seccentral on "searching for plugins fails with error."

i am using centos 6 64bit
apache from centos repo -
versions as follows

httpd-2.2.15-28.el6.centos.x86_64
php-5.3.3-23.el6_4.x86_64

mod_security enabled and vhosts chrooted.

when i go to wp-admin - plugins - add new - [ search / featured / popular / newest ]
i get this :

An unexpected error occurred. Something may be wrong with WordPress.org or this server’s configuration. If you continue to have problems, please try the support forums.

Try again

no error in vhost's error.log..
debug enabled
define('WP_DEBUG', true);

edit: clicking upload works though