King George CANNOT declassify "leak" information!

[caledesi]

The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982.

It has no exemption for the President.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Covert_Agent_Identity_Protection_Act

Read 'em and weep!

[paul_fromatlanta]

1. Thats for covert agents... Fitz hasnt declared her covert, I dont think

but only classified....

[electropop]

2. Fitz isn't the one who declares her covert...

That would be her employer, the CIA.

[paul_fromatlanta]

4. Agreed. The CIA has not, to my knowledge declared her covert either

The Libby indictment said "classified"

But I'm not sure it would be public if she were covert...

[shraby]

6. If she wasn't covert, the CIA wouldn't have asked

for an investigation into the leak of her name and operation.
She was a NOC which is a covert agent.

[paul_fromatlanta]

7. The referral said it was a classified leak - they refer any time

classified info shows up in the media - apparently 2-3 times a week.

[rodeodance]

5. Valerie Plame, was a covert CIA officer at the time,``Murray Waas

http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0406nj1.htm


ADMINISTRATION
Libby Says Bush Authorized Leaks

By Murray Waas, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, April 6, 2006
..........

In yet another instance, Libby had claimed that President Bush authorized Libby to speak to and provide classified information to Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward for "Plan of Attack," a book written by Woodward about the run-up to the Iraqi war.

Bush and Cheney authorized the release of the information regarding the NIE in the summer of 2003, according to court documents, as part of a damage-control effort undertaken only days after former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV alleged in an op-ed in The New York Times that claims by Bush that Saddam Hussein had attempted to procure uranium from the African nation of Niger were most likely a hoax.

According to the court papers, "At some point after the publication of the July 6 Op Ed by Mr. Wilson, Vice President Cheney, immediate supervisor, expressed concerns to regarding whether Mr. Wilson's trip was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife."

Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a covert CIA officer at the time, and Cheney, Libby, and other Bush administration officials believed that Wilson's allegations could be discredited if it could be shown that Plame had suggested that her husband be sent on the CIA-sponsored mission to Niger.

[paul_fromatlanta]

12. I am aware there have been debates about this but nobody

in authority has said she was covert. If she were covert I think Fitz would have said that. He clearly said classified. I was surprised.

[robinlynne]

11. yes he proved that at the beginning.

There were interviews with her neighbors and friends, none of whom knew she worked for the CIA. That was publicly clarified at the very beginning of the investigation.

[Roland99]

14. Here is what was known about Plame's status >>>>>>>>

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001957383

Addressing deficiencies of proof regarding the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, the special counsel refers to Plame as “a person whose identity the CIA was making specific efforts to conceal and who had carried out covert work overseas within the last 5 years”—representations I trust the special counsel would not make without support.
(8/27/04 Aff. at 28 n.15.) In addition, Libby said that Plame worked in the CIA’s counterproliferation division (I-53-55, 245-46), * * * * * * * * * *

[DoYouEverWonder]

15. Bush didn't out just Plame

He also outed her cover, Brewster Jennings. By doing that he outed possible 100's of covert operatives.

[sandnsea]

3. More importantly

HE said HE was going to get to the bottom of the leak and there would be consequences. He said that when he knew HE was the leaker. If he had legally declassified information, why didn't he just say so at the time?

It's just like telling the country he had no plans for war, that the IWR was just a bunch of war rhetoric so we could force Iraq into a peaceful resolution; when he was telling Blair the exact opposite.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

8. Is His Royal Chimpness trying to declassify "leak" information!?

[madmunchie]

9. If he could, why would he say that he would FIRE the leaker?

This is such bs, why didn't tweety ask why * would talk about firing the leaker, when he (*)could "supposedly", "declassify" info?

How many stipid people will buy into this?

[caledesi]

10. Heckuva job Georgie! nt

[peacetalksforall]

13. I'm really miffed and ticked - I never picked up on anyone's writing that

there is a difference between classified and covert. In fact, I wasn't even conscious of the term classified. If I read it, I would have thought it was a euphism for covert.

There is one thing that stands out in my memory, about a half dozen CIA agents said she was covert.

(That again leaves me in that newly conflicted position of believing CIA agents even though I despise the killing by CIA agents of innocent people. I safely hated the CIA before this.)