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Glenn Greenwald's partner detained at Heathrow airport for nine hours

David Miranda, partner of Guardian interviewer of whistleblower Edward Snowden, questioned under Terrorism Act

Glenn Greenwald: a failed attempt at intimidation



Guardian staff
The Guardian, Sunday 18 August 2013 16.08 EDT




Glenn Greenwald (right) and his partner David Miranda, who was held by UK authorities at Heathrow aiport. Photograph: Glenn Greenwald


The partner of the Guardian journalist who has written a series of stories revealing mass surveillance programmes by the US National Security Agency was held for almost nine hours on Sunday by UK authorities as he passed through London's Heathrow airport on his way home to Rio de Janeiro.

David Miranda, who lives with Glenn Greenwald, was returning from a trip to Berlin when he was stopped by officers at 8.05am and informed that he was to be questioned under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The controversial law, which applies only at airports, ports and border areas, allows officers to stop, search, question and detain individuals.

The 28-year-old was held for nine hours, the maximum the law allows before officers must release or formally arrest the individual. According to official figures, most examinations under schedule 7 – over 97% – last under an hour, and only one in 2,000 people detained are kept for more than six hours.

Miranda was released, but officials confiscated electronics equipment including his mobile phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and games consoles.

Since 5 June, Greenwald has written a series of stories revealing the NSA's electronic surveillance programmes, detailed in thousands of files passed to him by whistleblower Edward Snowden. The Guardian has also published a number of stories about blanket electronic surveillance by Britain's GCHQ, also based on documents from Snowden.

While in Berlin, Miranda had visited Laura Poitras, the US film-maker who has also been working on the Snowden files with Greenwald and the Guardian.

"This is a profound attack on press freedoms and the news gathering process," Greenwald said. "To detain my partner for a full nine hours while denying him a lawyer, and then seize large amounts of his possessions, is clearly intended to send a message of intimidation to those of us who have been reporting on the NSA and GCHQ. The actions of the UK pose a serious threat to journalists everywhere.

"But the last thing it will do is intimidate or deter us in any way from doing our job as journalists. Quite the contrary: it will only embolden us more to continue to report aggressively."

A spokesperson for the Guardian said: "We were dismayed that the partner of a Guardian journalist who has been writing about the security services was detained for nearly nine hours while passing through Heathrow airport. We are urgently seeking clarification from the British authorities."

A spokesperson for Scotland Yard said: "At 08:05 on Sunday, 18 August a 28-year-old man was detained at Heathrow airport under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. He was not arrested. He was subsequently released at 17:00."

Scotland Yard refused to be drawn on why Miranda was stopped using powers which enable police officers to stop and question travellers at UK ports and airports.

There was no comment from the Home Office in relation to the detention. However, there was surprise in political circles and elsewhere. Labour MP Tom Watson said that he was shocked at the news and called for it to be made clear if any ministers were involved in authorising the detention.

He said: "It's almost impossible, even without full knowledge of the case, to conclude that Glenn Greenwald's partner was a terrorist suspect.

"I think that we need to know if any ministers knew about this decision, and exactly who authorised it."

"The clause in this act is not meant to be used as a catch-all that can be used in this way."

Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act has been widely criticised for giving police broad powers under the guise of anti-terror legislation to stop and search individuals without prior authorisation or reasonable suspicion – setting it apart from other police powers.

Those stopped have no automatic right to legal advice and it is a criminal offence to refuse to co-operate with questioning under schedule 7, which critics say is a curtailment of the right to silence.

Last month the UK government said it would reduce the maximum period of detention to six hours and promised a review of the operation on schedule 7 amid concerns it unfairly targets minority groups and gives individuals fewer legal protections than they would have if detained at a police station.
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Susan Rice: Snowden leaks haven't weakened Obama

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In this June 25, 2013 photo provided by the United Nations, outgoing U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice speaks to reporters at her final news conference at the U.N. headquarters. Rice, who will start her new job as U.S. national security adviser on July 1, said the U.N. Security Council's failure to take action to stop the conflict in Syria is "a moral and strategic disgrace that history will judge harshly." (AP Photo/United Nations Photo, Devra Berkowitz)

EDITH M. LEDERER 29 minutes ago PoliticsForeign PolicyBarack ObamaUnited States



UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice dismissed claims that Edward Snowden's highly classified leaks have weakened the Obama presidency and damaged U.S. foreign policy, insisting that the United States will remain "the most influential, powerful and important country in the world."

