CUSTOMS SERVICE RETRAINING ITS OFFICERS, EXPLORING NEW DRUG DETECTION
METHODS

Plagued By Lawsuits, Agency Has To Walk A Fine Line

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,
indicating that complaints and lawsuits may be having a chilling
effect on inspectors.

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 in an interview. "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.

The Senate Finance Committee, the General Accounting Office and the
Treasury Department are investigating Customs' airport searches.

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% a decade ago, Kelly said, but smugglers have become more
sophisticated and difficult to recognize.

Kelly acknowledged that body searches could be traumatic and had
become a "significant problem" for Customs.

Among steps taken by Customs to defuse the issue are an extensive new
training program that began last month for inspectors at airports; a
trial program in Miami and New York's Kennedy airports of a
low-radiation body-imaging machine, which looks through clothing;
plans to install X-ray machines and technicians at major airports to
check suspects without transporting them to a hospital; placement of
signs and brochures in airports to explain why travelers might be
subjected to a body search; and new comment cards that would make it
easier to complain about mistreatment.