I consider myself a defender of civil liberties and privacy rights, but I'm having trouble getting worked up about disputes in our public schools over searching students' lockers and testing teachers for drugs.

There are important privacy issues worth fighting over in the post-9/11 world, but neither of these seem high on the list.

Keeping our schools safe and drug free is a high community priority, and both of these measures are reasonable tools for school administrators to have at their disposal as the schools update security.

The state Board of Education, which has wrestled for months over random locker searches and use of drug-sniffing dogs on campuses, last week sent the proposed rules back to the attorney general to further tweak the language.

Meantime, the American Civil Liberties Union is trolling for clients to challenge a provision in the new teachers' contract allowing random drug tests.

When I hear complaints that locker searches and drug-sniffing dogs would trample students' rights, I think of what I go through when I use our airports. They search my bags, they make me take off my shoes, they look in my pockets, I'm sniffed by beagles.

Why are students entitled to more privacy rights than their traveling parents?

University of Hawai'i law professor Jon Van Dyke says of random locker searches, "What this policy assumes is that students are all drug dealers, they're all alcoholics."

No more so than we assume that all airline passengers are terrorists.

Critics of locker and canine searches say they send the wrong message to students, but there's nothing wrong with a message that drugs are a grave concern in our community — enough so to move citizens to demonstrate in the streets — and must stop at the schoolhouse door.

The extent of the drug problem varies from school to school, and presumably principals would have the good judgment to apply the security measures with restraint appropriate to the needs of each individual school.

It strikes me as mostly an argument that adults are having with other adults; I see little sign of students rising up in indignation over the proposed searches.

At a recent workshop with high school journalism students, I found them pretty comfortable with reasonable campus security measures as long as the rules are clear to everyone and students aren't led to expect privacy in situations where there would be none.

When I attended Hilo High, we didn't have lockers. We carried our books and gym clothes in Pan Am bags — and if memory serves, the vice principal felt free to check my bag for cigarettes anytime he pleased. My sensitive young psyche survived.

As for random drug testing of teachers who have so much daily contact with our children, there's certainly no epidemic of drug usage among teachers, but there have been enough cases to cause concern.

It seems disingenuous for teachers to agree to a contract that included drug testing to get 11 percent pay raises over two years, and then try to sue their way out of the drug tests.

Some teachers claim they had no choice but to accept drug testing if they wanted raises, but that wasn't so. There was nothing stopping them from standing by their convictions, refusing a contract with drug testing and daring Gov. Linda Lingle to let it become a strike issue.

Drug testing is increasingly common in labor contracts, from truck drivers to baseball players.

School custodians and cafeteria workers represented by the United Public Workers welcomed drug testing as an opportunity to set an example for the community.

What's so different about teachers?

David Shapiro, a veteran Hawai'i journalist, can be reached by e-mail at dave@volcanicash.net. Read his daily blog at blogs.honoluluadvertiser.com.