CUSTOMS SERVICE WILL REVISE SEARCH PROCEDURES

Law Enforcement:The Agency Will Need Approval From A Federal Magistrate If
It Holds A Passenger For More Than Four Hours.

Washington-The Customs Service,responding to allegations of abusive
drug searches, said Wednesday that it will begin seeking approval from
a federal magistrate any time it wants to hold an airline passenger
for more than four hours.

The new policy, effective Oct. 1, marks the latest change in the way
customs checks passengers for drugs, and is the most significant step
to improve search procedures, said the agency's commissioner, Raymond
Kelly.

The searches are intended to catch smugglers who hide cocaine or
heroin inside their clothes or who swallow drug packets. The searches
usually begin with a pat down and, with reasonable suspicion, can
proceed to a partial or full strip search, an X-ray or a mintored
bowel movement.

In general, customs now can detain passengers for long periods of time
without court approval. Under the change, customs would have to
convince a federal magistrate that it had "reasonable suspicion" for
continuing keeping a passenger in custody beyond four hours, Kelly
said.

If the magistrate declines the Customs Service request, the passenger
is released.

The American Civil Liberties Union said it was a step in the right
direction. But the group believes the reasonable suspicion standard is
easy enough for law enforcement to meet and the change still does not
"protect people from abusive or discriminatory" searches, legislative
counsel Gregory Nojeim said.

The ACLU would have preferred a tougher "probable cause" standard that
a crime has been committed, he said. "They are not going the distance
that they should to protect passengers' civil liberties."

Customs arrived at the four-hour trigger because historical data
showed that limit generally is the time frame when critical decisions
are made about the need for more advanced searches, officials said.

Customs is facing numerous lawsuits from people alleging they were
singled out for body searches because of their race and gender.

The agency announced Wednesday that in May it began collecting, for
the first time, uniform data including the race, gender, age and
citizenship of people detained for a personal search, along with the
reason for the search.

Previously, information was not reported in a consistent manner.
Customs officials believe the information, stored in a national
database, eventually will give the agency a more accurate picture of
who is being stopped and why.

In June, President Clinton ordered federal law-enforcement officers,
including Customs, to document the race and gender of those they
arrest or detain.

Around 52,468 of the 71.5 million international air travelers who
passed through Customs in 1998 were subjected to some level of body
search, most of them simple pat-downs, customs officials have said.
Most people stopped for searches last year were Hispanic men, followed
by white men, and black men.

An independent panel has been looking at complaints of racial bias by
customs inspectors involving personal searches and is expected soon to
report its findings, Kelly said.