Here is the crime in outing of CIA agent http://denverpost.com/opinion/ci_3147655-snip-
"Where's the crime?"
There is further irony in the fact that now the premier intelligence agency of the United States, the CIA, is in utter disarray. Morale is desperately low. Many of the best career officers are leaving. As the source of unbiased professional intelligence, the CIA has been diminished and pushed aside by the Department of Defense. This at a time when it is critical to national security to have the best possible intelligence to protect us from terrorism.
I served on the first Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee in the late 1970s and have continued to be a strong believer in and supporter of the CIA. I deplore those who want to diminish it, politicize it, or require it to produce bogus intelligence it would not otherwise produce simply to fit some preconceived political or ideological agenda.
In almost every case where the CIA has malfunctioned, it did so under pressure from one political administration or another. So, there's the crime. To casually and willfully endanger the life of an undercover CIA agent is a felony. You either believe in taking the laws of the United States seriously or you do not. Citizens - even highly placed ones - do not get to pick and choose which laws they will obey and which they will not. Miller and her publisher may think she's a hero, but I don't. It is well established that there is no First Amendment protection for a journalist or anyone else to withhold evidence of a crime.
There is one final irony to this story. On Christmas Eve in 1975, I got a call at my home from the director of the CIA, William Colby. He asked if I would intervene with the White House to obtain presidential approval to have Welch buried at Arlington National Cemetery, a hero fallen in service to his country. I quickly called President Ford's chief of staff on Colby's behalf and made the request. Within two hours, the president had agreed to sign the order permitting Welch to be buried at Arlington.
The chief of staff's name was Richard Cheney. Must read the whole artice with history of how this became a crime.