The CIA is not a policy-making organization; it advises the Director of National Intelligence on matters of foreign intelligence, and it conducts covert actions only at the direction of the President or Director of National Intelligence.
Disclosing the identify of a covert CIA agent can be a crime, but only if the person who discloses it knows the agent is classified as working undercover.
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A Singular Opportunity
Gaining Access to CIA's Records
Evan Thomas
Editor's Note: Mr. Evan Thomas was allowed to see CIA classified records under the historical access policy. The basic authority for this policy is Executive Order 12356 [April 1982], as implemented in HR 10-24 (c)4. Under these provisions, CIA may grant individual researchers and former Presidential appointees access to classified files, once the recipient of this access signs a secrecy agreement and agrees to allow the Agency to review his manuscript to ensure that it contains no classified information. Former DCI Robert Gates granted Mr. Thomas historical access in 1992, and directed that the CIA History Staff locate and provide records that would satisfy Mr. Thomas's research request. Mr. Thomas's manuscript was subsequently reviewed in accordance with his secrecy agreement and approved on 2 March 1995 by the Information Review Officer of the Directorate of Operations, with the concurrence of the Office of General Counsel. The views expressed by Mr. Thomas in his manuscript and in this article are his own, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of CIA or any of its components.
It is no secret that, over time, many CIA secrets leak. The most sensational stories have a way of surfacing, especially in the covert action arena where there are often many witting participants and the action has tangible consequences. In the early days, the larger, more spectacular covert actions in Indonesia and at the Bay of Pigs all were the subjects of rumors and newspaper accounts within a few months (or hours) of their occurrence. Post-Watergate Congressional investigators uncovered much of what remained secret: the assassination plots, drug experiments, and mail-opening campaigns. I sometimes had the feeling reading the Church Committee reports that the public knows more about the inner workings of the CIA's Clandestine Service than it does about the Department of Health and Human Services.
Yet, for a variety of reasons, the CIA hangs on to the illusion of secrecy about these early operations. Sources and methods must be protected, even from many decades ago, and there is a certain tradition to consider. To some old hands like Richard Helms, secrets are forever. Thus, numerous books have reported that the Guatemala operation was codenamed PBSUCCESS. To the CIA, however, the code name remains classified. This is understandable to officials of the Directorate of Operations (DO), perhaps, but to historical researchers it seems slightly surreal. There is not a lot historians can do about it, because the operations of the CIA are largely exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
This may be about to change. There is a move afoot in Congress and the Clinton administration to declassify CIA records from the early days--more than 30 years ago. But it will be a slow and cumbersome process, if my own experience is an indication.
I have had the singular opportunity of being allowed behind the veil and permitted to see all of the Clandestine Service's classified histories and some of the Agency's classified records. I believe I am the first outside historian or journalist to be granted such an opportunity. But the process I went through tells a little about the difficulty the CIA will have opening up for wider viewing. The result was satisfactory to me, and Agency officials, though encumbered by bureaucratic imperatives, showed good faith. Nonetheless, the process was complex and, at times, slightly comic.
My access was granted for a book I was working on, entitled The Very Best Men, published last year by Simon & Schuster. Several years ago, I had the idea of writing a joint biography of four men who were prominent figures running covert action in the first two decades of the Cold War. In a way, I wanted to write a sequel to The Wise Men, which I co-authored with Walter Isaacson, published in 1986. The Wise Men was the story of six statesmen who shaped the doctrine of containment in the years right after World War II. Two "wise men," George Kennan and Chip Bohlen, were close friends with Frank Wisner, the man most responsible for creating a covert action capability for the United States in the postwar era.
http://tinyurl.com/85njq
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In fact, there is no public evidence that Valerie Wilson had the covert status required by the statute. A covert agent, as defined under this law, is "a present or retired officer or employee" of the CIA, whose identity as such "is classified information," and this person must be serving outside of the United States, or have done so in the last five years.
There is no solid information that Rove, or anyone else, violated this law designed to protect covert CIA agents.
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A covert agent, as defined under this law, is "a present or retired officer or employee" of the CIA, whose identity as such "is classified information,"
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Inside CIA Covert Chat Room
http://tinyurl.com/ax7r5
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2001 FOI update: Government secrecy
CIA history of the 1953 Iran coup
Another highlight of the past year was The New York Times publication of the CIA's classified history of the 1953 covert action in Iran, which restored the shah to power. In the course of a FOIA lawsuit brought by the National Security Archive, the CIA claimed that no more than one sentence of this 200-page report could be declassified. But the Times obtained a leaked copy of the report and published essentially the entire document (deleting a few agents' names) on its Web site last April.
