I’ve always been a little wary of drug-testing. I have an example from my own life that illustrates my point. In the late-1990’s, I helped a friend land a job where I worked. It was an entry-level position, the kind of thing you take fresh out of college, and it was just shuffling papers around. Nonetheless, all prospective employees at this corporation had to pass a drug test. My friend liked the occasional drink, but she did not do any drugs. So it was very surprising and embarrassing for her, and for me, when she came back positive for opioids not once but twice.

She did eventually land the job after it was determined that her daily breakfast, a poppy seed bagel with cream cheese, was responsible for the results. I’m pretty sure the intervention of her livid father was responsible for the corporation backing down on their objection to following through with the hire. Without his help, she probably would have remained unemployed and also deeply humiliated.

It’s not just the questionable efficacy of drug tests that bother me, though, but the questionable need. No company wants to deal with an addict who will steal to feed their habit, but there’s an interview process that provides an opportunity to judge the character of an applicant. Bad hires are made constantly, and companies must suffer the consequences, but that doesn’t merit intrusive invasions of privacy. Should companies demand our internet browsing history too, just to be on the safe side?

Despite my opposition to routine drug testing of job applicants, I’ve always seen the merit of doing this in some cases. A school bus driver or an airplane pilot is being entrusted with a lot of people’s lives. It’s reasonable to take extra precautions against them being impaired. I think the same can be said of police officers. We hand them a gun and give them the power to arrest. This seems to fall into the same category.

I’d go even further and say that because police have certain surveillance powers and are given the presumption of honesty in our courtrooms, they should be treated somewhat the same way we treat government positions that have access to classified information. Since they can easily violate our rights and take away our freedoms, it’s justifiable to do a background check on prospective cops. We should look at their character broadly, including criminal records obviously, but also any propensity for violence, dishonesty, or financial hardship.

Now, there’s a movement on to make it easier to dismiss police officers who are involved in hate groups, and there’s also resistance to this movement.

Last month, a police officer in Fresno, Calif., was fired after videos surfaced that showed him supporting the Proud Boys at a protest. “Such ideology, behavior and affiliations have no place in law enforcement and will not be tolerated within the ranks of the Fresno Police Department,” the police chief said.

Yet when lawmakers in the state recently proposed legislation to give police departments more power to weed out officers with extremist ties, they met resistance.

Brian Marvel, the president of the Peace Officers Research Association of California, said in a statement that the organization supported the idea but not the legislation that was drafted. It would “infringe on a person’s individual rights,” he said, and possibly prevent someone from becoming an officer based on personal beliefs, religion or other interests.

Police officers, like everybody else, enjoy First Amendment rights to free speech and free assembly, so the challenge for lawmakers is figuring out how to preserve those rights while barring extremists from infiltrating the ranks.

My argument is not that police officers do not enjoy First Amendment rights to free speech and free assembly, or even Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure, but rather that police officers are not like everybody else. It’s the same principle that airplane pilots are not like everyone else. It’s nothing personal, but we need to know that our pilots don’t have a drinking problem. For that matter, we don’t want them to be suicidal, since we’ve seen the results of that in several instances in recent decades.

Would anyone object if American Airlines fired a pilot after learning that he belonged to a death cult that is contemplating mass suicide or a terrorist organization that conducts suicide operations? Would that violate the pilot’s religious freedoms?

Well, what if a police officer belongs to a group that doesn’t support the constitutional rights of minority groups and wants to restrict citizenship to whites? What if this group advocates using violence to bring this about? The rule of law is a form of public safety. Anyone who has the power to threaten it deserves extra scrutiny.

There’s a definite slippery slope problem here, which I acknowledge. How extreme is too extreme, and who gets to decide?

The place to start is with sworn law enforcement. If you need to take an oath to uphold the Constitution in order to take the job, then you’re already in a different situation from everybody else. It’s reasonable to do some research on whether you’re likely to keep that oath or not, and it’s also justifiable to terminate you from the position if evidence arises that calls into question your commitment to the Constitution.

There obviously should be a robust appeals process. I don’t want people getting fired because they inadvertently became associated with some group that has unacceptable political beliefs. The standard should be very, very high, and clearly spelled out, which is easier said than done.

But if you want a badge and a gun, you should not expect to be treated like “everybody else.” You’ll have too much power to do harm for us to give you that benefit.