Rice's remarks were her only public ones on Snowden and came in an interview with The Associated Press as she prepared to leave the U.N. post and start her new job Monday as President Barack Obama's national security adviser.

She said it's too soon to judge whether there will be any long-term serious repercussions from the intelligence leaks by the former National Security Agency contractor who fled to Hong Kong and then Russia after seizing documents disclosing secret U.S. surveillance programs in the U.S. and overseas, which he has shared with The Guardian and Washington Post newspapers.

"I don't think the diplomatic consequences, at least as they are foreseeable now, are that significant," she said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have called Snowden's leaks a serious breach that damaged national security. Hagel said Thursday an assessment of the damage is being done now.

"There will always be difficult issues of the day," Rice said, "and frankly this period is not particularly unique."

"I think the Snowden thing is obviously something that we will get through, as we've gotten through all the issues like this in the past," she said in the interview Thursday before heading to a lunch in her honor hosted by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The United States has charged Snowden with espionage and demanded his extradition, but China and Hong Kong let him fly to Moscow and the Russians have so far refused. The Snowden case has not only raised tensions with Moscow and Beijing but with many Americans concerned about the NSA collecting their Internet and phone data.

Rice dismissed commentators who say Snowden's disclosures have made Obama a lame duck, damaged his political base, and hurt U.S. foreign policy, saying: "I think that's bunk."

"I think the United States of America is and will remain the most influential, powerful and important country in the world, the largest economy, and the largest military, (with) a network of alliances, values that are universally respected," she said.

Rice said Obama has "significant ambitions and a real agenda" for his second term, pointing to major speeches last week on disarmament and nonproliferation and this week on the impact of climate change.

As for Snowden, she said, "It's often, if not always something, and U.S. leadership will continue to be unrivaled, demanded, expected — and reviled and appreciated around the world."

Rice, 48, is expected to bring her outspoken and aggressive negotiating style to her new, higher-profile job.

At the United Nations, she has been a bold and blunt ambassador, successfully pushing for tougher sanctions against Iran and North Korea and international intervention in Libya. But Libya ultimately caused her greatest professional disappointment when she became the face of the administration's bungled account of the terrorist attack in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador.

The furor scuttled Rice's long-held hopes of becoming secretary of state when it became clear she would not gain Senate confirmation to that post, which went to John Kerry.

Rice has called her 4 1/2 years at the U.N. "the best job I ever had," and told The AP she would be "hard-pressed" to think of any better place to prepare for her new post.

"You get to deal with ... literally every country under the sun, and I think you get a unique feel for the orientations, interests, styles, of a wide, wide range of countries," she said.

To succeed at the U.N., Rice said, it's crucial to form alliances and coalitions, which change depending on the issue, so a friend one day can be an opponent the next day.

Rice has sparred repeatedly with Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, who can be equally blunt. But despite being on opposite sides of the Syrian conflict, which has paralyzed council action to end the fighting, Rice said they agree perhaps 85 percent of the time.

"I like and respect him," she said. "I think he likes and respects me, and it's been a good relationship. That's why I asked him to speak at my farewell. I asked people who were important to me. He's a very smart and a very funny guy and he can be a pain in the butt, too — and I tell him that to his face!"

At the farewell, Churkin delivered an off-the-record roast of Rice, without notes, that had some 300 diplomats, U.N. officials and journalists doubled-over in laughter.

The Syrian conflict will be near the top of Rice's agenda in Washington as will the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea.

Rice said the result of Iran's presidential election earlier this month, a victory for Hasan Rouhani, a moderate who supports direct talks with Washington, "was a dramatic demonstration of the Iranian peoples' dissatisfaction with the status quo."

