CUSTOMS SERVICE REWORKS CONTROVERSIAL AIRPORT DRUG SEARCHES

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.

In December, the AP reported that travelers across the country were
complaining of abusive searches.

Since then, 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 International Airport and New
York's Kennedy International Airport have given travelers chosen for a
pat-down the option of standing in front of a body-imaging machine
instead. Twenty-three people have agreed to the low-radiation imaging,
which looks through clothing.

In Miami on Tuesday, one of the machines revealed 3 1/2 pounds of
marijuana in a bicycle tire strapped around a man's waist, officials
said.

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.