Valerie Plame Smackdown

[The Minsky Moment]

The Plame affair was one of those events where everyone comes out looking bad: Libby for his pettyness in making the leak; Novak for acting as a transparent partisan mouthpiece; Fitzgerald for vindictively pursuing Libby on a perjury trap charge, and so on.

Plame herself merited some criticism for her less than careful protection of her own cover, and her recent actions shed an even worse light.  Predictably she sought to capitalize on her moment of fame the way the DC crowd usually does - by writing a tell-all book.  And when the CIA forbade her from revealing certain infromation relating to alleged her period "under cover" she immediately sued the Agency under the First Amendment, claiming that such information was no longer secret due to the Novak article - ie basically taking the opposite position she took publicly during the Libby prosecution.

Yesterday, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit put at least a temporary halt to the silliness, ruling that where the CIA has not officially acknowledged an undercover agent, the mere publication of such a claim in a media article does not eliminate the classified status of that information.  Opinion can be found here under Wilson v. CIA, 07-4244-cv. http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions

[Darth Wagtaros]

Good.  America is the worst for that sad episode and hopefully all involved will pay.

[Admiral Yi]

Too bad.  I wouldn't mind having a little more light shed on the nature of her under cover status.

[stjaba]

Footnote on page 4:

All references in this opinion to Ms. Wilson's 1 possible pre-2002 Agency affiliation
are hypothetical and should not be understood to confirm or deny any information on that subject.

[KRonn]

Good.  America is the worst for that sad episode and hopefully all involved will pay.

Agreed.