"To the extent that the leadership feels obliged to heed popular opinion — obviously we would hope they would — it may perhaps signal a readiness to move in a different direction, and if so, we would welcome it," she said.

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P.S.

*Susan Rice (CFR, Trilateral Commission Executive Committee)

.http://lefemineforlife.blogspot.com/2008/12/obama-announces-five-more-nwo.html

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Quoting the Pope and Missing the Point

by SAM SAWYER, SJ on June 16, 2013



The New York Times went for the obvious headline — about the Pope talking about a “gay lobby” — and missed the chance to run this one: “Pope Says Don’t Worry About the Inquisition.” Confused? Let me explain.

Wait for it, wait for it…

A Pope who’s very comfortable going off-script and improvising — jazz-style, as Ryan Duns has observed — has been keeping the media on their toes. Most recently, there’s discussion of a set of private remarks from the Pope’s meeting with representatives from the confederation of Latin American religious orders, via a set of notes leaked from the conversation. Aside from raising the question of who leaked the notes (a couple of months back, we would have said the butler did it) this story also illustrates what drives news coverage: if the words “gay” and “Pope” are anywhere in the same story, then — bang! — there’s your headline.

But that story gets the emphasis wrong on a number of fronts. In the first place, it’s unlikely that the Pope, even in a private meeting, was staking out a general position on homosexuality within the Church — he was speaking about the issue of corruption within the Curia, and acknowledged that the speculation about a “gay lobby” was part of this larger issue that must be addressed in order for the Curia to serve its proper role. The issue isn’t homosexuality per se, but rather the fact that secrecy and hypocrisy lead to unfreedom, as Ryan Duns, SJ discusses on his own blog.

Further, the Pavlovian over-reaction to a story involving the church and sex has buried a much more sensational quote. If all you’re reading is the New York Times, you’d walk away thinking that the Pope had a meeting with Latin American religious orders in order to talk about homosexuality. In fact, Pope Francis was encouraging them to be bold in pursuing their ministry — and especially not to be fearful about the challenges they may face from within the church, even including concern from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (i.e., the Vatican department charged with maintaining orthodoxy, formerly known as “the Inquisition”). He’s reported as saying, “Maybe you’ll receive a letter from the Congregation for Doctrine [sic], saying that they were told this or that thing…. But don’t let it bother you. Explain what you have to explain, but keep going forward.” Don’t let doctrinal controversies bother you — explain yourselves and keep going forward: that’s the real news from this meeting.

In addition to dealing with leaked private remarks, the media and the Vatican press offices have also had to deal with the unprecedented practice of daily short papal homilies at Masses in the Domus Santa Marta where Francis has continued to live since his election. Even though the Vatican has stopped publishing the text of the Pope’s daily homilies to avoid suggesting that they are formal teaching statements, they’re still being widely reported and discussed, especially when he said that even atheists are redeemed.



As with the “gay lobby” story, a single word in that homily — “redemption” — got the press off on the wrong foot, and the coverage ended up tying itself up in knots on the specifics of who can get into heaven. We talked about it here at TJP, too. However, if you actually read what the Pope said (go ahead, it’s right here) that’s exactly the question he’s rejecting. In his homily, he pleads for Catholics to recognize, in a “culture of encounter,” their commonality with all who do good. And then he imagines someone — someone who’s missing the point — objecting “But, Father, this is not Catholic! He cannot do good.” And to this person, Francis replies that our common identity as children of God and the one redemptive sacrifice of Christ on the cross for all means that we can, and must, “meet one another doing good.” The real message? Stop arguing about who’s being saved, and start doing good.

Here’s a quick rule of thumb for interpreting pope quotes. First, he’s almost certainly not inventing new Church teaching on the fly, and he’s also not working from talking points designed to serve up soundbites. What he’s actually doing is preaching — that is, trying to say something to encourage and support people in their faith. The standard for that communication is not what will sound good when it’s reported, but what people really need to hear about the love of God and God’s will for them. What’s been consistent across everything he’s said — and can be found both in the homily touching on atheism and the leaked private remarks — is that Francis focuses on doing good first, and trusts that we can sort out the theological details later. The message isn’t just “practice what you preach” — it’s that the only message you can preach is the one you’re already practicing. That’s the real story.


