Legal Experts Call Current Law A Poor Fit for Leak Prosecutions (Plame)

[rodeodance]

this is a few weeks old but with Katrina in the forefront, I have been catching up.

Seems that lawyers are really--really going to have a trouble trying to find a law that was broken!!


www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/06/AR2005090601582.html

Legal Experts Call Current Law A Poor Fit for Leak Prosecutions

By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 7, 2005; Page A23

Convictions for leaking sensitive government information to the media are almost as rare as sightings of the ivory-billed woodpecker.

Only twice have government employees gone to prison for such misdeeds. And legal experts say prosecutors will have a hard time putting away anyone in the administration for violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act in the revelation of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity in 2003.

The bar for breaking the 1982 law is high. Whoever makes the disclosure must know that the person was a "covert agent" and must intentionally reveal the agent's identity to someone not authorized to know it.

There is, however, another statute that federal officials have used to go after government leakers. Some legal experts say it is not out of the question that prosecutors in the Plame case could bring it out again -- although it, too, seems a long shot.

[rfranklin]

1. Where's the difficulty?

Rove knew she was covert (the memo marked secret) and he leaked it or confirmed it to a few different people.

[texpatriot2004]

2. What is the differnce between "leaking it" & "confirming it"? I

mean, really, is there a differnce? If it's out it's out. Right.

[rfranklin]

3. No difference...n/t

NT

[texpatriot2004]

4. that's what I thought I mean there really is no way to soften the

blow or sugar-coat it is there?

Plus I think that woman in jail is getting tired of jail.

[leveymg]

5. Okay, we see Rover's defense position being laid out in the WaPo

and being spun as absolutely the last word in legal interpretation.

This is why the Post has sunk from the country's #2 newspaper into just a blander version of the Moonie Times. Pity anyone who relies on the newspapers in this town as their primary source of information. The Washington establishment is now officially brain-dead.

[ixion]

6. interesting... so treason is okay, but a blowjob is right out...

I guess that's pretty typical in the new 'Murika.

[Demoiselle]

7. The l982 law isn't the only law at issue...

This reporter mentions one other statute in passing....This piece looks blithely superficial to me.