Is Drug Testing Welfare Applicants Unconstitutional? (BLOG)

(TIME)Under a new Florida law, people applying for welfare have to take a drug test at their own expense. If they pass, they are eligible for benefits and the state reimburses them for the test. If they fail, they are denied welfare for a year, until they take another test.

Mandatory drug testing for welfare applicants is becoming a popular idea across the U.S. Many states - including Alabama, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Louisiana - are considering adopting laws like Florida's. At the federal level, Senator David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, has introduced the Drug Free Families Act of 2011, which would require all 50 states to drug-test welfare applicants. (See photos inside Colorado's marijuana industry.)

And the focus isn't even limited to welfare. In July, Indiana adopted drug tests for participants in a state job-training program. An Ohio state senator, Tim Grendell, recently said he plans to introduce a bill to require the unemployed to take a drug test before they receive unemployment benefits.

Drug-testing the needy has an undeniable populist appeal. It taps into deeply held beliefs about the deserving and undeserving poor. As Alabama state representative Kerry Rich put it, "I don't think the taxpayers should have to help fund somebody's drug habit."

But as government policy, drug testing is being oversold. These laws do not do what their supporters claim. And more importantly: they are likely to be unconstitutional. (See a TIME feature on your right to privacy.)

Drug testing proponents like to argue that there are large numbers of drug users going on welfare to get money to support their habits. The claim feeds into long-standing stereotypes about the kind of people who go on welfare, but it does not appear to have much basis in fact.

Several studies, including a 1996 report from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, have found that there is no significant difference in the rate of illegal-drug use by welfare applicants and other people. Another study found that 70% of illegal-drug users between the age of 18 and 49 are employed full time.

Drug-testing laws are often touted as a way of saving tax dollars, but the facts are once again not quite as presented. Idaho recently commissioned a study of the likely financial impact of drug testing its welfare applicants. The study found that the costs were likely to exceed any money saved.

Read why drug tests do not always work.

That happens to be Florida's experience so far. A Florida television station, WFTV, reported that of the first 40 applicants tested, only two came up positive, and one of those was appealing. The state stands to save less than $240 a month if it denies benefits to the two applicants, but it had to pay $1,140 to the applicants who tested negative. The state will also have to spend considerably more to defend the policy in court.

Given that cost-benefit reality, it is hard to escape the suspicion that what is really behind the drive to drug-test benefits applicants is a desire to stigmatize the needy. The fact is, there are all sorts of people who benefit from government programs. Businessmen get state contracts, farmers receive crop subsidies and retired state workers receive pensions. The pro-drug-testing movement, however, is focusing exclusively on welfare recipients - an easy target. (Read about ER doctors testing for drugs without a patient's consent.)

Policies like Florida's will almost certainly end up in court - and there is a good chance that they will be struck down. The Fourth Amendment puts strict limits on what kind of searches the state can carry out, and drug tests are considered to be a search. In 1997, in Chandler v. Miller, the Supreme Court voted 8-1 to strike down a Georgia law requiring candidates for state offices to pass a drug test.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the majority, said that the drug testing was an unreasonable search. The state can impose drug tests in exceptional cases, when there is a public-safety need for them (as with bus and train operators, for instance). But the Fourth Amendment does not allow the state to diminish "personal privacy for a symbol's sake," the court said. (Read whether schoolteachers should be drug-tested.)

Drug testing welfare applicants does not seem to meet the Chandler test since there is no particular safety reason to be concerned about drug use by welfare recipients. In 2003, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Michigan's drug testing of welfare applicants as a Fourth Amendment violation.

If Florida and other states are really concerned about drug use, they should adopt stricter laws and better enforcement policies aimed at the whole population, not just the most vulnerable. But these laws are not really about drug use. They are about, in these difficult economic times, making things a little harder for the poor.

Man finds $150,000 in garden (BLOG)

As the old saw goes, money doesn't grow on trees. But sometimes it sprouts up in the garden. An unemployed man in northern Illinois was out working in his backyard when he came across some serious green: bags filled with $150,000 cash.

Wayne Sabaj was headed to pick some broccoli to go with his roast. The carpenter spotted duffel bags that looked like trash by the peppers -- but they turned out to be a cash crop: stacks of $20 bills that added up to about $150,000. The 49-year-old, who is living with his dad, did not exactly jump for joy.

The out-of-work carpenter told ABC7, "I could really use this money." But with this money comes trouble. He explained, "With my luck, it would be bank robbery and I'd get caught and say I'd robbed a bank."

So the honest man with money troubles alerted the police to his amazing backyard treasure.


For now, police haven't a clue to where the cash came from: There are no reported burglaries in the area, and no banks have been robbed.