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Eric Holder on hot seat as he juggles twin scandals

Holder called the original AP story that sparked the probe 'a very, very serious leak.' | AP PhotoClose
By REID J. EPSTEIN and JOSH GERSTEIN | 5/14/13 11:22 PM EDT


U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that he’d recused himself from the national security leak investigation in which prosecutors obtained the phone records of Associated Press journalists — but that he’s already started a fresh inquiry into the IRS scrutiny of conservative political groups.

The comments were the first from Holder or the Justice Department on the twin Obama administration scandals that have burst through in recent days. And they come as the Justice Department, and Holder himself, find themselves under increasing pressure.  Continue Reading



Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/eric-holder-scandals-91377.html#ixzz2TKXiigi8

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Corruption whistleblower on trial instead of Vatican officials

File photo shows Pope Benedict XVI (R) waving as he stands in his popemobile with his butler Paolo Gabriele (C) upon arrival for a weekly general audience at Saint Peter's Square in The Vatican.

Sat Sep 29, 2012 2:42PM GMT

Instead of trying high-ranking officials of the Catholic Church for financial and moral corruption, a Vatican court has put the Pope’s former butler on trial for disclosing information on corruption.

Pope Benedict XVI's former butler Paolo Gabriele went on trial on Saturday in the Vatican for exposing financial and moral corruption within top brass of the Vatican. 

The trial reportedly began at a 19th-century courtroom in a corner of the city state where only eight reporters were allowed inside the courtroom and TV cameras were also banned. If found guilty, he risks up to four years in prison. 

The 46-year-old, who was arrested in May on suspicion of stealing secret documents from the pope's office, has confessed to taking confidential documents and memos and leaking them to Italian press. The ex-butler has however entered a non-guilty plea. 

He told investigators that he was hoping to save the Church by exposing “evil and corruption” within it.

Gabriele says he acted alone, but many believe he worked as part of a wider group of disgruntled Vatican employees. 

Many of the letters and other confidential documents that he allegedly took from the pontiff's desk were published in a book by an Italian journalist in May, which prove that the highest levels of Vatican officials are deeply involved in financial corruption and infighting over the power. 

MR/MAM/JR/SS

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Vatican Infighting Leaked to Journalist

19 June 2012 Last updated at 02:40 ET

A senior Vatican official has spoken of a fierce attempt to sow divisions between Pope Benedict and his closest associates.

The Vatican's Secretary of State was responding to the recent leaking of sensitive documents which have been turned into a book.

Alan Johnston reports.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18501390

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GOP senators press Holder for special prosecutor into potential national security leaks

Published June 26, 2012

FoxNews.com

GOP senators are putting the pressure on Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special counsel to investigate whether the White House is responsible for national security leaks.

“The numerous national security leaks reportedly originating out of the executive branch in recent months have been stunning,” according to a copy of the letter to Holder, signed by more than 30 GOP senators and obtained by Fox News. “If there were ever a case requiring an outside special counsel with bipartisan acceptance and widespread public trust, this is it.”

Among the concerns about the leaks are recent news reports regarding the United States' drone attacks in the Middle East.

Their letter points out the recent New York Times story about the drone program and its list of human targets states the reporting involved interviews with "three dozen of [President Obama's] current and former advisers."

It suggests that Thomas Donilon, the national security adviser, is a likely source, in part because he was frequently cited in David Sanger’s book "Confront and Conceal."

“Mr. Donilon, in effect, is the hero of the book, as well as the commenter of record on events," wrote reviewer Tom Ricks.

The administration has strongly denied the leaks have come from the executive office.

"The notion that my White House would purposely release classified national security information is offensive. It's wrong," President Obama said earlier this month.

