I agree that the CIA has commited many horrible crimes in it's past, but I don't think that Plame, or her contacts were part of them, so why should their lives be put at risk? Your argument is akin to saying that because some undercover police officers abuse their situation, it should be legal to out them. I certainly think that the CIA needs more oversight, but there are a lot of situations where revealing people's names will get them killed, and I don't think that we can be the judge of when that is or is not the case. If a reporter has evidence that a CIA agent has commited a crime then it should be reported to the justice department, if they fail to act on it, then perhaps there should be some recourse for publishing a name.

Nathan you rock but you need more judgment, less self-righteousness here.

Ice Weasel-- just for clarification, what part of the post is self-righteous in your mind?

Of course, you know that big league politics operates through scandals rather than discussion and criticism of the issues, because what is at stake is the jockeying for power among the major players rather than the public good. And, of course, the ironical and hypocritical inversion between the liberals and conservatives in the Plame Game, the one side crying "Treason!" and the other denying any connection between morality and national security, is the stuff of low comedy amidst national and public catastrophe. But I don't know if the legal issue you focus on is exactly germane here and if you have adequately considered the role of context. (Of course, one wonders, if there had been no violation of law at stake, given the general state of national politics nowadays, whether there would have been any scandal at all.) Ms. Plame was a specialist in tracking WMD in the 'Stans, surely a worthwhile endeavor and one in which secrecy and covert identity are required. On the other hand, the long history of extra-territorial criminality on the part of the CIA that you cite was a matter of official, if covert policy, not of particular rogue agents, and its exposure and legal-political regulation and oversight is a differently situated matter. And exposing the particular identity of agents in such operations (within 5 years as this particualr law has it) is not necessarily the best, nor the most essential method of exposing and opposing such criminally oppressive interventions.

One small footnote to your history: I believe the number of people assassinated in the 1965 Suharto coup was more one the order of 500,000 with at least 1,000,000 incarcerated in concentration camps on out islands for decades, though I'm not sure about this. The point is that this is exactly the crime for which communist regimes were and are, rightly, historically condemned.

Nathan,

My friend, this part:

But the sudden progressive concern for preserving the anonymity of CIA agents leaves me cold. Not that agent names should be revealed casually, but the idea that an agency -- involved in illegal assassinations and anti-democratic coups for the last half-century -- has suddenly become a sacred cow is ridiculous.

I'm not sure the CIA has become a sacred cow for me, but I'm just one lefty. Perhaps for others, you're right.

The issue here, for me, is the gross negligence and hypocrisy exhibited in this "outing". Add to that, that only "libruls" are supposed to be traitors (at least according to the general wisdom of the right).

I have to run to grill the steaks. Just thought I'd leave that little stinkbomb for you.

As always, thanks for fighting the good fight and making a great blog.

I look forward to your reply.

hrm.

Well, with me, it's that we've been beaten over the heads with brainless formalism and insanely unrealistic expectations for years and they can't follow their own rules to the point of turning on their own when they have a temper tantrum and committing felonies.

There is apparently no force in american life - the law, custom, public opinion, loyalty, simple human decency - that these people require themselves to adhere to.

I care very much about that. Fuck the CIA.

And at the risk of putting too fine a point on it, I agree with what Julia posted very much. I think she said it very well. Most of my indignation at this situation is that there seems to be no rule that these people adherre to. They'll do anything to advance their agenda.

Don't Blame Plame

I have heard you advocate many things intelligently. Although, on this I could not disagree more. Revealing an undercover agent as political payback not only shows the total disregard for genuine political discourse, but undermines an individual's legal rights.

Any group of individuals brought forth will not alter the focus and goals of the CIA, the NSA and so on. Politically, what I do think is feasible is to advocate that--on the basis of 9/11--the goals and focus for the last one and a half generations of intelligence gathering have utterly failed.

The intelligence community did not bring down communism (it was the global economy). The intelligence community failed to understand, and therefore failed to bring to the attention of the public, the anti-American sentiment globally (the terrorist brought the point home). The intelligence community has not safe guarded the proliferation of nuclear materials, drug trafficking and the proliferation of illegal immigration around the globe. In every major policy goal the CIA, the FBI, the NSA and others have failed to perform (whether one agrees with the intent or not--mind you I don't agree many of the intentions). On this basis alone, a full Congressional inquiry and public discussion into the objectives of the intelligence community should be discussed, debated and instituted.

