"Plame was not a covert agent" Joplin Globe

[usregimechange]

"Perhaps the strangest element in this case is that Miller did nothing illegal. The 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act requires that an agent be covert and that his or her identity be kept a secret by government. Plame was not a covert agent and her identity wasn’t being protected. Furthermore, she wasn’t assigned to a foreign country, a condition the law stipulates."

http://www.joplinglobe.com/story.php?story_id=204161&c=96

Fact check?

[applegrove]

1. When a judge orders you to talk & you don't... it is illegal. Why she

is in jail.

[demgrrrll]

2. I think this old chestnut has been around the block a few times and

debunked. The statement also presumes that Tenet did not know how to determine if someone was covert or not covert. I doubt that Fitzgerald would have taken this on if the premise of his case was faulty. Someone would have made an argument by now to get this thrown out if it were that easy.

[usregimechange]

3. More

"Novak's identification of her as an Agency operative compromised both Plame's cover and the cover of all of the other covert operatives associated with that company." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Plame

[usregimechange]

4. ,,,

"The paragraph identifying her as the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was clearly marked to show that it contained classified material at the "secret" level, two sources said. The CIA classifies as "secret" the names of officers whose identities are covert, according to former senior agency officials."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/20/AR2005072002517.html

[Brundle_Fly]

5. so when she was in NIGER with Joe.

undercover for the WMD investigation doesn't count?

[Usrename]

6. this is the best I've seen by Citizenspook

Don't have a clue who he is, but it is clear and on point;

http://citizenspook.blogspot.com/

My understanding is that yes, under IIPA there is little case law so you could argue that the outcome would be uncertain. However, there are other, more specific crimes (some capital offences punishable by death during time of war) that are directly on point with existing case law. This is not the first time in our history as a nation that someone has committed this EXACT crime and to assume such is to show how uninformed one is.


<edit> just noticed this has been added sometime in the last three weeks. May not be reliable at all but I have heard of the Rosenbergs and Aldrich Ames:

CHALLENGE TO DEMOCRATICUNDERGROUND.COM:

A thread at Democraticundergound.com was locked yesterday when the moderators challenged Citizen Spook to provide a "reliable source" for my reporting.

[kodi]

7. EVen the US Appelate Court considers Plame a covert operative.

In response to Justice Department inquiries, viz., Fitzgerald’s, CIA lawyers answered 11 questions, affirming that Plame’s identity was classified, that whoever released it was not authorized to do so, and that the news media would not have been able to guess her identity without the leak. All together grounds for a criminal investigation.

The leak of the name is a violation of two laws that bar revealing the identities of covert operatives: the National Agents’ Identity Act and the Unauthorized Release of Classified Information Act


And, as well as the CIA amd DOJ believing the evidence is sufficient to consider Plame covert, so did the US Appelate Court when it denied Miller's request to overturn Judge Hogan's 'a decision to send her to jail.

http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/docs/common/opinions/200502/04-3138a.pdf

United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
Argued December 8, 2004 Decided February 15, 2005
Reissued April 4, 2005
No. 04-3138
IN RE: GRAND JURY SUBPOENA, JUDITH MILLER
Consolidated with
04-3139, 04-3140

Before: SENTELLE, HENDERSON and TATEL, Circuit Judges.
SENTELLE, Circuit Judge: An investigative reporter for the
New York Times; the White House correspondent for the
weekly news magazine Time; and Time, Inc., the publisher of
Time, appeal from orders of the District Court for the District of
Columbia finding all three appellants in civil contempt for
refusing to give evidence in response to grand jury subpoenas
served by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald. Appellants
assert that the information concealed by them, specifically the
identity of confidential sources, is protected by a reporter’s
privilege arising from the First Amendment, or failing that, by
federal common law privilege. The District Court held that
neither the First Amendment nor the federal common law
provides protection for journalists’ confidential sources in the
context of a grand jury investigation. For the reasons set forth
below, we agree with the District Court that there is no First
Amendment privilege protecting the evidence sought. We
further conclude that if any such common law privilege exists,
it is not absolute, and in this case has been overcome by the
filings of the Special Counsel with the District Court. We
further conclude that other assignments of error raised by
appellants are without merit. We therefore affirm the decision
of the District Court.