The letter to Holder comes the same week the GOP-led House is expected to vote on whether to hold him in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with subpoena requests to provide more documents regarding the Justice Department’s failed Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation.

The letter also states Holder’s decision to appoint two U.S. attorneys to investigate the apparent national security leaks doesn’t go far enough.

“You have an important role as a member of the president's national security team, and no administration should be expected to investigate itself impartially on such a grave and sensitive matter in the midst of an election,” states the letter signed by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

"This administration cannot be trusted to investigate itself," Sen John Cornyn, R-Texas, said during a Capitol Hill press conference Tuesday. "You cannot investigate yourself and not have a conflict of interest."

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/26/gop-senators-press-holder-for-special-prosecutor-into-potential-national/#ixzz1z1SVy2eI

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Vatican crisis highlights pope failure to reform Curia

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor | Reuters – 1 hr 17 mins ago.

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  The Pope's butler, Paolo Gabriele …

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict in 2005, epithets like "God's Rottweiler" and "Panzerkardinal" suggested he would bring some German efficiency to the opaque Vatican bureaucracy, the Curia.

Instead, as the "Vatileaks" scandal has revealed, the head of the Roman Catholic Church can't even keep his own private mail secret. His hand-picked deputy, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, faces a "monsignors' mutiny" by prelates in the halls of power.

Benedict's papacy has been marked until now by controversies over things he has said and done, such as his criticism of Islam at Regensburg in 2006 or his 2009 decision to readmit four excommunicated ultra-traditionalist bishops to the Church.

Now a goal he has failed to achieve -- gain control over the Curia -- has come back to haunt him. Leaks of confidential documents on everything from Vatican finances to private papal audiences make his papacy look weak and disorganized.

"We've almost forgotten that reform of the Curia was part of Benedict's program at the start," recalled Isabelle de Gaulmyn, who was Vatican correspondent for the French Catholic daily La Croix at the time.

"Seven years later, the Curia has never seemed as opaque, ineffective, closed and badly governed as it is today."

The "Vatileaks" scandal has revealed, among other issues, the infighting behind the sacking of the Vatican bank president. The pope's own butler has been arrested on suspicion of stealing documents that have since been leaked to the media.

The target seems to be Italian Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state (prime minister), whose critics accuse him of playing politics and blocking their efforts to stamp out corruption and cronyism in Vatican management.

THROWBACK TO RENAISSANCE MONARCHY

The Curia, a centuries-old bureaucracy dominated by Italian clerics, is essential to the success or failure of a papacy because it can effectively cancel or water down papal decisions if they go against long-standing interests or traditions.

Its name comes from the Latin word for a royal court and its jumble of overlapping departments, commissions and tribunals seems more suited to an intrigue-filled Renaissance monarchy than a modern and transparent democratic government.

The institution that gave the world the word "nepotism" is not always a model meritocracy either. Some officials are talented and dynamic while others are bureaucrats who seem to owe their posts more to connections than capabilities.

Each department has an advisory board of cardinals and bishops and those who sit on several boards can create powerful links that cut across department lines to influence policy.

Pressure for reform grew during the long reign of Pope John Paul. He announced changes in the 1980s to give local bishops more say in central policy-making, but focused more on his travel and preaching and did not really implement it.

Benedict was seen as the best man to reform it since he had been a Curia member since 1981 and reportedly knew it inside out. Now the task looks set to be handed on to his successor.

"I'm not sure anyone has ever really controlled it, or can control it," Thomas F.X. Noble, history professor at Notre Dame University in Indiana, said of the bureaucracy housed on the Vatican grounds and in office buildings nearby.

The Curia has held its own in Church power terms despite two non-Italian popes and the growing majority of Catholics from the developing world.

In February, the last time Benedict named new cardinals, 10 of the 18 who can vote for the next pope were Curia officials. That boosted their faction to 35 percent of the votes in the next conclave, meaning they will play an important role in the election and could try to win the papacy back for Italy.

Supporters of the tradition of Italian popes say only they know the culture well enough to control the Curia.

