Secrecy

Imagine you're a government worker who wants to raise the alarm about radiation leaks from a nuclear plant. Or a government accountant ready to spill the beans about a fraudulent weapons contract. Or a soldier worried about security lapses at an overseas base. Under broad new secrecy legislation passed quietly by Congress and awaiting President Clinton's signature, you could go to jail - for up to three years - for blowing the whistle on such government misdeeds. No wonder it's being called the silence bill.

When Gov. McGreevey signed an executive order July 9 gutting the two-day-old Open Public Records Act, many New Jerseyans were taken aback. How, they wondered, could someone who sounded populist themes in last year's gubernatorial race impose, by fiat, more than 400 exceptions to a law that was supposed to expose government to greater public scrutiny? Supporters of the act hope McGreevey will reconsider. But I wouldn't count on it. The executive order - motivated in part, he said, by his fear that government records could fall into terrorist hands - is the latest example of a disturbing trend since Sept.

The newly created Philadelphia Computing Corp., which ultimately will spend $46 million in taxpayers' money, got off to a very inauspicious start the other day: It conducted its first meeting in secret. On the agenda was a proposal to give the head of the company a $25,000 pay increase, from $80,000 to $105,000. (The proposal was tabled.) The intended recipient of that pay boost is Eugene L. Cliett Jr, deputy finance director. Mr. Cliett was instrumental in having the meeting closed.

In three days of congressional testimony, former national security adviser John M. Poindexter has illuminated three underlying attitudes that strongly contributed to the Reagan administration's Iran-contra disasters - a White House preoccupation with secrecy, a distrust of the press and a desire to circumvent congressional oversight of secret operations. Poindexter summed up those attitudes in one revealing remark Friday to the Iran-contra committees: "I simply didn't want any outside interference.

Rear Adm. John M. Poindexter ended his public testimony before the congressional Iran-contra committees yesterday, leaving members divided over his credibility and his claim that he had the right to order the diversion of Iran arms profits on his own. House committee Chairman Lee H. Hamilton (D., Ind.), summing up Poindexter's five days of public testimony, criticized the former national security adviser for conducting foreign policy behind a wall of secrecy that excluded even President Reagan.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela's opposition demanded Wednesday that the government reveal specifics of President Hugo Chavez's condition, criticizing secrecy surrounding the leader's health more than three weeks after his cancer surgery in Cuba. Opposition coalition leader Ramon Guillermo Aveledo said at a news conference that the information provided by government officials "continues to be insufficient. " Chavez has not been seen or heard from since the Dec. 11 operation, and Vice President Nicolas Maduro on Tuesday said the president's condition was "delicate" due to complications from a respiratory infection.

William H. Rehnquist is head of the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary - a powerful, public official whose every checkup or medical development is meticulously documented. But when Rehnquist was hospitalized Friday with complications stemming from thyroid cancer, it happened without any public statement or awareness. And when the media were told yesterday about Rehnquist's condition, only the sparest details were revealed. There is still no word, for example, of how serious Rehnquist's cancer is - or even whether it's curable.

When he served as U.S. deputy solicitor general from 1989 to 1993, John G. Roberts Jr. worked for the American people. But now that Roberts is a Supreme Court nominee, President Bush is barring the public from access to documents written by Roberts in that public service. This secrecy leaves an incomplete picture of Roberts' public service and his views. Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats are justified in requesting these papers before the confirmation hearing begins Sept. 6. The law is clear on presidential records, or at least it used to be clear.

VATICAN CITY - For an institution devoted to eternal light, the Vatican has shown itself to be a master of smokescreens since Pope Benedict XVI's shocking resignation announcement. On Thursday, the Vatican spokesman acknowledged that Benedict hit his head and bled profusely while visiting Mexico in March. On Tuesday, the spokesman acknowledged that Benedict has had a pacemaker for years, and underwent a secret operation to replace its battery three months ago. And as the Catholic world reeled from shock over the abdication, it soon became clear that Benedict's post-papacy lodgings have been under construction since at least the fall.

Trust us. That's essentially the response of Philadelphia officials more than a month after The Inquirer reported on the deaths of children whose families at one time had cases with the city's Department of Human Services. Trust us, they say as they work within a fortress of secrecy, to fix what went so fatally wrong in DHS. The reality is this: Government agencies love secrecy because it can help them hide their mistakes. But the consequences of DHS's mistakes make it essential for City Hall to release records dealing with child-abuse and -neglect fatalities.

Arcadia University's board of trustees has abruptly terminated its president of less than two years, sending a wave of concern among faculty and students who are away this week on spring break and heard the stunning news from afar. At a board meeting Friday, the trustees voted to oust Carl "Tobey" Oxholm III without cause and have remained silent on their reasons, according to sources. University spokeswoman Laura Baldwin would not comment on Oxholm's departure, calling it a confidential issue between the board and Oxholm.