Then there was the concern that whoever left the money behind would be back, and that's a problem the Sabaj men would rather have solved by the police.

If nobody comes forward to legitimately claim the cash, there may be a happy ending for the man tending his garden: Police will help figure out if Sabaj can keep the money. The carpenter has retained an attorney just in case.

For now, the cash is in custody with the country sheriff, who left behind a card on the lawn where Sabaj found the bags, bearing the simple message, Please call.

Most US Muslims feel targeted by terror policies (BLOG)

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than half of Muslim Americans in a new poll say government anti-terrorism policies single them out for increased surveillance and monitoring, and many report increased cases of name-calling, threats and harassment by airport security, law enforcement officers and others.

Still, most Muslim Americans say they are satisfied with the way things are going in the U.S. and rate their communities highly as places to live.

The survey by the Pew Research Center, one of the most exhaustive ever of the country's Muslims, finds no signs of rising alienation or anger among Muslim-Americans despite recent U.S. government concerns about homegrown Islamic terrorism and controversy over the building of mosques.

"This confirms what we've said all along: American Muslims are well integrated and happy, but with a kind of lingering sense of being besieged by growing anti-Muslim sentiment in our society," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington, D.C.-based Muslim civil rights group.

"People contact us every day about concerns they've had, particularly with law enforcement authorities in this post-9/11 era," he said.

Muslim extremists hijacked four passenger planes on Sept. 11, 2001, crashing them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pa.

In all, 52 percent of Muslim Americans surveyed said their group is singled out by government for terrorist surveillance. Almost as many — 43 percent — reported they had personally experienced harassment in the past year, according to the poll released Tuesday.

That 43 percent share of people reporting harassment is up from 40 percent in 2007, the first time Pew polled Muslim Americans.

Asked to identify in what ways they felt bias, about 28 percent said they had been treated or viewed with suspicion by people, while 22 percent said they were called offensive names. About 21 percent said they were singled out by airport security because they were Muslim, while another 13 percent said they were targeted by other law enforcement officials. Roughly 6 percent said they had been physically threatened or attacked.

On the other hand, the share of Muslim Americans who view U.S. anti-terror policies as "sincere" efforts to reduce international terrorism now surpasses those who view them as insincere — 43 percent to 41 percent. Four years ago, during the presidency of George W. Bush, far more viewed U.S. anti-terrorism efforts as insincere than sincere — 55 percent to 26 percent.

The vast majority of Muslim Americans — 79 percent — rate their communities as either "excellent" or "good" places to live, even among many who reported an act of vandalism against a mosque or a controversy over the building of an Islamic center in their neighborhoods.

They also are now more likely to say they are satisfied with the current direction of the country — 56 percent, up from 38 percent in 2007. That is in contrast to the general U.S. public, whose satisfaction has dropped from 32 percent to 23 percent.

Andrew Kohut, Pew president, said in an interview that Muslim Americans' overall level of satisfaction was striking.

"I was concerned about a bigger sense of alienation, but there was not," Kohut said, contrasting the U.S. to many places in Europe where Muslims have become more separatist. "You don't see any indication of brewing negativity. When you look at their attitudes, these are still middle-class, mainstream people who want to be loyal to America."

The latest numbers come amid increased U.S. attention on the risks of homegrown terrorism after the London transit bombings in 2005. The problem has been especially pressing for President Barack Obama, with federal investigators citing a greater risk of attacks by a "lone wolf" or small homegrown cells following the 2009 Fort Hood shooting and the Times Square bombing attempt last year.

Such terror warnings have stirred raw emotions as the U.S. struggles to talk about religion in the context of terrorism.

Tensions erupted last summer over plans to build a mosque near the Ground Zero site in New York City after critics assailed it as an insult to the victims of the 9/11 attacks. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., held House hearings earlier this year to examine whether American Muslims are becoming "radicalized" to attack the U.S., declaring that U.S. Muslims are doing too little to fight terror.

The Associated Press reported last week that with CIA guidance, the New York Police Department dispatched undercover officers into minority neighborhoods, scrutinized imams and gathered intelligence on cab drivers and food cart vendors, jobs often done by Muslims.

It is now common in U.S. mosques for Muslims to preface public remarks by saying that they know the government is eavesdropping but Muslims have nothing to hide.

Still, one factor behind the somewhat upbeat sentiment of Muslim Americans is the 2008 election of Obama, who pledged to improve relations with the Muslim world. Muslim Americans who vote largely identify themselves as Democrats, and fully 76 percent of those surveyed say they approve of Obama's job performance, compared with 15 percent in 2007 who approved of Bush's performance.