A SCHOLAR, NOT A SUPERVISOR

The crisis, which hurts Benedict's image as a leader just as he drives an increasingly conservative line in Church policy, is as much a result of the pope's diffident management style as of the institutional dysfunction of the Curia itself.

"He's a solitary scholar and he's not interested in the bureaucracy," said Chester Gillis, professor of theology at Georgetown University in Washington. "His real ambition seems to be to finish the third volume of his book."

Benedict, a leading Catholic theologian in his own right, has devoted considerable time in office to writing a major study entitled "Jesus of Nazareth" rather than administering the Church. The first two volumes appeared in 2007 and 2011.

His stern reputation stems from his long tenure as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), where he cracked down on liberal trends such as liberation theology.

But his CDF work focused on his own specialty, theology. "It was not about managing the Church," Gillis noted.

When he was elected pope, Benedict brought along several trusted CDF colleagues, including Bertone.

Bertone's critics call him an autocratic power-broker, a role the Curia lends itself to because its structure suits a Renaissance monarchy more than modern democratic governance.

There are no cabinet meetings among heads of departments, or dicasteries, and information circulates mostly on a need-to-know basis. Decisions with major implications for the Church are not always discussed with other departments that might be affected.

"A TIN EAR PAPACY"

Benedict did start reforming the Curia in early 2006, downgrading its department for interfaith dialogue into a sub-department of the culture ministry and sending its experienced head away to be nuncio (ambassador) in Cairo.

But he restored it as a full department the following year after his Regensburg speech in September 2006, which suggested Islam was violent and irrational, sparked protests by Muslims in several Islamic countries.

Some Curia officials had vetted the speech but not warned him of its diplomatic dangers. At Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland earlier that year, Benedict added the word Holocaust to his speech after journalists saw an advance text and told his aides Jews would be offended if he did not clearly mention it.

Benedict's aides apparently did not prepare him for the wave of sharp protests from Catholics, Jews and even German Chancellor Angela Merkel to his surprise decision in 2009 to readmit four rebel bishops to the Church after a 21-year schism.

The shocked pope had to write a long letter explaining the step and admit nobody in the Curia had done an Internet search for him and seen one bishop was a notorious Holocaust denier.

The Vatican has also reacted slowly and defensively to the clerical sexual abuse scandal shaking national churches around the world, giving the impression it puts its institutional interests ahead of the children molested by priests.

The cumulative effect of such incidents over the years and revelations of Vatican mismanagement now has been to cast Benedict's as "a tin ear papacy," said Christopher Bellitto, a Catholic Church historian at Kean University in New Jersey.

"This all seems to be a power game that matters only to the power players," he said. "It seems to be a Church hierarchy further distancing itself from the people in the pews."

(This story corrects name and university in second to last paragraph)

(Reporting By Tom Heneghan; Editing by Jon Boyle)

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Vatican In Chaos After Butler Arrested For Leaks

by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

VATICAN CITY May 27, 2012, 01:06 pm ET

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican's investigation into the source of leaked documents has yielded its first target with the arrest of the pope's butler, but the investigation is continuing into a scandal that has embarrassed the Holy See by revealing evidence of internal power struggles, intrigue and corruption in the highest levels of the Catholic Church governance.

The detention of butler Paolo Gabriele, one of the few members of the papal household, capped one of the most convulsive weeks in recent Vatican history and threw the Holy See into chaos as it enters a critical phase in its efforts to show the world it's serious about complying with international norms on financial transparency.

The tumult began with the publication last weekend of a book of leaked Vatican documents including correspondence, notes and memos to the pope and his private secretary. It peaked with the inglorious ouster on Thursday of the president of the Vatican bank. And it concluded with confirmation Saturday that Pope Benedict XVI's own butler was the alleged mole feeding documents to Italian journalists in an apparent bid to discredit the pontiff's No. 2.

"If you wrote this in fiction you wouldn't believe it," said Carl Anderson, a member of the board of the Vatican bank which contributed to the whirlwind with its no-confidence vote in its president, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi. "No editor would let you put it in a novel."