Orlando R. Barone is a freelance writer in Doylestown It is fun to imagine what goes on in papal conclaves, and the fact that nobody who writes about them has any firsthand knowledge makes it easy to conjure intrigues of every kind. The current papal election is more fun than all the others I've lived through, mainly because this time, no one is being buried and mourned. It's just a transition of power. What we actually know is that the cardinals meet in the Sistine Chapel and submit ballot after ballot, called a scrutinium , which sounds vaguely sacrilegious, until someone gets a two-thirds majority.

VATICAN CITY - Cardinals said Monday that they want to talk to Vatican managers about allegations of corruption and cronyism within the top levels of the Catholic Church before they elect the next pope, evidence that a scandal over leaked papal documents is casting a shadow over the conclave and setting up one of the most unpredictable papal elections in recent times. The Vatican said 107 of the 115 voting-age cardinals attended the first day of pre-conclave meetings, at which cardinals organize the election, discuss the problems of the church, and get to know one another before voting.

VATICAN CITY - For an institution devoted to eternal light, the Vatican has shown itself to be a master of smokescreens since Pope Benedict XVI's shocking resignation announcement. On Thursday, the Vatican spokesman acknowledged that Benedict hit his head and bled profusely while visiting Mexico in March. On Tuesday, the spokesman acknowledged that Benedict has had a pacemaker for years, and underwent a secret operation to replace its battery three months ago. And as the Catholic world reeled from shock over the abdication, it soon became clear that Benedict's post-papacy lodgings have been under construction since at least the fall.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela's opposition demanded Wednesday that the government reveal specifics of President Hugo Chavez's condition, criticizing secrecy surrounding the leader's health more than three weeks after his cancer surgery in Cuba. Opposition coalition leader Ramon Guillermo Aveledo said at a news conference that the information provided by government officials "continues to be insufficient. " Chavez has not been seen or heard from since the Dec. 11 operation, and Vice President Nicolas Maduro on Tuesday said the president's condition was "delicate" due to complications from a respiratory infection.

MUMBAI, India - India executed the lone surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai terror attack early Wednesday, four years after Pakistani gunmen blazed through India's financial capital, killing 166 people and throwing relations between the nuclear-armed neighbors into a tailspin. Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, a Pakistani citizen, was hanged in secrecy at a jail in Pune, a city near Mumbai, after Indian President Pranab Mukherjee rejected his plea for clemency. News of the execution was widely cheered in India, with political parties organizing public celebrations and some people setting off firecrackers.

BOSTON - At the 76ers' shootaround on Friday morning at TD Garden, I saw team general manager Tony DiLeo standing courtside. Since we were told on Oct. 24 that all updates on the health of Andrew Bynum would come through DiLeo, I asked him whether he could give an update. I was directed by him to ask public relations director Mike Preston. When asked, Preston said there is no update, so DiLeo wouldn't be talking. It was the second time during the week reporters asked about the health of the Sixers' prized possession (the Inquirer's Bob Ford asked in New Orleans)

If federal agents were picking you up from a secret location and keeping you under armed guard at lunch while you sat on a jury in a mob case, wouldn't you think that the defendants are dangerous guys? That's what Philadelphia mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi is worried about. Ligambi's attorney, Edwin Jacobs, is asking U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno to deny the prosecutors' request for heightened jury security in the upcoming racketeering trial. He said that it's an "extreme and unnecessary measure" that would lead jurors to believe that they should fear Ligambi and his co-defendants.

The 9/11 Commission more than a decade ago revealed the danger in keeping secrets on terror threats. But new data show that lesson hasn't been taken to heart.   If anything, the same tight-lipped policies that kept federal antiterrorism agents from sharing tips about the World Trade Center and Pentagon plots are becoming more widespread, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a think tank based at the New York University School of Law. The group cites a recent report by the federal office that oversees security classification, which shows a four-fold increase since 1995 in spending to keep information under wraps, with the cost conservatively estimated at $11.4 billion last year.

The most fascinating aspect of the Supreme Court's anticlimactic decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act wasn't the outcome. It was that until the ruling was handed down, nobody outside the court knew what the outcome was going to be.   Imagine that. Smack in the middle of a city where leaks are a way of life, here was a decision that, according to pundits, would determine President Obama's legacy, and the capital's legion of political reporters was unable to ferret out the smallest advance hint of the court's intentions — even though the court's initial vote probably took place three months ago. The justices themselves, their law clerks, and all the personnel of the court cooperate in maintaining the veil.