New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | July 14, 2005

The latest revelations in the Valerie Plame investigation have pundits wondering whether Karl Rove committed a crime. Jesse Walker steps back to ask: "Should naming a CIA operative be a crime?"

Comments

|7.14.05 @ 8:50AM|#

"...Newsweek has fingered Karl Rove..."

I hope they wore gloves and washed their hands afterwards

|7.14.05 @ 9:13AM|#

For an official to leak a covert operative name, that should probable be illegal, subject to specific facts and circumstances, but not the public. (I also wonder why journalists could not be charged with conspiracy when aiding a leaking official by publishing their stuff. Not that I want that but it fits the theory of conspiracy or even aiding and abetting.)

|7.14.05 @ 9:15AM|#

Note that there are two parts to the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Essentially, one part makes it illegal for persons with security clearances to "burn" CIA agents, and the other part makes it illegal for outsiders to engage in a "pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents." (Read the Act for details.)

Walker's piece criticizes the second part of the act (the "pattern of activities" bit). However, the suggestion is that Rove violated the first part of the act (the "securitiy clearances" bit), which Walker doesn't discuss. I don't really see how you could get rid of the first part of the act.

|7.14.05 @ 9:28AM|#

alakall,

I guess whether or not he violated the first part would depend on whether Rove's security clearance was good enough to know Plame's identity. Otherwise, the violator of the first part would be whoever told Rove.

|7.14.05 @ 9:29AM|#

Whoops. Sorry about butchering your name there, alkali. :)

Jesse Walker|7.14.05 @ 9:37AM|#

Alkali: I might agree with you, except that Rove's (possible) violation of the "authorized access to classified information" part of the act has thus far landed one person in jail: not an official, but a reporter. (Channeling Matt Welch, I'll admit that this has more to do with our runaway grand-jury system than the text of the law itself. But it's a byproduct of the act, and it represents 50% of the people jailed to enforce the law.)

|7.14.05 @ 9:48AM|#

If they get Rove, I'd bet they'll get him for perjury, or that "making false statements to officials" thing that got Martha Stewart in trouble. That stuff is a lot easier to prove than the underlying crime. So all this Clintonesque parsing of highly technical espionage statutes might be a waste of time.

Jesse Walker|7.14.05 @ 9:56AM|#

Forgot to add: The law could restrict real whistleblowing as well as Rove-style harassment. Exposing Welch's name didn't do anyone any good, but if a disgusted official in 1967 had exposed the names of the agents helping to plot the Greek colonels' coup, I can't say I see anything wrong with that.

|7.14.05 @ 10:08AM|#

Serious question: After reading Jesse's article it occurred to me that they were going after Agee because he betrayed his own men. There seems to be at least some indication that he was a double agent of sorts. So my question is, wasn't it already illegal for a CIA agent to give up the names of his colleagues to the enemy? I mean, doesn't that fall under treason? And if so, why was Agee not charged with that?

|7.14.05 @ 10:34AM|#

linguist,

The public is not "the enemy."

|7.14.05 @ 10:38AM|#

First of all, one hopes that laws act as deterrents, that is stopping crimes so they do not have to be prosecuted.
Second, how is it possible to run covert operations, where covert people risk their lives if exposed, if there is not some control over people's access to classified information.
I apologize if I sound a little befuddled, but I am having a hard time understanding what you are suggesting. Is the idea that there should be no disincentive to burn covert operatives other than the potential political fallout that doing so might entail (but would not in this specific case do to stonewalling and by all indications lying (Rove was not the source)?

|7.14.05 @ 10:50AM|#

linguist,

I met Agee once. Seemed like a nice guy.