The bank, known as the Institute for Religious Works, issued a scathing denunciation of Gotti Tedeschi in a memorandum obtained Saturday by The Associated Press. In it the bank, or IOR by its Italian initials, explained its reasons for ousting Gotti Tedeschi: he routinely missed board meetings, failed to do his job, failed to defend the bank, polarized its personnel and displayed "progressively erratic personal behavior."

Gotti Tedeschi was also accused by the board of leaking documents himself: The IOR memorandum said he "failed to provide any formal explanation for the dissemination of documents last known" to be in his possession.

In an interview with the AP, Anderson said the latter accusation was independent of the broader "Vatileaks" scandal that has rocked the Vatican for months. But he stressed: "It is not an insignificant issue."

Gotti Tedeschi hasn't commented publicly about his ouster or the reasons behind it, saying he has too much admiration for the pope to do so. He also hasn't been arrested, avoiding the fate that befell Gabriele.

The 46-year-old father of three has been in Vatican detention since Wednesday after Vatican investigators discovered Holy See documents in his apartment. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Gabriele had met with his lawyers and that the investigation was taking its course through the Vatican's judicial system.

Gabriele, the pope's personal butler since 2006, has often been seen by Benedict's side in public, riding in the front seat of the pope's open-air jeep during Wednesday general audiences or shielding the pontiff from the rain. In private, he is a member of the small papal household that also includes the pontiff's private secretaries and four consecrated women who care for the papal apartment.

Lombardi said Gabriele's detention marked a sad development for all Vatican staff. "Everyone knows him in the Vatican, and there's certainly surprise and pain, and great affection for his beloved family," the spokesman said.

The "Vatileaks" scandal has seriously embarrassed the Vatican at a time when it is trying to show the world financial community that it has turned a page and shed its reputation as a scandal plagued tax haven.

Vatican documents leaked to the media in recent months have undermined that effort, alleging corruption in Vatican finance as well as internal bickering over the Holy See's efforts to comply with international norms to fight money laundering and terror financing.

The Vatican in July will learn if it has complied with the financial transparency criteria of a Council of Europe committee, Moneyval — a key step in its efforts to get on the so-called "white list" of countries that share financial information to fight tax evasion.

Anderson acknowleged that the events of the last week certainly haven't cast the Holy See in the best light. And he said the bank's board appreciated that the ouster of its president just weeks before the expected Moneyval decision could give the committee pause.

"The board considered that concern and decided that all things considered it was best to take the action at this time," Anderson said. "These steps were taken to increase the IOR's position vis-a-vis Moneyval."

The Vatileaks scandal began in January when Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi broadcast letters from the former No. 2 Vatican administrator to the pope in which he begged not to be transferred for having exposed alleged corruption that cost the Holy See millions of euros in higher contract prices. The prelate, Monsignor Carlo Maria Vigano, is now the Vatican's U.S. ambassador.

Nuzzi, author of "Vatican SpA," a 2009 volume laying out shady dealings of the Vatican bank based on leaked documents, last weekend published "His Holiness," which presented a trove of other documents including personal correspondence to the pope and his secretary — many of them painting Benedict’s No. 2, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, in a negative light.

Nuzzi has said he was offered the documents by multiple Vatican sources and insisted he didn't pay a cent € to any of them.

Gabriele was in Vatican custody and unavailable for comment. No known motive has come to light as to why Gabriele, if he is found to be the key mole, might have passed on the documents. Nuzzi declined to comment Saturday on whether Gabriele was among his sources.

Bertone, 77, has been blamed for a series of gaffes and management problems that have plagued Benedict's papacy and, according to the leaked documents, generated a not inconsiderable amount of ill will directed at him from other Vatican officials.

"For some time and in various parts of the church, criticism even by the faithful has been growing about the lack of coordination and confusion that reign at its center," Cardinal Paolo Sardi, the former No. 2 official in the Vatican secretariat of state, wrote to the pope in 2009, according to the letter cited in "His Holiness."

