CUSTOMS TO CHANGE RULES ON BODY SEARCHES

WASHINGTON -- Faced with lawsuits charging
racial bias in body searches, the Customs Service on Wednesday
announced a package of changes intended to revamp how the agency
examines thousands of people suspected of smuggling drugs into the
United States.

Customs Service Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters that the
agency had decided to scrap its confusing and contradictory guidelines
that allowed inspectors wide lattitude to search almost anyone,
including people who seemed nervous or too calm, wore sun glasses or
loose fitting clothing.

In their place, the agency is instituting a system based on criteria
that focus on a passenger's behavior and such factors as whether the
suspect has given inconsistent answers to an inspector's questions, is
the subject of an intelligence report or has been detected by a drug
sniffing dog.

Personal searches are used to detect drug "swallowers" who ingest
drugs or those who hide drugs in their clothing or body cavities. Last
year, more than 50,000 people, of more than 71.5 million air
passengers who passed through customs from overseas flights, were
subjected to some form of search on arrival in the United States.

Most of those searched were only frisked or patted-down, but about
2,000 people were subjected to more intrusive body searches, including
X-ray inspections, monitored bowel movements or examinations of body
cavities.

A class action lawsuit filed in Chicago said that customs inspectors
arbitrarily subjected black women to intrusive and humiliating
physical searches, but found drugs in less than a quarter of the searches.

Kelly said the agency has never had a policy of singling out blacks or
other minorities for searches. "It's not part of our policy," he said.
"We want to make certain that is not part of our practices."

To protect the rights of passengers suspected of carrying drugs, Kelly
said that beginning Oct. 1, the agency would begin notifying a federal
magistrate anytime a passenger arriving at an airport from overseas is
held for more than four hours. In the past, suspects were held for far
longer periods without any judicial notification.

In addition, the Customs Service, which acknowledges that its own
record-keeping was sloppy, will begin collecting centralized data that
will help agency managers determine the success-rate of searches and
whether specific groups seem to be unfairly singled out for
examinations.

Critics of the searches said the changes were a positive, but timid
start first step and that much more needed to be done.

Edward M. Fox, a lawyer who represents about 90 black women who were
subjected to searches after they landed at O'Hare International
Airport in Chicago, said, "It's a good start but they will need to go
much further."

For example, Fox said, most searches, including what he said were
abusive body examinations, were conducted within the four-hour period
set by Customs for asking a federal magistrate to rule on whether
there are reasonable grounds to hold a passenger for a personal
search. As a result, he said, the decision to seek a magistrate's
approval was "window dressing."

The changes, some of which have already been put into effect, are
intended to increase managerial control over the system, improve its
efficiency and eliminate the number of searches that turn up nothing
and reduce the perception that the search process is arbitrary, unfair
and racially biased.