U.S. CUSTOMS TO GIVE DATA ON STRIP SEARCHES

WASHINGTON -- Following months of television reports suggesting customs
inspectors at O'Hare International Airport have been targeting black women
for strip searches, the U.S. Customs Service agreed Wednesday to release
records of the race of the search targets "soon."

The Customs Service decision followed a meeting of top officials with
Illinois Democratic Sens. Carol Moseley-Braun and Richard Durbin.

The decision to release the material was made as a nominee to head the
Customs Service faces confirmation hearings Thursday by a Senate Committee
on which Moseley-Braun sits.

The two senators also requested a General Accounting Office investigation
of methods the Customs Service uses at O'Hare to target passengers arriving
on international flights for strip searches.

Since March, WMAQ-Ch. 5 has reported on complaints from more than 50 black
women, including lawyers and a Fulbright Scholar, who believe they were
unfairly targeted for O'Hare strip searches.

The WMAQ reports follow years of complaints that "passenger profiles" used
by customs inspectors and other law enforcement officials to target
passengers for searches discriminate on the basis of race.

Moseley-Braun said she is "very, very concerned about the allegations of
discrimination."

While Durbin acknowledged the O'Hare inspectors "have a difficult job," he
said, "if this happened to my wife or daughter, I'd want to choke somebody."

Samuel Banks, acting commissioner of the Customs Service, said passengers
are picked out for intensive searches based on travel patterns but not by
race or sex.

He added that O'Hare customs inspectors' "level of sensitivity" toward race
discrimination now "is heightened significantly" as a result of the reports.

Banks said 78 passengers were strip-searched last year at O'Hare. But he
and supervisors from the Chicago customs office said they were unable to
offer any estimate of how many of those search targets were black or what
portion resulted in drug seizures.