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Regular Joe
 
Group: Registered User
Last Login: 9/22/2006 12:05 AM
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PROTECTING THE IDENTITY OF UNDERCOVER CIA PERSONNEL – WHY IT REALLY IS IMPORTANT
by Bob Barr
October 13, 2003
The hoopla surrounding the disclosure that the wife of a former Ambassador works or had worked under cover for the Central Intelligence Agency, has become a parade of finger-pointing, excuse-making, name-calling, and politics. Typical Washington, you might say, before dismissing it and moving on to something else. The most unfortunate thing about all the name-calling and excuse-making in this matter, is that it obscures the truly important issue: protecting the identities of undercover intelligence personnel is not only important, it is vital to our nation’s security and it can be a matter of life and death for the people involved.
I’ve had at least one friend killed – murdered in a hail of bullets – because his identity as an official of the CIA was disclosed and publicized. The friend was Richard (“Dick”) Welch, who was assassinated outside his home in Athens, Greece, back in 1975, following disclosure that he was an employee of the CIA. The disclosure in that case was a deliberate release of classified information identifying Welch as a CIA employee, by leftists bent on doing exactly what they succeeded in doing in that case – “outing” CIA employees so our enemies could take action against them.
Granted, this most recent instance of disclosure is clearly different from the Welch case in intent and in who apparently made the disclosure. And it may or it may not have constituted a violation of law. However, we still ought to be concerned; our government ought to investigate the matter thoroughly, and the sternest measures ought to be meted out to the person or persons who “outed” the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.
Why should we be so concerned? Some ask this question based on the premise that in the age of technical surveillance marvels, the key to good foreign intelligence is satellites, wiretaps, listening devices, and all other manner of high-tech gadgets our intelligence services and military employ on a regular basis, not “human intelligence.” Others might scoff at making such a big deal out of this latest intelligence leak because, at the time of her “outing,” the official may not have been serving abroad, and therefore not in any immediate danger; or that she was not under cover at the moment; or that she might not be under cover in the future.
Pundits or apologists for the leaker(s) can come up with all sorts of reasons why it’s not that big of a deal. They’re wrong. Disclosing the identity of any intelligence official under cover should be taken most seriously, regardless of the particular circumstances at the moment of disclosure.
In this case, the leak of the identity might have particularly serious ramifications for the U.S. Of the several types of “cover” which our intelligence agencies use, this person reportedly had been under the most sensitive, and in many respects, the most difficult and expensive to maintain: non-official cover (or “NOC”). Persons under non-official cover, while under such cover, maintain no outward association with the CIA or other government agencies. Establishing sufficient “backstops” to make this type of cover credible -- that is, sufficient to withstand sophisticated efforts to unravel it -- is time-consuming, expensive, and extremely delicate.
Disclosure of a person now or in the past under non-official cover is not only wasteful of taxpayer funds necessary to develop and maintain the cover, but is dangerous to that person and to perhaps many others associated similarly under cover, or who may have had contacts with the person. This latter category might very well include innocent third parties who might now be placed under suspicion by a hostile foreign government or terrorist organization, simply because it is now known they dealt with the NOC while that person was under cover.
Even though a person may no longer be under non-official cover, it is important the fact of that cover not be revealed. The government may want to use the cover in the future, either for the same person or for others; once the cover is blown, that becomes impossible. Also, the usefulness of that person to be placed under other cover, non-official or otherwise in the future, is diminished if not permanently destroyed, once his or her role as a NOC has been once revealed. In the same vein, the exposure of an individual under NOC, even after that person is no longer in that capacity, enables our adversaries (including terrorists) to reverse engineer – follow the trail back – to uncover how and where we establish and maintain such cover. This makes it even more difficult to maintain non-official cover positions in the future.
Finally, you never know what vindictive, deranged enemies are out there, who, though they might never have had even the most remote exposure to someone whose identity as a CIA official has been revealed, harbor a grudge against our government or against the CIA in particular, and strike out at the one target they may now be aware of through a leak and its attendant publicity.
When I went through extensive training as a new CIA recruit over 30 years ago, the importance of secrecy, and the sometimes convoluted and dangerous repercussions of not maintaining it, were pounded home to us in lecture after lecture. Too bad the person or persons who leaked this latest information identifying a public servant serving her country in a dangerous capacity, didn’t sit in on such lectures.
Bob Barr served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He is now a Distinguished Fellow at Freedom Alliance. He is a former United States Attorney and official with the CIA.
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Is anybody following this? Either I keep missing the reports or they turned it off in this State.
I'm thinkin that some one needs to be brought to the chopping block on this one.
"A citizen who takes up arms, is no longer a civilian".
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Trooper
Group: Past PNET Supporter
Last Login: 3/5/2006 3:25 PM
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If they ever find out who leaked, then he/she needs to be burned.
They should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and
let it go in Federal Court. That way if they are convicted, in
Federal Court, every day sentenced is served. 15 years sentenced?
15 years - served. Period. No credit for time served, no credit
for good behavior.
Breaches of National Security, should be prosecuted, no questions, ands, if's or buts.
    
hooahmedic
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Regular Joe
Group: Past PNET Supporter
Last Login: 12/15/2008 9:04 PM
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O'Rielly seems to think that the Ambassador may have outed his wife as a pre-emptive move, but wants to blame the Bush admin officials, unnamed, for threatening it.
  <rgr>
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