BROADER SEARCH OK AT AIRPORTS, U.S. COURT RULES

Drugs Found When Bag Punctured

Customs agents were entitled to puncture an airline passenger's bag and
examine the contents after his actions and an X-ray of the bag aroused
their suspicions, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday.

In upholding the passenger's drug conviction and 20-year sentence, the U.S.
Court of Appeals in San Francisco set guidelines for "routine" luggage
searches -- which can be conducted without evidence of wrongdoing. The
ruling appeared to pose no obstacle to the screening required by the
airline security law signed by President Bush last fall.

Noting that an international airport is the equivalent of a national border,

where officers have broader-than-usual authority to search, the court said
luggage can be routinely subjected to X-rays and other technological
examinations.

However, the court said, a search may be considered nonroutine -- requiring
a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing -- if it damages the luggage
significantly or is conducted in a "personally intrusive" way. Routine
searches also must not cause undue delays, the court said.

"An involuntary X-ray of a person could in some cases be considered
nonroutine," the court said.

The new airline security law requires all passenger luggage to be screened
for explosives, and will require the screening to be conducted by a machine
at the end of this year. The Bush administration says it will require X-ray
machines only at large airports.

Yesterday's ruling means "all travelers should be aware when they go to the
airport that their luggage or checked baggage is subject to X- ray," said
Cara DeVito, lawyer for the passenger, Nzelo Okafor. She said she would
appeal to the Supreme Court.

Okafor, a naturalized U.S. citizen living in New Jersey, was prosecuted in
1999 after his luggage was searched at Los Angeles International Airport, a
stopover on his flight from Brazil to Japan. Customs agents said they
ordered his checked luggage X-rayed after he said he was on his way to
Korea to study but couldn't identify the school, lacked a proper visa and
planned to stay for only a few days.

When the X-rays showed a hidden compartment containing a substance, an
inspector used a needle-like probe to extract white powder that tested
positive for cocaine, the court said. Okafor later told the agents he had
been paid $10,000 to deliver the drugs in Japan.

The court said the X-rays were a routine search that could be conducted
without suspicion of wrongdoing. The puncturing of the bag might have been
nonroutine -- if it had caused significant damage -- but agents had ample
reasons for suspicion in light of Okafor's travel plans and the X-ray
results, the court said.