine specimen. Absent a court order, or as required by 

the United States to defend against a challenge to an adverse 

personnel action, the test results may be disclosed only to a 

limited number of EOP officials. Like the drug testing 

protocols this court and the Supreme Court have addressed in 

previous cases, these procedures "minimize the intrusiveness 

of the ... drug-screening program." Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 

672 n.2; see also Harmon, 878 F.2d at 486. While a more 

invasive search might violate the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness requirement, the risk of harm in the instant case 

outweighs the intrusion on appellees' privacy.

Although the government might have chosen other means 

of detecting drug activity by its employees, the Supreme 

Court has made it clear that the reasonableness of a drug 

testing program "does not necessarily and invariably turn on 

the existence of alternative "less intrusive' means." Skinner,

489 U.S. at 629 n.9 (quoting Illinois v. Lafayette, 462 U.S. 

640, 647 (1983)); see also National Fed'n of Fed. Employees 

v. Cheney, 884 F.2d 603, 610 (D.C. Cir. 1989), cert. denied., 

493 U.S. 1056 (1990). The fact that appellees work in a 

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traditional office environment where drug use might be detected by individual monitoring, while relevant to the Fourth 

Amendment analysis, is not dispositive. See NTEU, 27 F.3d 

at 629; Harmon, 878 F.2d at 489. Although appellees may 

object that the government has not put forth evidence to 

suggest that they or their co-workers are susceptible to 

bribery or blackmail, the Supreme Court has already considered and rejected that argument. See Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 

674-75; id. at 683-84 (Scalia, J., dissenting).

Accordingly, consistent with the required balancing test, 

and with these three factors in mind, the court concludes that 

the risk of harm to the President and Vice President is 

sufficient to outweigh the individual OMB passholder's privacy interests, given the measures taken by the government in 

the drug testing program to minimize the intrusion into 

personal privacy that urinalysis entails. As the court notes, it 

is "extremely unlikely" that the harm the government fears 

will ever come to pass, especially given the other security 

measures in place at the OEOB. Majority opinion at 10. 

Nonetheless, so long as the "possible harm against which the 

Government seeks to guard is substantial," Von Raab, 489 

U.S. at 674-75, and has some reasonable possibility of occurring, a drug testing program, as here, that sufficiently minimizes the intrusion into employees' privacy does not violate 

the Fourth Amendment. Although the Von Raab premise 

that drug users are susceptible to bribery is not infinitely 

elastic, and could not be used to justify drug testing in every 

case, see NFFE, 884 F.2d at 614-15; Harmon, 878 F.2d at 

490-91, here it is sufficient to tip the balance in the government's favor.

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