Report: NSA tracking all U.S. phone calls
WASHINGTON, May 11 (UPI) -- Three major U.S. telephone companies are providing the National Security Agency with records of every phone call made, USA Today reported Thursday.
Sources who asked not to be identified told the newspaper AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth are contributing to a massive database of the calls, which will be used to analyze calling patterns to detect terrorist activity.
The three telecommunications companies are working under contract with the NSA, which launched the program in 2001 shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, sources said.
Customers' names, street addresses and other personal information are not being handed over as part of NSA's domestic program, the sources said. But the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information.
Among the telecommunications companies, sources said only Qwest has refused to help the NSA because it was uneasy about the legal implications of handing over customer information to the government without warrants.
Report: London bombings were preventable
LONDON, May 11 (UPI) -- The bomb attacks on London's transit system last July 7 were preventable but proceeded because of a lack of resources, a British government committee says.
The all-party Intelligence and Security Committee report that studied the attacks by four suicide bombers who killed 52 people said there was also a need for the Security Service and Special Branches to come together "in a combined and coherent way."
The report, released Thursday, said Mohammed Sidique Khan, the ringleader of the four bombers was not fully investigated despite being known to security officials. Soon after the attacks it emerged that Khan had been under surveillance by British intelligence, but MI5 officers assigned to investigate him were diverted to another anti-terrorist operation, The Telegraph reported.
"The story of what was known about the July 7 group prior to July indicates that if more resources had been in place sooner the chances of preventing the July attacks could have increased," the committee said.
The report also said intelligence and security agencies currently have "no evidence" of direct links between the July 7 attacks and four further failed attacks on London transport targets on July 21.
DNA link reported in lacrosse rape case
DURHAM, N.C., May 11 (UPI) -- A possible DNA link to Duke University lacrosse players has been found from fingernail scrapings from a dancer who claims she was raped at a house party.
Sources told the Durham (N.C.) Herald-Sun tissue under the dancer's nails was from the same genetic pool and was "consistent" with the bodily makeup of one of 46 lacrosse players who gave DNA samples for testing.
The woman told police she clawed at three attackers as they raped and sodomized her for 30 minutes during the March 13-14 lacrosse house party.
The State Bureau of Investigation did an initial round of DNA testing, but defense attorneys said no DNA from the 46 lacrosse players was found in or on the dancer's body, her clothing and belongings or under her fingernails.
But District Attorney Mike Nifong hired a private laboratory, and said he expects a final report from that lab by Monday.
Two lacrosse players have been indicted on rape charges.
Bush losing conservative support
WASHINGTON, May 11 (UPI) -- Republican support for the Bush administration has fallen by 13 percent in the past two weeks based on spending policies, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
The decline was noted by the Gallup polling organization, and the newspaper said reflects disenchantment with "out of control" spending, a failure to tighten immigration laws and restrict same-sex marriage, and putting an end to the Iraq war.
"Conservatives forgave Bush and Congress for our past mistakes because the war on terrorism was so important ... but now there is a great deal of unhappiness," said Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Fla. "What you are going to increasingly see is a divided Republican Party."
However, Frank Newport of the Gallup Organization cautioned against reading too much into Bush's recent loss of conservative support. He said the numbers tend to ebb and flow and must be confirmed over several months before concluding Bush has suffered irreversible erosion.
Ahmadinejad calls Israel 'evil regime'
JAKARTA, Indonesia, May 11 (UPI) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told students in Indonesia Thursday Israel is an "evil regime" that would soon be "annihilated."
Addressing a cheering rally in Jakarta, Ahmadinejad dared the West to end its support for Israel, Iran Focus reported.
"If the West does not support Israel, this regime will be toppled", Ahmadinejad said. "As it has lost its raison d'etre, Israel will be annihilated."
He also repeated his past claims that the Holocaust was a myth.
"The West claims that more than 6 million Jews were killed in World War II and to compensate for that they established and support Israel," he said. "If it is true that the Jews were killed in Europe, why should Israel be established in the East, in Palestine?"
Ahmadinejad is leading Iran's defiance of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency, and refusing to stop the country's atomic research, which Western countries believe is a cover for developing nuclear weapons.
