PLS DELETE- DUPE [View All]

TUESDAY, 20 FEBRUARY 2007
Was She Covert?
by
Larry C Johnson

Sorry to again beat what some of you may believe is a dead horse, but a reporter from a major news organization told me today that they are still arguing in his/her newsroom about whether Valerie Plame was covert. The journalist who told me this is a talented, smart person but is still confused about the terms "covert", "cover", and "non-official cover". So here's my gift to confused journalists.

Scooter Libby is not on trial for violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. He faces a jury because he lied about his role in giving out Valerie's name and obstructed the investigation into the leak. Can you leak the name of an overt employee? No.

The relevant section of the law relevant to the Libby investigation states:

(b) Disclosure of information by persons who learn identity of covert agents as result of having access to classified information

Whoever, as a result of having authorized access to classified information, learns the identify of a covert agent and intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent’s intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
So what is a "covert agent"? Here's what the Intelligence Identities Protection Act states:

(4) The term “covert agent” means— (A) a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency—
(i) whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information, and
(ii) who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States; or



-snip

http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/02/was_she_covert.html