Jesse Walker,

What's ironic about attacking Agee is that individuals like Aldrich Ames - who the government did a piss poor job of finding - have done way more damage to American espionage efforts than Agee ever could have. I mean, the death of at least ten Soviet spies can be attributed to Ames alone. And he was a risk-taking fiend during the whole process between 1985-1994, doing all sorts of things that should have tipped off his superiors.

|7.14.05 @ 10:59AM|#

TheCoach,

Well, if your spies are being named in a magazine that's really more of an indication of how shitty you are running your operation than anything. And if its a lot of names, then you've got some serious issues with compartmentalization.

|7.14.05 @ 11:01AM|#

BTW, a nice little primer on how spies, etc. work is Hitz's The Great Game. Hitz was in and out of the CIA for much of his career.

|7.14.05 @ 11:08AM|#

A colleague and spook school classmate of Valerie Plame discusses her status here:

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/13/04720/9340

|7.14.05 @ 11:43AM|#

Why is a spy agency relying on laws for protection? I would think exposing an agent should swiftly bring some piano wire around the neck. At least that's how the more efficient private sector would handle a snitch.

|7.14.05 @ 11:54AM|#

The public is not "the enemy."

Matter of opinion, joe.

|7.14.05 @ 12:30PM|#

Once we privatize espionage, competing agencies will be outing each other's spies,and the big state intelligence operations spying on us will be will be completely confused. Karl Rove is ahead of his time.

|7.14.05 @ 4:15PM|#

As a Jew, I am very disturbed by the anti-Semitism that I encounter here. I don�t think it has anything to do with libertarianism, and I hope other bloggers will join me in denouncing it.
One must make a very important distinction between legitimate criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism. As a state, Israel does some things that are good and some things that are bad. Many legitimately argue that Israel�s occupation and oppression of the Palestinians is bad. To characterize opposition to the occupation as anti-Semitic is clearly dishonest and unfair.
Those who peddle conspiracy theories that make Israel at least partly responsible for the terrorists attacks against the United States of 9/11 are anti-Semites who hide behind legitimate criticism arguments. They draw on a long tradition of anti-Semitic stereotypes: Jews are powerful, devilish clever, and will stop at nothing to exert their control over the world. All they have to do is put their �theories� out there and suggest that �we need more evidence.� In fact, they care nothing about evidence. They care only about planting dark suspicions about Israel�s�and by extension, Jew�s�role and intentions in the world. Don�t be fooled by the anti-Semite�s denunciations of racism. It�s merely an attempt to give this particularly vicious racism an aura of respectability.

|7.14.05 @ 6:48PM|#

Hillel,

Not only are you off topic, now you're being an idiot. Yesterday we were talking about Israeli government prior knowledge of 9/11. NOT that "Israel was at least partly responsible for the terrorists attacks"

Other governments engage in conspiracies. Why not Israel's? All conspiracy theorizing about the Israeli government is obviously not a form of anti-Semitism.

Here are three articles about the Israeli government prior knowledge of 9/11, one from the Forward, a Jewish newspaper, and the other two are from Haaretz. a popular Israeli newspaper.


Spy Rumors Fly on Gusts of Truth

http://www.forward.com/issues/2002/02.03.15/news2.html

Spies, or students?

http://tinyurl.com/lqzw

Odigo says workers were warned of attack

http://tinyurl.com/o8lx

Hillel, are you now going to accuse Haaretz and the Forward of anti-Semitism?

|7.14.05 @ 9:16PM|#

I'm no fan of Bush Or Rove but I still don't understand how Plame can be considered a "covert" agent. The woman drove through the front gate at CIA headquarters every morning for years. That doesn't seem very "covert" to me. From what I gather she wasn't even an agent. She was an analyst on the matter of WMDs. Did her friends and neighbors know she worked at Langely? If they did it seems this whole thing is about nothing.

|7.15.05 @ 11:20AM|#

jake,

Please read this brief piece, from a former classmate of Plame's at spook school. It answers your questions.

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/13/04720/9340

|7.15.05 @ 5:28PM|#

She hadn't been overseas in 5 years. She had a desk job at CIA headquarters. She was in no way a "covert" agent.

|7.15.05 @ 7:08PM|#

So Agee's disclosures weren't what killed Richard Welch. That hardly means that naming CIA operatives doesn't do any harm. The point is that anyone named by Agee would thereafter find it pretty hard to do any clandestine work, even if nobody kills him.