Read what the judge in the Judith Miller case said about the seriousness

The Velveteen Ocelot

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Fri Jul-15-05 11:04 PM
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Read what the judge in the Judith Miller case said about the seriousness

of the Plame situation:

At pages 28-29:

"Applying this standard to the facts of this case, and
considering first only the public record, I have no doubt that the
leak at issue was a serious matter. Authorized �to investigate
and prosecute violations of any federal criminal laws related to
the underlying alleged unauthorized disclosure, as well as
federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to
interfere with, investigation, such as perjury, obstruction of
justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses,�
see Letter from James B. Comey, Acting Attorney General, to
Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney, Northern District
of Illinois (Feb. 6, 2004), the special counsel is attempting to
discover the origins of press reports describing Valerie Plame as
a CIA operative monitoring weapons of mass destruction. See
majority op. at 3-5. These reports appeared after Plame�s
husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, wrote in a New
York Times op-ed column that his findings on an official mission
to Niger in 2002 cast doubt on President Bush�s assertion in his
January 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq �recently
sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.� See id. at
3.

An alleged covert agent, Plame evidently traveled overseas
on clandestine missions beginning nearly two decades ago. See,
e.g., Richard Leiby & Dana Priest, The Spy Next Door; Valerie
Wilson, Ideal Mom, Was Also the Ideal Cover, Wash. Post, Oct.
8, 2003, at A1. Her exposure, therefore, not only may have
jeopardized any covert activities of her own, but also may have
endangered friends and associates from whom she might have
gathered information in the past. Acting to criminalize such
exposure of secret agents, see 50 U.S.C. � 421, Congress has
identified that behavior�s �intolerable� consequences: �he
loss of vital human intelligence which our policymakers need,
the great cost to the American taxpayer of replacing intelligence
resources lost due to such disclosures, and the greatly increased
risk of harm which continuing disclosures force intelligence
officers and sources to endure.�

And, at pages 39-40:

Indeed, Cooper�s own Time.com article illustrates this
point. True, his story revealed a suspicious confluence of leaks,
contributing to the outcry that led to this investigation. Yet the
article had that effect precisely because the leaked
information�Plame�s covert status�lacked significant news
value. In essence, seeking protection for sources whose
nefariousness he himself exposed, Cooper asks us to protect
criminal leaks so that he can write about the crime. The greater
public interest lies in preventing the leak to begin with. Had
Cooper based his report on leaks about the leaks�say, from a
whistleblower who revealed the plot against Wilson�the
situation would be different. Because in that case the source
would not have revealed the name of a covert agent, but instead
revealed the fact that others had done so, the balance of news
value and harm would shift in favor of protecting the
whistleblower. Yet it appears Cooper relied on the Plame leaks
themselves, drawing the inference of sinister motive on his own.
Accordingly, his story itself makes the case for punishing the
leakers. While requiring Cooper to testify may discourage
future leaks, discouraging leaks of this kind is precisely what the
public interest requires."

http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/docs/common/opinions/200502/04-3138a.pdf

The judge clearly believes that the leak was serious; that Valerie Plame was, in fact, a covert agent; that a crime was committed; and that there was a plot against Wilson.

So who ya gonna believe -- a federal judge, or Rush Limbaugh? :rofl: