Reply #38: Pame is in Pravda for God's Sake !

[Me.]

<<<snip>>>
The White House is stonewalling the investigation - as usual. Meridith outlines that only people on the "inside" could have the clearances to know who is doing what. The CIA can be discounted because they never talk to anyone - we can leave the CIA out of this. Our focus turns to the White House itself. My questions start with why Robert Novak published the story. Punishment for disclosure of such information is rather nasty.

Among some of the other words that can be applied is TREASON. Novak stuck his neck out and literally threw it in the noose himself. A true, law abiding, journalist is supposed to be above this sort of thing - it is one thing to criticize ones country, but to hand out highly classified material is quite another. To quote:

Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, codified as 50 U.S.C., Section 421 Protection of identities of certain United States undercover intelligence officers, agents, informants, and sources
(a) Disclosure of information by persons having or having had access to classified information that identifies covert agent

Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined not more than $50,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.<<<snip>>>

The last paragraph mentions a strategy I never even considered:

<<<snip>>>
Now, to level the playing field flatter than a pancake - the Anti-Terrorist Act and the Patriot Act rushed through congress by the four horse"s asses of the apocalypse - the act that authorizes the Central Intelligenc<<<snipe Agency to investigate American citizens. According to those two acts, the CIA does not need Ashcroft to turn the FBI loose - the CIA can do the investigation themselves. This could make for some very interesting times ahead. You see, the CIA does not like people messin' with their own.<<<snip>>>

Michael Berglin


http://english.pravda.ru/mailbox/22/101/399/14259_Plame.html