Anderson, who heads the Knights of Columbus, a major U.S. lay Catholic organization, said he was certain the Holy See would weather the storm and that the Vatican bank, at least, could move forward under a new leader with solid banking credentials as well as a desire to show off the bank's transparency.

"I hope this will be the beginning of a new chapter for the IOR and part of that chapter will be restoring the public image of the IOR," he told AP. "I think we have a good story to tell."

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Connect with Nicole Winfield on Twitter: www.twitter.com/nwinfield

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When secrecy gets out of hand

Op-Ed

Far too many government documents are wrongly classified top secret. The White House needs to sanction those who inappropriately classify information and take greater care in what it labels secret.



Former senior executive with the NSA Thomas Drake leaves the US Courthouse in Baltimore. Drake faces sentencing in one of a series of cases the Obama administration has pursued against government officials accused of giving classified information to the media. (Timothy Jacobsen / Associated Press)



By J. William Leonard

August 10, 2011

Every 6-year-old knows what a secret is. But apparently our nation's national security establishment does not.

Consider this strange case from earlier this year. On June 8, the National Security Agency, a top-secret government spy agency, heralded the "declassification" of a 200-year-old publication, translated from the original German, on cryptography. It turns out, however, as reported by Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists on his blog Secrecy News, that the 1809 study had long been publicly available and had even been digitized and published online through Google Books several years earlier. In fact, the 19th century study had not met the government's own standards for classification in the first place.

The day after this odd "declassification," the government's four-year prosecution of NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake under the Espionage Act collapsed when the government withdrew charges. The official explanation was that the government had to drop its prosecution to protect sensitive information about the NSA's targeting of a particular telecommunications technology that the judge would have compelled it to disclose.

But in my opinion, the classified information Drake was charged with having possessed illegally — like the 1809 study — never should have been classified in the first place.

Drake, once a high official at the NSA, was prosecuted because, as the government put it, he was found in "unauthorized possession of a document relating to the national defense, namely, a classified e-mail."

The charges stem from Drake's leaking of information to a journalist. Drake acknowledges that he approached a Baltimore Sun reporter with information, but he insists that he never offered any classified information. "I went to a reporter with a few key things: fraud, waste and abuse," he said in an interview with the New Yorker.

Having served as an expert witness for Drake's defense, I have read the email in question, and it clearly does not meet even the minimal criteria for classification, namely that it "reasonably could be expected to result in damage to the national security."

Various government officials involved in the Drake case have made the point that individual employees do not get to decide on their own that information they have access to should be declassified; that is the government's role.

Still, government officials are obligated to follow the standards set forth by the president through a 2009 executive order. They are not allowed to exceed its prohibitions and limitations in deciding what to classify. Classifying information that should not be kept secret can be just as harmful to the national interest as unauthorized disclosures of appropriately classified information.

In fact, the executive order governing classification treats unauthorized disclosures of classified information and inappropriate classification of information as equal violations, subjecting perpetrators to comparable administrative or other sanctions in accordance with applicable law.

But while government workers, members of the military and government contractors are routinely disciplined or prosecuted for unauthorized disclosures, I know of no case in which an official was sanctioned for inappropriately classifying information.

The Obama administration, which has criminally prosecuted more leakers of purportedly classified information than all previous administrations combined, needs to stop and assess the way the government classifies information in the first place.

The president has said he will not tolerate leaks to the media of war plans that could harm our troops. Of course such actions shouldn't be tolerated, but that is in no way what Drake did. Classification is a critical national security tool. The ability to deny information to an enemy and to protect sensitive intelligence sources and methods is vital to our nation's well-being.

To be effective, however, this tool must be applied with discernment, distinguishing truly sensitive information that can be used to harm our nation from that which cannot.

Currently, the strong impulse within the U.S. government is to overclassify. The administration needs to begin sanctioning those who inappropriately classify information, and it needs to take far greater care in what it decides to label secret. Otherwise, it will continue to find itself prosecuting cases it can't win and denying the public access to information it should possess.

J. William Leonard spent 34 years working for the federal government in national security, including a five years stint as director of the Information Security Oversight Information Office during the George W. Bush administration.

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