Difference between "classified" and "covert"

Looking over some Freeper responses thus far, some are saying that there's a difference between a CIA agent being "classified" and an agent being "covert." They say that it's not illegal to leak the name of a "classified" agent. Any merit to this?

This is a reference to the part in the indictment where Fitzgerald declares that Plame was "classified," but he doesn't use the word "covert."

this isn't about Plame any more. It's a lot bigger then that.

Classified = Espionage Act
Covert= IIPA

She wasn't a "secret agent" per se, but it was still nobody's business but hers that she was in the CIA. She could have been a 'controller' who communicates and directs spies in the field.

She was not openly CIA and counted on her secrecy to conduct business for the CIA. She was outed, for sure.

Despite what Republican idiots say, she was most likely known only as "Valerie Wilson, Ambassador Joe's wife", not "Valerie Plame, undercover CIA operative".

Those bastard Republicans......I wonder how many operations were blown, and how many agents died becuase Dick Cheney was mad at Joe Wilson?

didn't it also say that her identity was not known outside the intelligence community?

I think that sort of blows the "desk jockey" theory completely out of the water (even though it was only sitting in an inch of water to begin with).

For future indictments it might.

As all of these vile shitheads signed onto their top secret clearance docs - they are criminally liable for any unauthorized disclosure of classified information. This is covered under various espionage acts.

But it is the conspiracy that is going to get them and that is what the new GJ is all about. They are so f*d.

multiple counts of lying and misleading. Indictment says Cheney told Libby Plame's identity. So very likely that's where Fitzgerald is going with the new grand jury. Libby may "take the fall" for Cheney (and/or others)--that's what his "aspens" letter to Miller seems to suggest (if I'm reading it correctly--big if); and plead guilty to some of it, to avoid a trial (at which Cheney would have to testify), but he would have to give Fitzgerald something big in return. If Fitzgerald actually gets Cheney on the stand, in the Libby case, Cheney is probably cooked. (He will have to lie, and Fitzgerald will probably catch him at it.) And then there's the second grand jury. This definitely means that Cheney and Rove are still in big trouble (and also Bolton? and others? maybe even Rumsfeld?). The indictment of Libby is very suggestive of a conspiracy.

Also, I thought it was very interesting that the NYT went out of its way, the other day, to quote unidentified "law enforcement officials" saying that the Plame case and the AIPAC/Franklin case are unrelated, and are being pursued "separately." I think this is typical of the planted trash we've been getting from the NYT starting with Miller and the war. (They've become as bad as Newsweek!). The Niger forgeries are central to both cases. Someone on another thread said he thought Fitzgerald may have been warned off AIPAC/Franklin (for Nat'l Security reasons). But we'll see. He DID request the Italian report on it.

The purpose of all of these people is to continue and to widen the Mideast war--mainly because it's so profitable. Rice, Bolton and Bush are still out there saber-rattling at Syria (anybody share my suspicions about who may have assassinated the Jordanian official that they're using as amunition against Syria?), and now at Iran (which has gone fearful and paranoid, with some cause, and is now saying wild things like "wipe Israel off the map")--an extremely volatile situation that could end in nuclear war and the death of our planet (read Carl Sagan's "The Cold and the Dark," about impacts from even a limited nuclear exchange). I dont see anything so far to stop these people (the war profiteers, all of them--the puppetmasters). They don't even care about a 37% approval rating. They'll jettison Cheney (and maybe already have) to keep their best looting opportunity on track. I think these are the deeply rooted "aspens" that Libby is taking the fall for. And whether Fitzgerald can expose it, in a way that empowers the American people to take back their government (--getting rid of Diebold and ES&S election theft machines, for one thing) is an open question, but I think he's going to try.