According to the Los Angeles Times, the Italian weekly magazine Panorama reported on Wednesday that the NSA intercepted phone calls going in and out of the Vatican.
Panorama magazine said the NSA intercepted calls in and out of the Rome residence where cardinals stayed before the papal conclave. Among them was Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who was on the verge of being elected pope.
“There is the suspicion that the conversations of the future pope could have been monitored,” the magazine said.
These allegations were based on a report from Cryptome, “which claimed the US intercepted 46 million telephone calls in Italy between Dec 10 2012 and Jan 8 January 2013,” as reported by The Telegraph UK. Cryptome is a website that posts information about national security, surveillance, freedom of speech, and cryptography.
The NSA was quick to issue a denial in the form of an email distributed by NSA spokesperson Vanee’ Vines:
“The National Security Agency does not target the Vatican. Assertions that NSA has targeted the Vatican, published in Italy’s Panorama magazine, are not true.”
The Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican’s chief spokesman, responded to the report prior to the NSA denial, saying,
“We are not aware of anything on this issue and in any case we have no concerns about it.”
CNN’s Brian Todd examines these claims below:
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