U.S. CUSTOMS TO SEEK APPROVAL TO HOLD TRAVELERS

WASHINGTON -- The Customs Service, responding to allegations of
abusive drug searches, said Wednesday 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 monitored
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 has "reasonable suspicion" to
continue keeping a passenger in custody beyond four hours, Kelly said.

Should the magistrate decline the Customs request, the passenger would
be released.

"We're taking people's liberty away. We want judicial review of that,"
Kelly said. "We want oversight as soon as reasonably possible."

ACLU responds

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.

Claims of discrimination

Customs is facing numerous lawsuits from people alleging they were
singled out for body searches because of their race and gender. The
allegations first were reported by The Associated Press in December.

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 data
base, 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 those at Customs, to document the race and gender of those
they arrest or detain.

Numbers

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, followed by
white non-Hispanic and black; the term "Hispanic" was used as
including members of all races.

So far this fiscal year, 6,829 whites were searched, followed by 6,572
Hispanics and 4,068 blacks; there was no breakdown by gender.

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. Customs also is revising its handbook
on personal searches.

Customs pledged to help passengers whose travel plans were disrupted
if they were detained but not found to have smuggled drugs: new
travel, hotel or transportation arrangements, with the government paying.

In May, Customs changed its policy so a person detained for at least
two hours could call someone about the delay. The agency also has
clarified criteria for conducting searches, is retraining officers and
has tightened the approval process for personal searches.