Report says U.S. tapped cardinals’ phones ahead of conclave

[onehandle]

Source: Washington Post

ROME — The National Security Agency spied on cardinals as they prepared to select the new pope — perhaps including even Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, who emerged from last spring’s conclave as Pope Francis, a leading Italian news magazine reported in Wednesday’s (Oct. 30) editions.

The news magazine Panorama said the same NSA eavesdropping program that angered leaders in Germany, France, Spain and Mexico also listened in on calls to and from the Vatican, including the phones in the Santa Marta guesthouse that housed Bergoglio and the rest of the College of Cardinals. Pope Francis still lives in the guesthouse, but the magazine did not speculate whether the phones there were still tapped.

Panorama, which said that Bergoglio had been identified as a “person of interest” by the NSA dating back to the 2005 conclave that selected Pope Benedict XVI, said recorded communications from the Vatican were categorized in one of four sections: leadership, financial system threats, foreign policy objectives and human rights issues.

“It is feared that the great American ear tapped prelates’ conversations right up to the conclave,” Panorama said. The Vatican declined to comment at length about the report. The Vatican’s chief spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, issued only a short statement saying, “We have heard nothing of this and are not worried.”



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/report-says-us-tapped-cardinals-phones-ahead-of-conclave/2013/10/30/9293708a-419f-11e3-b028-de922d7a3f47_story.html

[MADem]

1. So "It is feared that" has suddenly morphed into "It happened."

Because, ya know, "a report says."

Could they possibly be more vague?

Perhaps the CIA put The Invisible Man through a crash course in advanced Latin, and sent him into the Vatican to find out what he could:

The Vatican remains a highly secretive institution, with many operations conducted through time-honored means that would make spying difficult — communicating with instructions written on paper, often in Latin.

Odds are, if they "spied" on the Vatican, it was through a HUMINT asset wearing a cassock, not through the "Oooooh, ooooh NSA!!!"

And who the hell are these people? Sounds like newspapers are "outsourcing" their religious news....!!!!

Copyright: For copyright information, please check with the distributor of this item, Religion News Service LLC.

http://www.religionnews.com/about/

RNS is owned by Religion News LLC, a non-profit, limited liability corporation based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Its mission is to provide in-depth, non-sectarian coverage of religion, spirituality and ideas.

......

Advisory Board

Mark Stencel, managing editor, Digital News, NPR
Steve Waldman, senior visiting media policy scholar at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Eboo Patel, founder and director of the Interfaith Youth Core
Gustav Niebuhr, associate professor in Religion and Media, Syracuse University
Fiona Morgan, researcher, DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy, Duke University
Michael Cromartie, vice president, Ethics and Public Policy Center
Omid Safi, professor of Religious Studies, UNC Chapel Hill
Ari L. Goldman, professor of journalism, Columbia University
Richard Ostling, retired religion reporter, Time, Associated Press
Bob Mong, editor, Dallas Morning News
Jonathan Merritt, faith and culture writer
Cathleen Falsani, writer, former religion reporter Chicago Sun-Times
David Van Biema, author at Simon & Schuster; former head religion writer, Time
Suhag Shukla, executive director and legal counsel, Hindu American Foundation
Peter Steinfels, professor, Center on Religion and Culture, Fordham University
Diana Eck, professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies, Harvard Divinity School
Rabbi David Saperstein, director, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism
Samuel G. Freedman, New York Times‘ On Religion columnist, professor of journalism at Columbia University
Thomas A. Tweed, professor of the history of Christianity, University of Texas, Austin
Charles L. Cohen, director, Lubar Institute for the Study of the Abrahamic Religions, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Charles C. Haynes, senior scholar, First Amendment Center; director of Religious Freedom Education Project, Newseum
Diane Winston, Knight Chair in Media and Religion, Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, University of Southern California
Parker J. Palmer, founder and partner, Center for Courage and Renewal; writer
Phyllis Tickle, founding editor, Publishers Weekly Religion Department
The Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, director of religion, Chautauqua Institution; former general secretary of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Yehezkel Landau, professor, Interfaith Relations, Hartford Seminary
Jay Hein, president, The Sagamore Institute, Indianapolis, Ind.
Thomas Asher, program director, Social Science Research Council
L. Gregory Jones, senior strategist, Leadership Education, Duke Divinity School; professor of theology
Wes Granberg-Michaelson, general secretary emeritus, Reformed Church in America

[Enrique]

2. find out if Clapper has money on the Red Sox n/t

[Diclotican]

3. onehandle

onehandle

The supporters of NSAs tapping of all type of communications, claim it is to protect US against terrorism, and other forms of treats that is a danger to the country.. But how in the mighty can the election of a POPE be a danger to the US ?... Specially a pope like Francis who more than once have been a champion of doing good to the poor, and have also criticized a few things in the Catholic Church who might be somewhat old fashioned today... At least from what I have been able to read of the Pope he sound like a reformer to me - it is sad he is old, they tend to die sooner than later... The Catholic church could have needed a pope like him - 20 year ago... Or at least after the late Pope Paul John II was dead...

I guess the Vatican will do its best to safeguard the electronic systems the Vatican use after this news - after all the intelligence agency in the Vatican is old as the Catholic Church - and have been around for at least 1800 year if you count every pope who had their own way of making sure their security was as best as the times could give them... The Vatican intelligence agency is maybe small and more or less unknown for the world - but they have been around for centuries - and have a lot of experience in the field.. And my wield guess is that the intelligence agency in the Vatican is working around the clock now to plug the holes in the gap, and to make sure even the NSA would have troubles to airdrop on the Vatican's communication around the world - or for that matter, the phone calls of the current Pope..

And I guess also, that the Catholic church in one way or another would make sure the US State Dept wile get a notice about the Vatican's positions when it came to airdrops on the Popes calls - not to say the communications from the Vatican.. According to some here on DU, the Catholic Church do have a lot of power in the US, and will probably in the silence make some moves to show the might of the church.. Even as i are nothing compared to what it was 100 years ago...

Diclotican

[yuiyoshida]

4. FOR a brief second... I thought this

referred to the WORLD SERIES.

[JoePhilly]

5. The NSA also knew about Miley Cyrus' plan

to twerk at the VMAs, and they did nothing to stop it!!!!

[DJ13]

6. Its no wonder they couldnt beat the Red Sox

[jsr]

7. I wanna know what the NSA has learned about Mormons and Scientologists

The REAL truth about magic underwear and all that.

[True Blue Door]

10. Mormonism is just a conspiracy to make Utah relevant.

[True Blue Door]

8. Why?

Was it just to punish some junior analyst by making him listen to hours of Latin gibberish?

[JDPriestly]

9. If this is true, I suppose that we will soon have posts from the usual suspects claiming that,

it's really nothing because the Vatican has its own extensive electronic surveillance system and snoops on the whole world anyway.

[PeoViejo]

11. Let's see if the NSA can stop the next 'Terrorist' incident.

Not likely, since so many resources are being assigned to trivial bullshit such as this.

The Administration needs to rescind a lot of Executive Orders that Bush Jr. used to initiate a lot of this crap.

[hack89]

12. Those damned Red Sox --- oh. Never mind. nt