Page 10 - Customs Today Winter1984-OCR

file system is much more likely to be picked up by Green system, what about other
Inspector Henry:
secondary. Our stats tell us that. things, merchandise, for instance? Probably most would bring in merchan
Commissioner: dise, but some would bring in narcotics.
Well, you see, here in Washing Inspector Eisenhauer: Commissioner:
ton we have the benefit of every In Chicago we're picking up more mer The frequent traveler could
theoretical thought on any subject chandise, too. We're catching it in the red lane
but the benefit of no practical when people under-declare. bring in a lot of small but valuable
items for his friends.
thoughts on anything. That's why Commissioner: Inspector Cook:
you guys are here. So they're not trying to use the I don't think that's so likely to happen in
green lane to go around us?
Inspector Hauk: Houston. There, the passengers can't see into
Before we went to the Red/Green system in Inspector Eisenhauer: either the red or green inspectional areas until
There may be some that are doing that, but
Kennedy, we implemented the CET team. We
we're looking for them in green, too. they turn a corner and enter one of them. When
found that whenever the CET team was work
they enter the green area, they find six inspec
ing in an area, the regular inspectors would tional tables and two or three inspectors. You
work harder to try to show us up. It was a posi Commissioner: can see the look of surprise on their faces. They
tive situation because it led to more seizures. What about Houston, do you
feel that some merchandise smug know, if they 're carrying something, they 're in
trouble. I just don't think we're going to miss
What about the automatic glers are going through your green much with the Red/Green in Houston.
passport reader in Chicago? lane?
Inspector Eisenhauer: Inspector Cook:
It seems to work quite well. We get some Well, from August 1981 to July 1982 we
did a survey on the one-stop and the dual-
passports that seem to have some kind of coating
on them that keeps the machine from reading channel. At the time, we found we were down
them accurately. Also, some of them seem to be a 46,000 passengers, but we had collected over
little too large for the slides on the machine. We $44,000 in additional penalties. And our cur
may have to read as much as 10 percent of them rency seizures were up more than four times to
manually because the machine won't accept $3 million.
them. Commissioner:
Well, now that Red/Green
Commissioner: seems to be working so well, what's
Someone told me that inspec the next modification we can make
tors don't look at every passport in in passenger processing?
great detail anyway. If that's true,
the inspectors, by putting the pass Inspector Henry (New York):
I think it's too early to say that Red/Green
ports in the machine, are actually is the final solution. We're going through an
looking at the passports more care evolutionary period right now, and I think
fully than they ever did before. And we've discovered some good things about the
doesn't this slow down the proc
Red/Green. I also think we've discovered some
essing? bad things. Starting the discussion, the Commissioner discussed
Inspector Eisenhauer: Commissioner: the beginning of Red/Green with Inspector Vance
I do check passports quite throughly, and I What are the bad things? I Cook, who works at Houston Intercontinental Airport
believe most inspectors do. And. with the pass haven't heard about those. where the rapid passenger processing system was first
port reader, you can use the time you used to Inspector Henry: tested.
spend typing the names into TECS to ask a few Well, several of us have pointed out that Intercontinental Airport Inspector Vance Cook tells the
more questions. Maybe those extra questions will Commissioner Customs can process nearly 1,000
we are getting away from baggage examination
help you turn up a seizure. and getting into more of this type of selectivity. passengers an hour using Red/Green, as opposed to
300 per hour before. He adds diet Red/Green has also
Commissioner: This is good to some degree. What I'm con helped Customs make more seizures.
We only have automatic pass cerned about is that maybe we're conditioning
port readers at Chicago and Dulles. passengers to expect that it's a good chance they
Have any of you others seen them? can walk right through Customs if they look
For that matter have any of you innocent.
visited any of the other Red/Green Commissioner:
systems? Would you think it possi So you think we're taking the
ble to duplicate, say, the Houston pressure off the passengers and
system in Miami? that they are not going to give
Inspector Bauman; themselves away by looking
I think so. After all, the success of the nervous?
Red/Green system is built on the rover system. Inspector Henry:
With inspectors trained in behavioral analysis, Well, yes, I think they '11 probably be more
trained to look at people, not their luggage, you relaxed. Some of the people I work with see this
should be able to set up a Red/Green anywhere as a possible source of trouble down the road
or exchange one system for another. with people who are frequent travelers.
Commissioner: Commissioner:
You've all said that narcotic What would you think they'd
seizures are up under the Red/ bring in?

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