## Facts

- The United States Customs Service adopted a 1986 drug-screening program requiring urinalysis for employees seeking transfer or promotion to certain positions.
- Covered positions included those (1) directly involved in drug interdiction, (2) requiring the incumbent to carry firearms, or (3) involving handling classified material.
- Applicants were informed that selection for a covered position was contingent on successfully completing drug screening.
- The program used specified collection and analysis procedures intended to prevent specimen tampering while limiting privacy intrusions.
- Test results could not be disclosed to other agencies, including criminal prosecutors, without the employee’s written consent.
- The National Treasury Employees Union and a union official challenged the program as an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment.

## Issues

1. Whether compelled urinalysis (collection and chemical analysis of urine) for employees seeking covered positions is a “search” under the Fourth Amendment.
2. If it is a search, whether suspicionless testing is reasonable without a warrant, probable cause, or individualized suspicion for applicants to drug interdiction and firearm-carrying positions.
3. Whether suspicionless testing is reasonable for employees seeking positions involving access to classified information.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court held that the collection and chemical analysis of urine samples required by the government is a Fourth Amendment search.
- Applying a special needs reasonableness balancing test, the Court upheld suspicionless testing for employees seeking transfer or promotion to positions directly involving drug interdiction and for positions requiring the carrying of firearms.
- The Court declined to decide the constitutionality of testing for positions involving classified material because the record did not permit an adequate assessment of the category’s scope and justification; it remanded that part for further proceedings.
- The Court reversed the district court’s injunction insofar as it barred testing for the drug interdiction and firearms categories.

## Legal Principles

- Compelled urinalysis constitutes a search and must satisfy the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness requirement.
- When a search serves governmental objectives beyond ordinary law enforcement, a “special needs” framework permits reasonableness to be assessed by balancing governmental interests against individual privacy interests.
- Warrant and individualized-suspicion requirements may be unnecessary where the government demonstrates substantial interests in safety, integrity, and fitness for sensitive duties, and where the testing program limits intrusions through defined procedures and confidentiality protections.
- Employees seeking certain safety- and security-sensitive public positions may have reduced expectations of privacy concerning information bearing directly on fitness for those positions.
- Courts may require an adequate factual record to evaluate whether a broadly defined testing category is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.

## Conclusion

The Court held that suspicionless urinalysis for Customs employees applying to drug interdiction or firearm-carrying positions was a reasonable Fourth Amendment search under special needs balancing, but remanded the separate classified-information category due to an insufficient record.


Nat'l Treasury Emps. Union v. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 656 (1989)