THANKS, BUT I'LL HAVE THE STRIP-SEARCH

NEW YORK -- It seemed like a good idea to U.S. Customs Service officials, no
doubt. When Customs inspectors became suspicious that someone was trying to
smuggle drugs or other contraband into the country, they would offer a
choice: a conventional strip-search or an X-ray.

For innocent travelers, an X-ray would be less degrading than a strip-search
by a stranger in uniform. And for Customs inspectors, it would be easier to
discover drugs, cash or other illicit goods hidden beneath travelers'
clothing or even inside their bodies.

But, as sometimes happens with good ideas, the reality did not match the
hope. The Customs Service began offering foreign visitors and returning
Americans the X-ray option last October at two major airports, John F.
Kennedy in New York City and Miami International in Florida. In the first
three months of the experiment, nine people at Kennedy and eight in Miami
were offered the choice of an X-ray. No one accepted.

Officials of the Customs Service are not sure why their offer was rejected
so resoundingly, but they have some theories. Drug couriers who are carrying
narcotics internally, usually by swallowing condoms containing heroin, would
surely want to avoid detection through an X-ray. Innocent tourists might
have chosen the humiliation of a strip-search because they feared the health
consequences of an unnecessary X-ray.

And then there was the factor of sheer inconvenience: The X-ray machines
were not in the airports' arrivals buildings, but in their medical centers.
Travelers who opt for an X-ray would have to be driven, in handcuffs, from
the Customs Service's inspection areas to the medical centers.

The 90-day test of X-rays was scheduled to end in mid-January, but officials
have decided to press on. They say they are determined to find a way to
examine tourists and returning Americans without the tension and
unpleasantness of a strip-search.

"I want to keep the option going," said Raymond Kelly, commissioner of the
Customs Service and a former New York City police commissioner. "I want the
concept to stay alive."

In the past, Kelly said, it was relatively easy to spot drug smugglers
arriving at airports. But because of the traffickers' greater
sophistication, inspectors find themselves guessing wrong and searching a
growing proportion of innocent travelers.

"What we're trying to do is mitigate as much as possible the unpleasantness
of a full-blown strip-search," Kelly said. "This is an unpleasant experience
for the inspectors and for the people who are being examined."

So Kelly and his agency are now gearing up for round two of the X-ray
experiment. Contractors have installed new body scan machines in Miami and
at Kennedy that produce images of anything between a traveler's clothing and
skin. This scan exposes people to far less radiation than a traditional
X-ray, which penetrates body organs. It will also be much more convenient
than X-rays have proved to be. The new machines are being tested next to the
Customs Service's inspection areas, near the arrival gates. They are likely
to be in use in a few weeks.

About 70 million people pass through customs at airports, seaports and
border crossings each year, and the overwhelming majority receive only a
cursory look at their documents and luggage.

About 1,700 people were strip-searched by inspectors last year, Customs
officials said.

Even so, some civil liberties lawyers are raising questions about the idea
of taking X-rays of people entering the country -- on grounds both aesthetic
and legal. They noted that the sight of an X-ray or a body-scan machine upon
entering the United States was not quite as welcoming or poetic as the
greeting the Statue of Liberty offered to generations of visitors: "Give me
your tired, your poor, your huddled masses. . . ."

Norman Siegel, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union,
said he is concerned that the use of X-rays "will result in the government
obtaining more information about people that they do not have any interest
in knowing about."

Siegel, whose office has received no complaints about the X-ray option, said
he would want to know whether the federal agency intended to keep copies of
X- rays or body scans of innocent travelers and whether these images would
be retained in a database. He also questioned the possible health
consequences of taking an X-ray that was not needed for medical purposes.

Kelly said the inspectors would destroy the X-rays. "We're not interested in
collecting medical evidence," he said.

But Siegel said his office would monitor the Customs Service's innovations.
He said he was concerned that, because an X-ray or body scan seems less
intrusive than a strip-search, it might one day become routine, in the
process "transforming entrance into the United States into a general
search."

"It really is a commentary on how we're changing," Siegel said. "Drugs are a
serious issue, but from our perspective, it would be better if there were at
least a public discussion about these things."