Posted on 08/03/2007 10:06:00 AM PDT by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
Valerie Wilson may be the best known former intelligence operative in recent history, but a federal judge in New York ruled Wednesday that she was not allowed to say how long she worked for the Central Intelligence Agency in the memoir she plans to publish this fall.
Although the fact that Ms. Wilson worked for the C.I.A. from 1985 to 2006 has been published in the Congressional Record and elsewhere, the judge, Barbara S. Jones of Federal District Court in Manhattan, said Ms. Wilson was not free to say so.
“The information at issue was properly classified, was never declassified and has not been officially acknowledged by the C.I.A.,” Judge Jones wrote.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
No money for you Val and Joe. CIA pushed back on you, can’t sell your story. Hahahahaha!
She gets to sell her story, she just can’t include classified information in it—whether everybody already knows the info, or not. Unfortunately, a rewrite is going to push her schedule back. Maybe she and that dogtick Mr. Plame will miss a house payment.
1. Joe W. said that his wife would not have been involved in sending him to Niger, because she needed him at home to help with their baby twins.
2. Valerie suffered from postpartum depression.
Valerie doesn't sound like the kind of person who should handle top secret dealings.
NB: I suffered from postpartum depression, so I am not "dissing" women who have suffered from that affliction.
If the book isn’t published, does the Ghost Writer get paid?
How about being in the section that was investigating WMD? I assume this included those supposedly in Iraq. I wonder why the witless Republicans never made a point that the whole Iraq war may have been started differently if Val and her co-workers had done a better job.
Good questions about Val’s work!
Yes, they met at an American Turkish Council (ATC) event in 1997. I think oversees assignment(s) refers to job(s) for State Department in different embassies and consulates in Europe in late 80’s - early 90’s...
From Canadian source : http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2007/08/03/pf-4392005.html
Judge: CIA can keep Plame info classified even if it’s public
By LARRY NEUMEISTER
NEW YORK (AP) — The CIA can force Valerie Plame, whose career became national news after her once-clandestine position was leaked, to remain silent about the exact length of her tenure with the agency, a federal judge has ruled.
Although the years of her employment have appeared in the Congressional Record and elsewhere, U.S. District Judge Barbara S. Jones said in ruling for the CIA that there were benefits to the agency and the country in keeping some things classified — even after they are seemingly public.
Plame’s identity was revealed in a syndicated newspaper column in 2003, shortly after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, began criticizing the administration’s march to war in Iraq.
According to published reports, including in the Congressional Record, the former CIA operative worked at the agency from 1985 to 2006. The government has publicly acknowledged that she worked for the CIA from 2002 to January 2006.
Information about Plame’s “pre-2002 employment for the CIA (if any) is properly classified, has never been declassified and was not otherwise officially acknowledged by the CIA,” Jones said.
Plame and her publisher, Simon & Schuster, brought the lawsuit earlier this year, saying they had a First Amendment right to publish her dates of employment with the CIA in her upcoming memoir.
The judge said their argument places “far too much emphasis on public perception and ignores the compelling considerations of the CIA’s commitment to secrecy and matters of foreign relations.”
Simon & Schuster, in a statement, said it was considering its legal options and still planned to publish Plame’s “Fair Game.”
“We are disappointed in the court’s ruling, which we believe runs counter to the First Amendment, sets a dangerous precedent and creates an unreasonable standard by which the government can disappear public information and rewrite history,” the company said.
Jones said the CIA had convinced her in statements by its deputy director, Stephen Kappes, that national security could be harmed if the agency acknowledged whether the information at issue in the case was true.
The judge, in a decision dated Wednesday and entered into the public record Friday, wrote that the government cannot be forced to divulge information that has never been officially released from classified status.
“Sound policy compels this distinction,” she wrote. “When a disclosure is unofficial, the world at large is left to surmise whether the information is accurate. Leaving the public to guess carries some degree of protection to confidentiality.”
Jones said the CIA “confirms its commitment to secrecy when it does not officially disclose or acknowledge public information.” That commitment, she ruled, “serves not only to protect former and existing intelligence sources and methods, but also serves to maintain the confidence of would-be recruits and co-operators.”
In the world of international diplomacy, she added, official confirmation of public information can have a negative effect on U.S. relations with foreign countries.
Yusill Scribner, a spokeswoman for government lawyers, said they would have no comment.
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