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LONDON
: British universities are helping intelligence agencies listen to
students' phone calls and intercept e-mails in an attempt to flush out
those with links to terrorist groups, a newspaper said Saturday.
Most of the country's universities co-operate with the Special Branch
--
Britain
's police unit concerned with national security -- and the domestic
counter-intelligence agency MI5 in the surveillance, the Sunday
Telegraph reported.
The scheme was set up after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the
United States
, the paper said, quoting unnamed security sources.
A particularly close eye is kept on students from so-called "red
flag" countries such as Pakistan, Iran, Egypt, Libya and Syria,
with students' telephone numbers, e-mail and home addresses passed on
to the security services.
"It's happening, and it's pretty well known that it's
happening," an official, described as being connected to British
and American security, was quoted as telling the newspaper.
"With all the forms students fill in it is not difficult to get
their mobile phone numbers or e-mails, or find out what kind of
activities they are doing or where they hang out."
Suspected terrorists who have studied in
Britain
include two men wanted in connection with the
Bali
bombings of October 2002, as well as Ramzi Yousef, the convicted
mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centre.
- AFP
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