[advance_copy]

The fact is, the Agency has no right to stop anyone from writing an op-ed piece in the New York Times and unless he divulged classified information he is not subject to censure by the CIA.

They would have every right to stop it had Wilson been required to sign a non-disclosure agreement. That he did not sign one raises alarms. You cannot clean the toilets at Langley without an NDA. Yet the CIA sends this guy to Africa in an effort to acquire intelligence on Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons efforts, and he is allowed to write about it in the NYT? Something is rotten about this and it sure smells like an operation to influence American politics, something the CIA should never ever ever be allowed to do.

[Casloy]

They would have every right to stop it had Wilson been required to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

The CIA had absolutely no right to ask a private citizen to sign a non-disclosure agreement on things that are not classified. No part of what he gathered on his mission was classified. Had he been a paid employee of the CIA or the US Government he would not have been allowed to divulge anything he collected because it essentially would belong to the USG. He was a private citizen and doesn't fall under those rules. He is an idiot and the Agency was stupid for sending him, but I doubt it was a sinister plot.