Which is to say, prosecution--while progressive in many aspects--in this instance--is politically reactionary. (e.g. Many capitalist piggies go to jail while speculation goes on. Besides, I may be mistaken, but I thought it was one Nathan Newman who did not like running to the courts when larger issues are at stake. Hum, perhaps I had you confused with some other Yale law practicing-socialist-litigator?)

Protecting an individual's legal rights, no matter how egregious their career choice may be, is and must remain a practiced progressive principle. The Bush administration violated the law, period. The CIA is a nasty institution, without question. I will, however, as a progressive, continue to advocate that when protecting a single individual's rights the law must be upheld. Another way of illustrating this is if Ms. Plame worked for the KKK, and the Bush administration violated her legal rights, as repugnant as the choice of advocacy (in this case her job) we must not forfeit personal legal exercise for practiced political expediency, on their side or ours.

You know, countries need intelligence. An America dominated by a progressive politics would still need intelligence. An America that abjured overthrowing and undermining progressive regimes abroad would still need intelligence.

I'm the first to agree that there's plenty to criticize about the CIA and its culture, and that secretive agencies always pose a threat to democratic politics. I would also point out that the existence of secretive agencies creates a whole range of opportunities for elected politicians to divert blame for their sins. Who was actually responsible for those coups in Iran, Guatemala, Chile, etc.? Was it really "the CIA", or was it perhaps the whole foreign-policy administration, up to and including the elected President? Those who commit atrocities don't get a pass just because they were "only following orders." But we don't get to let that fact bamboozle us into thinking the responsibility lies only with the agency that happened to be charged with the atrocious task.

Anyway, for all the nasty crap the CIA has got up to over the years, the great mass of what its people do is routine, low-key, and useful. Categorically proclaiming "the more exposure [of any CIA operative] the better" because some CIA operations have been reprehensible is, you know, morally wrong. It's group punishment. It's exactly the kind of irrationalism that people like us are supposed to be against.

Valerie Plame's brief was tracking the global traffic in weapons of mass destruction. Maybe you feel differently, but just speaking for this one left-leaning American, if there's anything I want a Federal-level spook agency to be doing, it's tracking the global traffic in weapons of mass destruction. My concern about her exposure isn't a play in some kind of partisan gotcha game, it's an expression of my desire not to be blown up. I object quite strenuously to your insinuations otherwise.

I agree with Aimie about the rights of the individual, regardless of their job choice. But beyond that:

Your point about how you'd want names if this was happening under a "progressive president" is not that convincing to me.

Firstly, the actual situation is that 'leaked' information seems to be evidence that totally contradicts assertions the president was making. Assertions used to justify war. (Not even getting into the believablility of the 'leak' assertion, though Wilson seems perfectly capable of drawing his own conclusions from his own investigation)

Are you saying that if a progressive president was lying you'd want them to get away with it? Especially in the context of justifying a war?

It seems like the analogy here is with whistle-blowers. If you want to have people feel safe to blow the whistle on some thing they disagree with, then they need confidentiality.

If you do include the point that the CIA has been involved in some truly awful stuff, doesn't the whistleblower protection hold even more true?

How very bizarre. I don't understand why you won't just argue against the CIA's existance, rather than legalizing sabotage against it. Both are equally damaging to national security, but the first option is good bit cheaper.

I agree with your sentiments Nathan, having expressed them in milder form in the comments section at Body and Soul a few days ago, but one needs to be nuanced. Plame was apparently doing what we really do want CIA agents to do--keep track of who has nasty weapons and might want to use them against innocent people. If that's what the CIA did all the time, I'd be a lifetime fan.

On the other hand, I think your leftist critics don't seem to understand that we need to state when we think it is legitimate to "out" a CIA agent and when we don't. Plame's outing was inexcusable, but not because she is a CIA agent and their secret agent role is sacrosanct. (Since when did leftists ever care about that?) It was despicable because she was doing something good. If she had been training overseas police forces in torture techniques, I'd be in favor of outing her. I don't know how to pass a law that says "Outing bad CIA agents is legal and outing good ones is not", but if your leftist critics in this thread can say how that is to be done, I'm all ears. And maybe it can--I'm not simply trying to score a point here, but I doubt the law in its current form allows for it.

So yeah, Andrew, it is possible to want to have a CIA and yet not favor laws which act to criminalize both legitimate whistleblowing and illegitimate acts of political revenge. And I noticed that you said absolutely nothing about the many times the CIA has been used to commit crimes. Nathan is raising a legitimate point, though maybe going a bit too far, but you didn't bother to engage it.