Episodes of extralegal surveillance carried out by intelligence agencies, the army or the police, have constituted an ongoing scandal in Colombia in recent years. Although investigative journalists have sought to uncover surveillance practices, the scope of government and military surveillance in Colombia is still unclear. Leaks have shown that journalists who cover sensitive issues like the peace process have been subject to monitoring. In late 2015, anonymous informants warned that the National Police had illegally intercepted communications from investigative journalists, notably in relation to news reports alleging that a prostitution network had ties to police.[63] A disciplinary investigation against the Director of the National Police was announced;[64] who submitted his resignation the next day, although he stated he was innocent.[65]
Courts have sought to rein in illegal surveillance, sentencing former public officials involved in wiretapping scandals. On April 29, 2015, the Supreme Court sentenced Maria del Pilar Hurtado, former director of the government Administrative Security Department (DAS), and Bernardo Moreno, former secretary of the president's office, to 14 and 8 years in prison, respectively, on charges of illegal intercepting private communications from journalists, politicians, and civil society groups.[72] Some military officials were fired in early 2015 following a high profile wiretapping scandal.[73]
SCANDAL SCANDAL FIRST LIVE BEST SCANDAL 2009 14
Following a scandal that implicated military officials in wiretapping abuses in early 2014, President Santos announced the creation of a commission to strengthen national cybersecurity.[95] Colombia partnered with the Organization of American States (OAS) to develop the Colombian Cyber Emergency Response Group (coICERT) and the Cyber Police Center (CCP).[96] A digital security policy released by the government in April 2016 covered issues ranging from national defense and the protection of critical infrastructure, to cybercrime and digital risk management.[97] Civil society groups criticized the policy for focusing on military and economic issues at the expense of broader social and human rights concerns.[98]
Former Pope Benedict, who died on Saturday aged 95, was the first pontiff in 600 years to resign, leaving behind a Catholic Church battered by sexual abuse scandals, mired in mismanagement and polarised between conservatives and progressives.
Victims groups said the couched response squandered an opportunity from a scandal that rattled the Church worldwide. Benedict will be best remembered for shocking the world on Feb. 11, 2013, when he announced in Latin that he was resigning, telling cardinals he was too old and frail to lead an institution with more than 1.3 billion members.
Child abuse scandals hounded most of his papacy. He ordered an official inquiry into abuse in Ireland, which led to the resignation of several bishops. But the Vatican's relations with once devoutly Catholic Ireland plummeted during his papacy. Dublin shut its embassy to the Holy See in 2011. Victims demanded he be investigated by the International Criminal Court. The Vatican said he could not be held responsible for the crimes of others and the court decided not to take up the case.
In September 2013, he denied that he had hushed up the scandals. "As far as you mentioning the moral abuse of minors by priests, I can only, as you know, acknowledge it with profound consternation. But I never tried to cover up these things," he said in a letter to Italian author Piergiorgio Odifreddi. Benedict visited his homeland three times as pope and confronted its dark past when he visited the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz in Poland. Calling himself "a son of Germany", he prayed and asked why God was silent when 1.5 million victims, most of them Jews, died there during World War Two.
In a move widely seen as conciliatory, he made a historic trip to predominantly Muslim Turkey later that year and prayed in Istanbul's Blue Mosque with the city's grand mufti. The pope made a trip to the United States in 2008 where he apologised for the sexual abuse scandal, promised that paedophile priests would have to go and comforted abuse victims.
He chose Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who had worked with him for years in the Vatican's doctrinal office, to be secretary of state, even though Bertone had no diplomatic experience. Bertone was later caught up in a financial scandal over the refurbishing of his Vatican apartment. Benedict supported Christian unity but other religions criticised him in 2007 when he approved a document that restated the Vatican position that non-Catholic Christian denominations were not full churches of Jesus Christ.
Mz O trying to get the negative press off hubby. First the VA scandal then trading 5 terrorists for one alleged deserter, news that he may release more terrorists from Gitmo.....might take more than MZ O's inititive to smooth things over. And another VA program is not what is needed at the moment.... 2ff7e9595c
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