The ACLU argues in court filings that state caseworkers violated privacy and dignity during the time they were enforcing a drug testing policy for welfare applicants.
State caseworkers were ruthless and invasive during the four months they were enforcing a drug testing policy for welfare applicants.
That's an argument the ACLU will take to court next month when they ask a federal court to strike the law down permanently. ACLU lawyer Maria Kayanan said one kidney patient on dialysis was ordered to provide a urine sample through a catheter. Others got unannounced visits from caseworkers who ordered them into bathrooms to produce samples or insisted on counting their prescription pills.
Kayanan says the incidents are documented in the state's own emails.
“They fill in the blanks of what happens on a people level, on a person level, when the statute is implemented. Privacy rights were nonexistent”, said Kayanan.
The legislature approved the drug testing policy in 2011, fulfilling one of Governor Scott's campaign promises to make sure welfare recipients weren't spending their benefits on drugs.
Last October, a federal judge issued an injunction that stopped enforcement of the policy after only four months.