RACE-BIAS COMPLAINTS SPUR REVIEW OF AIRLINE 'PROFILING'

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Faced with a growing chorus of racial bias
complaints, the U.S. Customs Service created an independent panel
yesterday to review the policies and procedures used by inspectors
looking for airline passengers who might be smuggling drugs.

Customs Commissioner Raymond Kelly pledged that the commission,
composed of officials from other government agencies and headed by
Smithsonian Institution Undersecretary Constance Newman, will have
"unfettered access" to the agency's records and personnel during its
three-month investigation.

Kelly insisted that racial profiling -- selecting passengers for
search based on their race -- is not customs policy, but, "We want to
see if in fact, maybe it's developed into a practice that we want to
stop."

The Customs Service is facing numerous lawsuits over body searches,
including an effort by almost 100 black women to file a class-action
suit in Chicago alleging they were singled out because of their race
and gender.

Customs officers use strip searches, body cavity searches and X-rays
to catch smugglers who hide cocaine or heroin inside their clothes or
swallow packets of the drugs.

Only 50,892 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 said.