What is the current state of the law on administrative searches?

The concerns, expressed in this circuit and elsewhere, that administrative searches not become a tool for law enforcement, reflect the limited rationale supporting those searches. To sustain a warrantless search, a court must normally make a case-specific factual determination that an exception to the warrant requirement (e.g. exigent circumstances, plain view) is applicable. If the search is approved, the approval covers that case only. An administrative search is different. By approving a warrantless search under this rationale, a court places its stamp of approval on an entire class of similar searches. Because it must consider the general, long-term implications of approving a new type of administrative search, the court will focus on legislative facts--those applicable to the entire class of cases--rather than adjudicative facts--those applicable only to the case before it. The court then relies on these legislative facts to make a dual determination: (1) that the search serves a narrow but compelling administrative objective, see, e.g., Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 536-37, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 1734-35, 18 L.Ed.2d 930 (1967); and (2) that the intrusion is as "limited ... as is consistent with

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