Regarding possible terror risks, about 21 percent of Muslim Americans say there is "a great deal" or "a fair amount" of support for extremism in their communities, according to the Pew survey. About 81 percent of Muslim Americans separately say suicide bombings and other forms of violence against civilians are never justified in order to defend Islam, and growing numbers also express an unfavorable view of al-Qaida — 81 percent compared with 68 percent in 2007.

In all, nearly half say that Muslim leaders in the U.S. must do more to speak out against Islamic extremists, compared with one-third who say Muslim-American leaders have done enough.

The findings offer an uncommon portrait of the Muslim American community, which Pew estimates at roughly 2.75 million, or nearly 1 percent of the U.S. population. By law, the Census Bureau does not ask about people's religions, so extensive details about Muslim American views, their size and demographics as a group are not widely known.

Mostly foreign-born immigrants, Muslim Americans are significantly younger, more likely to be male and more racially diverse than the public as a whole. They express a broad willingness to adopt U.S. customs and are just as likely as the rest of Americans to hold a college degree.

For example:

—When asked to choose, nearly half of Muslims in the U.S. say they think of themselves first as Muslim, rather than as American. Roughly 60 percent say that most Muslims come to the U.S. to adopt the American way of life and see no conflict between being a devout Muslim and living in a modern society.

—Foreign-born Muslims in the U.S. come from at least 77 different countries, led by Pakistan, Iran, the Palestinian territories, Bangladesh, Yemen, Jordan and Iraq. About 70 percent of foreign-born Muslims report they are now naturalized U.S. citizens, higher than the 47 percent rate for the broader immigrant population in the U.S.

—Muslim Americans are more likely than Muslims in the Middle East to say a way can be found for the state of Israel to exist so that Palestinian rights are addressed — 62 percent say this, compared with a range of 13 to 40 percent in other countries surveyed by Pew. That 62 percent share compares with 67 percent among the general U.S. public who hold this view.

The Pew survey is based on telephone interviews with 1,033 Muslims in the U.S., conducted in English, Arabic, Farsi or Urdu from April 14 to July 22. Subjects were chosen at random, from a separate list of households including some with Muslim-sounding names, and from Muslim households that had answered previous surveys.

The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

Katia almost a hurricane; storm fears in Gulf (BLOG)

MIAMI (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Katia was expected to strengthen into a hurricane over the Atlantic on Wednesday, while another mass of thunderstorms that could become a named storm this week triggered evacuations of some oil workers from the Gulf of Mexico.

Katia had sustained winds of 70 miles per hour and would become the second hurricane of the June-through-November Atlantic hurricane season if winds reach 74 mph, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

The Miami-based center said Katia was forecast to become a "major" hurricane with winds over 111 mph on Sunday, but it was still too early to tell whether it would threaten land.

At 5 p.m. (2100 GMT), Katia was about 1,285 miles east of the Caribbean's Leeward Islands. It was moving rapidly west-northwest and was forecast to turn northwest in a couple of days on a course that would keep it away from the Caribbean islands.

Hurricane Irene rampaged up the U.S. East Coast over the weekend and authorities on the U.S. Atlantic seaboard are keeping an eye on Katia to see which path it takes.

Long-range computer models, which can be off by hundreds of miles, show Katia nearing the mid-Atlantic island of Bermuda in about a week. Several models turned it north, away from the U.S. East Coast.

The Atlantic hurricane season typically brings 11 or 12 named storms. Katia is already the 11th, and with half of the season still ahead, it is shaping up to be the unusually busy year that was predicted.

Energy companies with oil and natural gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico were keeping watch on a mass of thunderstorms over the northwest Caribbean Sea and eastern Gulf.

Forecasters said there was a "medium" chance of it developing into a tropical cyclone in the next two days.

BP on Wednesday became the first major oil producer to say it was already evacuating some workers from offshore platforms in the Gulf because of the weather system, which would be dubbed Lee if it becomes a named storm.

Royal Dutch Shell said later it too was preparing to evacuate some workers, while other companies said they were monitoring the system closely.

Porn film shoots voluntarily halted after HIV case (BLOG)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pornography film shoots across the United States have been largely shut down after an industry trade group called for a moratorium because an adult-film performer tested positive for HIV, officials with the organization said on Tuesday.

The temporary moratorium recommended by the Los Angeles-based Free Speech Coalition comes as public health advocates escalated calls for greater enforcement of laws requiring porn stars to wear condoms on the set.

The Free Speech Coalition said it learned on Saturday that a porn film performer who has not been publicly identified had initially tested positive for HIV. It called for an industrywide moratorium on Sunday.

The performer received a preliminary positive result for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, at a health facility outside of California. The San Fernando Valley suburb of Los Angeles has long been a leading hub of the porn industry.

Further diagnostic testing was needed to confirm the performer was HIV positive, the trade group said.