<snip>
page 10


As can be seen from the account of the underlying facts in
Branzburg, there is no material factual distinction between the
petitions before the Supreme Court in Branzburg and the
appeals before us today. Each of the reporters in Branzburg
claimed to have received communications from sources in
confidence, just as the journalists before us claimed to have
done. At least one of the petitioners in Branzburg had witnessed
the commission of crimes. On the record before us, there is at
least sufficient allegation to warrant grand jury inquiry that one
or both journalists received information concerning the identity
of a covert operative of the United States from government
employees acting in violation of the law by making the
disclosure. Each petitioner in Branzburg and each journalist
before us claimed or claims the protection of a First Amendment
reporter’s privilege. The Supreme Court in no uncertain terms
rejected the existence of such a privilege. As we said at the
outset of this discussion, the Supreme Court has already decided
the First Amendment issue before us today.

In rejecting the claim of privilege, the Supreme Court made
its reasoning transparent and forceful. The High Court
recognized that “the grand jury’s authority to subpoena witnesses is
not only historic . . . but essential to its task.” 408
U.S. at 688 (citation omitted). The grand juries and the courts
operate under the “longstanding principle that ‘the public has a
right to every man’s evidence,’ except for those persons
protected by constitutional, common law, or statutory privilege.”
Id. (citations and internal punctuation omitted). The Court then
noted that “the only testimonial privilege for unofficial
witnesses that is rooted in the Federal Constitution is the Fifth
Amendment privilege against compelled self-incrimination.” Id.
at 689-90. The Court then expressly declined “to create another
by interpreting the First Amendment to grant newsmen a
testimonial privilege that other citizens do not enjoy.” Id. at
690. In language as relevant to the alleged illegal disclosure of
the identity of covert agents as it was to the alleged illegal
processing of hashish, the Court stated that it could not
“seriously entertain the notion that the First Amendment protects
a newsman’s agreement to conceal the criminal conduct of his
source, or evidence thereof, on the theory that it is better to write
about a crime than to do something about it.” Id. at 692.

Lest there be any mistake as to the breadth of the rejection
of the claimed First Amendment privilege, the High Court went
on to recognize that “there remain those situations where a
source is not engaged in criminal conduct but has information
suggesting illegal conduct by others.” Id. at 693. As to this
category of informants, the Court was equally adamant in
rejecting the claim of First Amendment privilege:

e cannot accept the argument that the public interest in
possible future news about crimes from undisclosed,
unverified sources must take precedence over the public
interest in pursuing and prosecuting those crimes reported
to the press by informants and in thus deterring the
commission of such crimes in the future.

The Branzburg Court further supported the rejection of this
claimed privilege by the commonsense observation that “it is
obvious that agreements to conceal information relevant to the
commission of crime have very little to recommend them
from the standpoint of public policy.” Id. at 696. While the Court
recognized the right of the press to abide by its agreements not
to publish information that it has, the Court stated unequivocally
that “the right to withhold news is not equivalent to a First
Amendment exemption from an ordinary duty of all other
citizens to furnish relevant information to a grand jury
performing an important public function.” Id. at 697.

We have pressed appellants for some distinction between
the facts before the Supreme Court in Branzburg and those
before us today. They have offered none, nor have we
independently found any. Unquestionably, the Supreme Court
decided in Branzburg that there is no First Amendment privilege
protecting journalists from appearing before a grand jury or
from testifying before a grand jury or otherwise providing
evidence to a grand jury regardless of any confidence promised
by the reporter to any source. The Highest Court has spoken and
never revisited the question. Without doubt, that is the end of
the matter.