CUSTOMS SET TO FIRE WHISTLEBLOWER

WASHINGTON - The Customs Service is moving to fire an inspector
who went public with allegations that black and Hispanic airline
passengers were being targeted for drug searches because of their race.

Although Customs official deny any racial bias, the agency made
several changes to improve the treatment of airline passengers after
complaints from Cathy Harris and others - including dozens of women
who filed lawsuits - brought congressional attention to the issue.

Customs officials have given Harris a 30-day notice of plans to fire
her because she allowed a television station access to internal
records showing black passengers in Atlanta were singled out for
searches at a higher rate than whites. Customs regulations ban release
of the records, which include personal information about travelers.

Under pressure from Congress, travelers' lawsuits and news reports,
Commissioner Raymond Kelly ordered several changes this year to make
searches less traumatic for passengers and guard against racial
targeting by inspectors. Strip searches and body cavity searches are
used to find people smuggling heroin or cocaine under their clothes or
inside their bodies.

Changes include sensitivity training for inspectors, letting people
detained for more than two hours call a lawyer, and requiring legal
advice from a U.S. attorney if a passenger is detained more than eight
hours. In some airports, micro-dose X-ray machines are now being used
in lieu of pat-downs in some cases.

``What the public scrutiny caused, and what the specter of Senate
Finance Committee hearings caused, was a top-to-bottom review of not
just racial bias, but what are our policies and procedures and why,
and should we change them,'' Customs spokesman Dennis Murphy said Friday.

Customs, meanwhile, is taking steps to fire another inspector who has
publicly criticized the agency: Croley Forester, president of the
Treasury employees' union local in Miami. Forester, who complained
about lax security at Miami International Airport and cronyism within
Customs, was accused of falsely saying he had inspected a box that
later was found to contain cocaine, officials said.

Murphy said the cases aren't retaliation, but instead reflect reforms
designed to make the disciplinary process more fair and consistent.

``The Atlanta and Miami cases show we are going to be evenhanded,''
Murphy said. ``When people who have gone public with allegations in
the past are caught up in situations that go before the Discipline
Review Board, we can't say that's so-and-so and if we do something to
them that would create problems for us. That's favoritism.'' Harris
plans to seek government help under the Whistleblower Protection Act,
which protects the jobs of federal workers who disclose waste, fraud
and abuse.

She admits printing out six months' worth of records of searches at
Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport for an attorney
representing her in a sexual and racial harassment complaint against
Customs. She said her former attorney shared them with WAGA-TV in
Atlanta for a story that aired last February without her knowledge.

But Harris says she has no regrets about the disclosure.

``They wouldn't have gotten the full story without me doing that, and
people need to know,'' she said.

Harris said black travelers were routinely singled out for strip
searches while white passengers - even those who aroused the interest
of drug dogs - were not stopped.

``I stood there all day long and I watched this. I knew what was going
on and it was wrong,'' said Harris, 43, who has worked 13 years for
Customs.

Harris, who says she and other black female employees were also
harassed, has sent written testimony to two congressional committees
and the General Accounting Office, filed eight complaints with the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, organized a protest group
among Customs workers and is pursuing her own harassment lawsuit. She
is currently on unpaid leave, which she sought because of stress.

Harris' attorney, Tom Allison, said the changes in Customs' procedures
should help vindicate her.

``It's an admission that what she reported was actually something
where policies needed to change,'' Allison said. ``She did what she
thought was right. She is a whistleblower.''