Diane Duke, executive director of the trade group, said she believed porn productions had largely been shut down nationally as a result of the moratorium, and that she was unaware of any companies that were refusing to comply.

"The industry has had a successful system of health and safety self-regulation since 1998, despite any misinformation being spread by our opponents," the Free Speech Coalition said in a statement.

In 2010, another porn performer, Derrick Burts, tested positive for HIV, which also prompted a temporary shutdown of porn productions.

A number of other porn stars have been infected with HIV over the years, said Brian Chase, assistant general counsel for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which was organizing a petition drive for a Los Angeles municipal ballot initiative to require porn performers in the city to wear condoms on set.

Supporters said local authorities were best suited to enforce such a measure.

California law and federal workplace safety rules require the use of condoms for porn stars exchanging bodily fluids through sex, but the industry has largely ignored those mandates, Chase said.

Porn companies have resisted efforts to compel condom usage by arguing it would force productions to go underground or outside the United States, increasing health risks.

The porn industry continues to operate in a legal gray zone, Chase said. "When you've got a situation like that, you've got a lot of industry participants who feel they don't need to follow the law," he said.

Until recently, many porn performers had been regularly tested for HIV at a private clinic in Los Angeles run by a private outfit called AIM Medical Associates. But the clinic closed in May as it filed for bankruptcy and dealt with lawsuits against it.

Since the closure, the Free Speech Coalition has developed a health and safety program to take its place, and it was in the process of signing up performers, producers and agents to participate, the trade group said.

Stacey Dash Leaves VH1's 'Single Ladies' (BLOG)

(ESSENCE)We’ve got some sad news for “Single Ladies” fans this evening. Remember those rumors that Stacey Dash might be leaving the show? Well they’re all true.

Stacey and VH1 both released statements today stating that she would not be returning for season two of the hit show.

"I truly enjoyed playing Val on 'Single Ladies', but I have decided to leave the show. I have to be back in LA with my children right now and the 'Single Ladies' shooting location makes that impossible," Stacey said in an official statement. "I wish VH1 the best of luck with the show and in maintaining the strong fan base we developed in season one.”

PHOTOS: 'Single Ladies' Top 10 Fashion Moments

If you’re wondering whether Stacey’s swift exit had anything to do with the rumors circulating all season long about a rift in the cast – particularly between Stacey and LisaRaye McCoy – don’t’ expect to get answers any time soon. VH1 corroborated Stacey’s statement saying they “respect her” and “thank her for all her hard work in making ‘Single Ladies’ a success right out of the gate.”

After the ‘Single Ladies’ premiere broke records and had a stellar first season, news of a second season was announced during the show’s finale week.

No news yet on what’s next for Stacey, who has two children; a son, Austin, with Christopher Williams, 20, and a daughter, Lola, 7.

Read more: http://www.essence.com/2011/08/31/stacey-dash-leaves-vh1s-single-ladies/#ixzz1WgJXEJG9

Alaska woman punches bear in face to save her tiny dog (BLOG)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A 22-year-old Alaska woman said on Wednesday she punched a black bear in the face to save her small dog from being carried off and possibly eaten.

Juneau resident Brooke Collins said she hit the bear Sunday night to save the life of her dachshund, Fudge. She said she discovered the bear crouched down, clutching Fudge in its paws and biting the back of the dog's neck.

"It had her kind of like when they eat salmon," Collins said Wednesday. "I was freaking out. I was screaming at it. My dog was screaming. I ran up to it ... I just punched it right in the snout and it let go."

Collins said her boyfriend then scared the bear away. "I think it was more startled than anything," she said.

Collins, a hairdresser who has lived in Juneau most of her life, said she is accustomed to bears and knows how to take precautions around them.

She also knew about this particular bear before Sunday's attack because it has been hanging around the neighborhood.

The dog, an older female, was not seriously hurt in the attack, but Collins said she is tending to the animal's wounds and keeping her inside for now. Collins said she is also taking other precautions with her second dog.

Black bears frequently roam the downtown section of Alaska's capital city, which rests against a steep mountain slope and is surrounded by a dense rain forest.

Bear encounters are on the rise this year, despite efforts by local residents to lock away garbage and remove items that might attract the animals, said Neil Barton, a Juneau-based biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

"This year, I think, is a lot worse than last year. I would attribute that to lack of a berry crop," Barten said.

Production of berries around Juneau has been poor this summer, removing a key food source from the bears' diets.

"If they are not available, the bears look for other sources of food," he said.

Bears and dogs sometimes snarl at each other, but actual attacks on dogs are unusual, he said.

Collins said her dog Fudge has chased bears but never been attacked before.

The black bear she punched returned Tuesday, she said, because it was a trash pick-up day.