LONG AIRPORT DRUG SEARCH WILL REQUIRE OK OF COURT

WASHINGTON -- The Customs Service, responding to allegations of abusive
drug searches, said Wednesday it will begin seeking approval from a federal
magistrate whenever 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.

It is the most significant step to improve search procedures, said the
agency's commissioner, Raymond Kelly.

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

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

If the magistrate declines the request, the passenger is to be released.

"We're taking people's liberty away. We want judicial review of that,"
Kelly said.

Customs officials said processing at Chicago's airports is not expected to
change significantly.

"It really shouldn't affect operations much at all (in Chicago)," said U.S.
Customs spokesman Dennis Murphy. "It's rare that we would hold someone that
long without being pretty far along in the process. We usually know what
we're dealing with by then."

Murphy said the New York and Miami airports are likely to see the most
significant changes. "We don't see the same kind of drug activity in
Chicago," he said.

The American Civil Liberties Union said the policy change is 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, said ACLU
legislative counsel Gregory Nojeim.

The ACLU would have preferred a tougher "probable cause" standard that a
crime has been committed, he said.

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

The agency is facing numerous lawsuits from people alleging they were
singled out for body searches because of their race or sex.

The agency said that in May it began collecting, for the first time, data
including the race, sex, age and citizenship of people detained for
personal searches, along with the reason for the searches.