Thank you, Long Colt! — Law enforcement would not be privy to the information on an operative. Given that I have watched a lot of episodes of Burn Notice and read a lot of Clancy and Forsyth novels, I can only surmise that this results from compartmentalization. A cover would prevent anyone other than those working directly with the operative from knowing about him. It prevents leaks. If he is undercover, his 212-3B status would be part of his cover he would appear to anyone checking up on him as if he is a genuine terrorist. It would keep a female prison guard in Baltimore from running a background check on him and telling her gang member boyfriend that he is an undercover agent. .... Nobody outside the small circle would know anything until he gets “popped,” as may have happened in Boston. He probably would have been quietly “erased” from the system once he was “brought in from the cold.” But with the high visibility of the Boston bombing and the levels of distrust for the Administration, the “quiet erasure” looked too much like a cover up for some people working the case on the law enforcement and political sides.