Cite as: 532 U. S. 67 (2001)
Scalia, J., dissenting
I suppose, that testing of the urine is prohibited by some generalized privacy right "emanating" from the "penum-bras" of the Constitution (a question that is not before us); but it is not even arguable that the testing of urine that has been lawfully obtained is a Fourth Amendment search. (I may add that, even if it were, the factors legitimizing the taking of the sample, which I discuss below, would likewise legitimize the testing of it.)
It is rudimentary Fourth Amendment law that a search which has been consented to is not unreasonable. There is no contention in the present case that the urine samples were extracted forcibly. The only conceivable bases for saying that they were obtained without consent are the contentions (1) that the consent was coerced by the patients' need for medical treatment, (2) that the consent was uninformed because the patients were not told that the tests would include testing for drugs, and (3) that the consent was unin-formed because the patients were not told that the results of the tests would be provided to the police.1 (When the court below said that it was reserving the factual issue of consent, see 186 F. 3d 469, 476 (CA4 1999), it was referring at most to these three—and perhaps just to the last two.)
1 The Court asserts that it is improper to "disaggregate the taking and testing of the urine sample from the reporting of the results to the police," because "in our special needs cases, we have routinely treated urine screens taken by state agents as searches within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment." Ante, at 76, n. 9. But in all of those cases, the urine was obtained involuntarily. See Chandler v. Miller, 520 U. S. 305 (1997); Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U. S. 646 (1995); Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Assn., 489 U. S. 602 (1989); Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489 U. S. 656 (1989). Where the taking of the urine sample is unconsented (and thus a Fourth Amendment search), the subsequent testing and reporting of the results to the police are obviously part of (or infected by) the same search; but where, as here, the taking of the sample was not a Fourth Amendment search, it is necessary to consider separately whether the testing and reporting were.
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