Under the congressional proposal to criminalize leaks, it may be noted, the person who delivered the classified report to The New York Times would be a felon. The CIA officials who insisted on withholding the report, on the other hand, would be guilty of no wrongdoing.
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The CIA persuaded the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Board to uphold the classification of the 1988 budget total (even though the total from ten years later already had been declassified).
Late last year the CIA also upheld on appeal a FOIA denial of historical intelligence budget figures dating back to 1947. The agency's assertion that such information could damage national security today reflects its confidence that there are no effective checks and balances of CIA classification policy. Neither Congress nor the courts, it seems, will overturn even the most absurd classification decision
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JULY 29, 2003
Lawmakers demand probe into outing of undercover CIA agent
Some blame leak on a White House bent on vengeance
By Jonathan E. Kaplan
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has demanded a criminal investigation into who exposed the wife of retired ambassador Joseph Wilson as a covert CIA agent.
In a letter last week to FBI Director William Mueller, Schumer, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said the FBI should investigate “reports that two senior members of the Bush administration made the identity of an undercover Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative public.”
snip
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) told reporters last week that “whoever released the information regarding Mr. Wilson’s wife may have committed a felony, may have actually violated federal law. I think that it ought to be investigated.”
snip
“What happened is very dangerous to a person who may be a CIA operative,” said Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, adding: “[The leak] came from the executive branch, in my view. Its intent is to stop other people like Joe Wilson, and I am going to insist on getting to the bottom of this any way we can.”
snip
The 1982 Intelligence Identification Act, making it a criminal offense to disclose the identity of a CIA operative, was drafted in response to Phillip Agee, a former CIA agent and publisher of the Covert Action Information Bulletin.
The newsletter, started in 1978, was famous for naming covert agents. Rep. Rob Simmons (R-Conn.), a former CIA agent, said he was not convinced anyone had violated the law by naming Wilson’s wife as a CIA operative.
“The law criminalizes identifying covert agents as a pattern of activities,” Simmons said. “The intent is to criminalize a behavior … and the routine functioning of the media would not be covered.”
snip
Goss also said that “tracking down reports of [Wilson’s] activities may be out of the purview of the [Intelligence] committee.”
But Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) disagreed. He told reporters that the Senate Select Intelligence Committee would investigate the leak.
Still, some experts said that either the Intelligence or Judiciary Committee could investigate the leaks.
The Judiciary Committee drafted the 1982 law.
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Tuesday, September 30, 2003
Was Valerie Plame a 'covert' agent?
Andrew Sullivan quotes Robert Novak on the subject of Valerie Plame's status as a CIA 'operative'. Novak claims that Plame was never endangered because "According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of undercover operatives" -- and by implication suggests that it was not improper or illegal to divulge her connection to the CIA.
The test of a 'covert agent' as defined by 50 USC Section 246 is:
(4) The term ''covert agent'' means -
(A) a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency -
(i) whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information, and
(ii) who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States; or
(B) a United States citizen whose intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information, and -
(i) who resides and acts outside the United States as an agent of, or informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency, or
(ii) who is at the time of the disclosure acting as an agent of, or informant to, the foreign counterintelligence or foreign counterterrorism components of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; or
(C) an individual, other than a United States citizen, whose past or present intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information and who is a present or former agent of, or a present or former informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency.
A plain layman's reading of the statute suggests there's no distinction drawn between spies and analysts and that Valerie Plame may qualify as a 'covert agent' under (A). Maybe some jurisprudence defines this more narrowly.
If it's any consolation to Novak, he's in the junior leagues when it comes to outing agents, covert or otherwise. A Wired article circa 2000 claimed that:
A freedom of information activist plans to publish online a classified CIA document that was pulled from The New York Times' site after newspaper officials learned it exposed the identities of Iranians involved in the 1953 U.S. and British-backed coup that overthrew Iran's elected officials. The Times used the graphic to accompany an article detailing the coup. In a technical glitch, those who visited the Times website on June 16 were able to read the names of the agents when they downloaded the graphic.
The agents, though probably old men or deceased by now, would qualify as 'covert' under (C). There's a site on the Web called Namebase which purports to list out CIA agents. Namebase identifies itself as part of Public Information Research, incorporated in Virginia, with 501(c)3 status. A domain search shows their site is registered to:
Registrant Name:Daniel Brandt
Registrant Street1:PO Box 680635
Registrant City:San Antonio
Registrant State/Province:Texas
Daniel Brandt is openly identified as a Director of Public Information Research, Namebase's parent, and seems to have nothing to hide, even though he is said to have assisted Philip Agee detail the covert operations of the CIA
Had Plame been given an overseas assignment in the five years prior to Libby leaking it to reporters?
Thank you for posting this, kcvl.
If one reads this, and individually parses out each section, there is NO WAY that The Plame can be a "covert" agent.