CUSTOMS UNITS REVISING DRUG SEARCHES

Old procedures drew a barrage of lawsuits

WASHINGTON -- Beset by investigations and lawsuits alleging abusive tactics,
the Customs Service is retraining officers who check airline passengers for
drugs and trying new technology to reduce the need for invasive body
searches.

The changes come as new statistics show the number of cocaine and heroin
smugglers caught at airports dropped by one-fourth in 1998. That poses a
two-pronged problem for customs officials eager to reverse the decline while
tempering public anger over the way travelers are searched.

"This search authority is crucial for us," Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
"We're trying to show movement in the right direction so that we keep the
authority but make it a less onerous process."

In pursuit of smugglers who swallow packets of drugs, officers have
subjected passengers to strip searches, taken them in handcuffs to hospitals
for X-rays and detained some for hours or even days. Almost 100 black women
in Chicago are pursuing a joint lawsuit claiming they were singled out
unfairly because of their race.

Nationally, customs is facing 12 lawsuits over searches of airline
passengers, a spokesman said.

Only a small fraction of the 69 million passengers who pass through customs
each year are questioned. About 50,000 were subjected to some level of body
search in 1997. Searches usually begin with a frisk or pat-down and, with
reasonable suspicion, can proceed to a strip search, X-ray or monitored
bowel movement.

Drugs were found on about one-fourth of passengers subjected to partial or
full strip searches, the agency says. The rate was close to 100 percent a
decade ago, Kelly said, but smugglers have become more sophisticated and
difficult to recognize.

Kelly acknowledged body searches can be traumatic and have become a
"significant problem" for customs.

The Senate Finance Committee, the General Accounting Office and the Treasury
Department are all investigating customs' airport searches. Illinois
senators raised the issue last year after WMAQ-TV reported on complaints
from black women searched at Chicago's O'Hare airport.

Customs has taken several steps to defuse the issue.

An extensive new training program began last month for inspectors at
airports. "It involves both what to look for but also how to handle people,
cultural diversity training, that sort of thing," Kelly said.

Since Feb. 1, inspectors at Miami and New York's Kennedy airports have given
travelers chosen for a pat-down the option of standing in front of a
body-imaging machine instead.

Body imaging may be added to other airports if it proves effective and less
objectionable to passengers, a spokesman said. In some cases, travelers also
have been given the option of submitting to an X-ray in lieu of a strip
search.

The Customs Service plans to install X-ray machines and technicians at major
airports to check suspects without transporting them to a hospital. The
agency is looking for a contractor and has requested $9 million for the
program in 2000.

Customs is also researching whether breathalyzer technology could be used to
detect latex condoms and balloons, which smugglers fill with drugs and
swallow.

Signs and brochures were being installed in airports this week to explain
why travelers might be subjected to a body search, and new comment cards
make it easier to complain about mistreatment. Customs also wants to add a
search warning to the declarations forms travelers fill out.

"People are surprised," Kelly said. "Someone says, 'Go over there' and the
next thing you find out, you're being searched."

The number of travelers caught carrying cocaine or heroin under their
clothes or inside their bodies fell from 916 seizures in 1997 to 677 in
fiscal 1998.