O'HARE SEARCHES STILL HAUNT WOMEN

Two Chicago women who are suing the U.S. Customs Service after
allegedly being subjected to degrading searches at O'Hare Airport said
Monday they welcome a federal report confirming black female air
travelers were needlessly targeted for strip searches and worse by
customs agents.

"It's one of the lowest, most helpless feelings I have ever
experienced," said Patricia Appleton, 54, a Chicago travel agent who
described being "terrified" as she was strip-searched twice in 1997 at
O'Hare after two return trips from Jamaica. "I will never forget it."

Theology student Gwendolyn Richards said she was strip-searched on two
separate occasions in 1997 at O'Hare after returning from visiting
relatives in Jamaica. Her second detainment wound up being even more
intrusive, she said.

After a female inspector thought she spotted something during
Richards' body cavity search, Richards said she was handcuffed and
taken to Resurrection Hospital for X-rays and a pelvic exam, which
proved she was not carrying drugs.

The pair are among 1,300 African-American women involved in a
class-action suit charging they were singled out for "non-routine"
searches at O'Hare, ranging from patdowns to pelvic exams, said one of
their lawyers, Judd Miner.

"I have never heard of a case in which women were subjected to more
degrading discriminatory conduct on such a massive scale," Miner said.

Customs "needs to understand that simply because an American traveler
checks in her luggage at the airport, that does not mean she has
checked in her constitutional rights," said John Belcaster, another
lawyer in the case.

A report by the General Accounting Office released Monday by Sen. Dick
Durbin (D-Ill.) found black women were singled out disproportionately
at U.S. airports for intrusive searches for contraband and drugs.

The report focuses on 1997 and 1998, but since then, the U.S. Customs
Service has made "major changes, major reforms" that have led to more
effective searches, said Ray Kelly, commissioner of the agency.

High-level supervisory clearance is now needed to conduct patdown
searches or anything more, such as X-rays, Kelly said.

The number of searches has plummeted, but the number of finds is the
same, because of better training and supervision, he said.

Meanwhile, Appleton and Richards said they have permanent feelings of
violation. "On a daily basis I think about it [the search]," Appleton
said. "I have stomach problems, headaches. I am fearful of traveling
internationally."