This is the simplest, most accurate summary of the Plame issue I've yet to see printed - and besides, any Holy Grail reference deserves a link!
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/16/opinion/16tierney.html?_r=1&n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fJohn%20Tierney
"The closest parallel is the moment in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" when members of a mob eager to burn a witch are asked by the wise Sir Bedevere how they know she's a witch.
"Well, she turned me into a newt," the villager played by John Cleese says.
"A newt?" Sir Bedevere asks, looking puzzled.
"I got better," he explains.
"Burn her anyway!" another villager shouts."
PLAME WAS NOT PROTECTED 1010101245.doc
ReplyDeleteThis dated article is stunningly inaccurate. Tierney, the writer, didn't even bother to read the law. Nevertheless, he opined, "The law doesn't seem to apply to Ms. Wilson because she apparently hadn't been posted abroad during the five previous years." The law, 50 USC §421, has no such five year provision, and does not refer to "posting" or "overseas", or anything analogous.
The law instead requires that the US be taking affirmative measures to conceal the agent's role, and further that the revealer have knowledge of those measures, the legal criterion called scienter. Neither the requirement nor the scienter were ever revealed.
To the contrary, Plame wrote a memo to her supervisors at CPD (CIA's DO Counterproliferation Division) nominating her husband for the infamous Niger trip. This is revealed in unclassified extracts from the memo in the Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, 7/7/04, p. 39. It demonstrates that Plame herself was freely revealing her identity as a CIA employee.
Plame was not a covered agent under the terms of the protective law.
Dr. Glassman, thanks for stopping by. As always, your ability to master and communicate the relevant details impresses. Paul
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