FastForwardz: So what? Where's the crime?"

We do not get to pick and choose which laws we will obey and which we will not.

On the eve of conclusion of the Fitzgerald investigation, here's is a very appropriate comment from former US Senator Gary Hart regarding the relative gravity of the 'offense' in the case of outing of an undercover agent of the US Central Intelligence Agency. While the White House will try to spin the coming Fitzgerald indictments as much ado about nothing (mere perjury), remember where this whole thing started; it started with a crime that carries a penalty of 10 years in prison and a $50,000 fine. A crime that was committed in the interest of inflicting damage to political opponents in the run-up to a war...no big thing.

I saw this first on Atrios' site (http://atrios.blogspot.com/). The original article comes from the Denver Post; you might want to read the whole thing at:

Here is the crime in outing a CIA agent

The federal statute making it a criminal penalty to knowingly divulge the identity of anyone working undercover for the Central Intelligence Agency was not enacted in a vacuum. In the early 1970s, in part as a result of the radicalization of individuals and groups over the Vietnam War, a former CIA employee named Philip Agee wrote a book revealing the identities of several dozen CIA employees, many under deep cover and some including agency station chiefs in foreign capitals.

-----

Richard Welch, a brilliant Harvard-educated classicist, had been stationed in Greece as CIA station chief only a few months before he was murdered, by a radical Greek terrorist organization called the 17th of November, in the doorway of his house in Athens on Dec. 23, 1975. Had Agee not divulged his name,* there is every reason to believe that Welch would be alive today after decades of loyal service to his country.

Largely as a result of Agee's perfidy and Welch's unnecessary death, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA) of 1982 was enacted, making it a felony to knowingly divulge the identity of a covert CIA operative. It carries penalties of 10 years in prison and a $50,000 fine for each offense. There are those who dismiss the crime by saying, "Oh, Wilson only had a desk job." That is not a defense under this felony statute. It is for the CIA, not Karl Rove or Robert Novak, to determine who requires identity protection and who does not.

-----

There is one final irony to this story. On Christmas Eve in 1975, I got a call at my home from the director of the CIA, William Colby. He asked if I would intervene with the White House to obtain presidential approval to have Welch buried at Arlington National Cemetery, a hero fallen in service to his country. I quickly called President Ford's chief of staff on Colby's behalf and made the request. Within two hours, the president had agreed to sign the order permitting Welch to be buried at Arlington.