NationStates Jolt Archive

http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001306732

Apparently, she was given a special classified security clearance.

That's why she couldn't file the story properly with the New York Times, the paper she worked for.

And it's why it might appear that the person with the security clearance who leaked Valerie Plame's name to Mr. Novak was not a White House aide - because if she had a clearance, they were free to talk to her and tell her the identity of Valeria Plame.

Judith Miller, on the other hand, with a security clearance, had an obligation to keep the name secret.

She might end up going back to jail if the prosecutor doesn't buy her story that she couldn't remember the name correctly.

That would explain a lot. I had a hard time imgining Rove giving away a career-ending secret without a bulletproof escape plan. He's evil, but not stupid.

http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001306732

Apparently, she was given a special classified security clearance.

That's why she couldn't file the story properly with the New York Times, the paper she worked for.

And it's why it might appear that the person with the security clearance who leaked Valerie Plame's name to Mr. Novak was not a White House aide - because if she had a clearance, they were free to talk to her and tell her the identity of Valeria Plame.

Judith Miller, on the other hand, with a security clearance, had an obligation to keep the name secret.

She might end up going back to jail if the prosecutor doesn't buy her story that she couldn't remember the name correctly.


Just because you are given security clearance doesn't mean that you are cleared to know everything. If she had no need-to-know, then passing information to her regarding a CIA operative's identity is still a criminal act. There are also levels to security clearance.

So much for my prediction of 85+ days ago. I had thought she was protecting someone other than the likely suspects. Wonder what the NY Times will do? Wonder what this does to her book deal?

Patrick Fitzgerald really seems to be the best for this case. It'd suck if Miller went down and Rove went on being... uh... Rovish but I'd accept anything Fitzgerald hands down as the closest thing to the truth.

Just because you are given security clearance doesn't mean that you are cleared to know everything. If she had no need-to-know, then passing information to her regarding a CIA operative's identity is still a criminal act. There are also levels to security clearance.
There are two parts to the equation. One is clearance. Are you cleared for confidential, secret, top secret, TSSI, etc. The second is whether or not you have access. A lot of investigating goes into granting access for TS information. Compartmentalization is important to keeping ultra-secrets safe.

I'm going to bet that Val Plame's status was Confidential, at the most. Maybe just For Official Use Only at the very least. Confidential information is treated very differently in the government world than it is in the civilian contractor world. How many rolls of toilet paper delivered to the Pentagon is probably Confidential.

So my point is that access for a cleared person to Confidential information is pretty easy to come by. Miller could easily have discussed this with anyone from Cheney to the CIA janitors. In fact, information classified as Secret isn't all that well controlled, access-wise. About the only difference between it and Confidential information is that the Secret stuff gets locked up in a safe at night.

There are two parts to the equation. One is clearance. Are you cleared for confidential, secret, top secret, TSSI, etc. The second is whether or not you have access. A lot of investigating goes into granting access for TS information. Compartmentalization is important to keeping ultra-secrets safe.

I'm going to bet that Val Plame's status was Confidential, at the most. Maybe just For Official Use Only at the very least. Confidential information is treated very differently in the government world than it is in the civilian contractor world. How many rolls of toilet paper delivered to the Pentagon is probably Confidential.

So my point is that access for a cleared person to Confidential information is pretty easy to come by. Miller could easily have discussed this with anyone from Cheney to the CIA janitors. In fact, information classified as Secret isn't all that well controlled, access-wise. About the only difference between it and Confidential information is that the Secret stuff gets locked up in a safe at night.


So you're saying a NOC's identity is only Confidential and that the CIA would request a full blown investigation into the outing of someone who has equal cover as a roll of toilet paper?

There are two parts to the equation. One is clearance. Are you cleared for confidential, secret, top secret, TSSI, etc. The second is whether or not you have access. A lot of investigating goes into granting access for TS information. Compartmentalization is important to keeping ultra-secrets safe.

I'm going to bet that Val Plame's status was Confidential, at the most. Maybe just For Official Use Only at the very least. Confidential information is treated very differently in the government world than it is in the civilian contractor world. How many rolls of toilet paper delivered to the Pentagon is probably Confidential.

So my point is that access for a cleared person to Confidential information is pretty easy to come by. Miller could easily have discussed this with anyone from Cheney to the CIA janitors. In fact, information classified as Secret isn't all that well controlled, access-wise. About the only difference between it and Confidential information is that the Secret stuff gets locked up in a safe at night.
Dude, she was NOC--do you really think the CIA would have gone to all this trouble and the Special Prosecutor would have done all this if she wasn't? Come on--you're smarter than that.

As to Miller, if she really did have that clearance and didn't tell her editors, then she ought to be canned--that $1.2 million for her book will make the landing soft--and if her editors knew, then they ought to be canned as well.

Dude, she was NOC--do you really think the CIA would have gone to all this trouble and the Special Prosecutor would have done all this if she wasn't? Come on--you're smarter than that.

As to Miller, if she really did have that clearance and didn't tell her editors, then she ought to be canned--that $1.2 million for her book will make the landing soft--and if her editors knew, then they ought to be canned as well.
I thought, and I might be remembering this wrong, but I thought her name was declassified shortly after one reporter's conversation with Rove. Meaning that it was already scheduled to be declassified, not that it was done after the fact to cover his butt. That was his weak excuse for confirming her position.

On the other side of the coin, I can't imagine a reporter being given a TS clearance and access to compartmentalized information. Which is what would be required if Plame was still a covert agent, I suppose.

I thought, and I might be remembering this wrong, but I thought her name was declassified shortly after one reporter's conversation with Rove. Meaning that it was already scheduled to be declassified, not that it was done after the fact to cover his butt. That was his weak excuse for confirming her position.

On the other side of the coin, I can't imagine a reporter being given a TS clearance and access to compartmentalized information. Which is what would be required if Plame was still a covert agent, I suppose.I think you may be thinking about Matthew Cooper's testimony, where Rove apparently said something was about to be declassified, and Cooper wasn't clear as to whether or not that was Plame's identity. Even if that story is true, when Plame's connection to CIA was put out there, it was still classified material, which is why Rove seems to be in hot water. Besides, it doesn't make sense that Fitzgerald would have gone to these lengths if outing Plame wasn't a crime of some sort--you establish that a crime has indeed been committed right out of the box, right? Then you try to figure out who's responsible.

Judith Miller?

Who?

so miller, a NYT reporter, receives some kind of clearance for when she was embedded withthe troops in iraq

this causes rove and libby to call her up sometime after she gets back just to chat about national secrets. after all who ELSE are they going to talk to but an NYT reporter?

perhaps they were trying to torture her with stories she could never print?

which is interesting. but the name wasnt leaked by miller, eh?

I think you may be thinking about Matthew Cooper's testimony, where Rove apparently said something was about to be declassified, and Cooper wasn't clear as to whether or not that was Plame's identity. Even if that story is true, when Plame's connection to CIA was put out there, it was still classified material, which is why Rove seems to be in hot water. Besides, it doesn't make sense that Fitzgerald would have gone to these lengths if outing Plame wasn't a crime of some sort--you establish that a crime has indeed been committed right out of the box, right? Then you try to figure out who's responsible.
Yes, I think Cooper and Rove were the two involved. And I don't know what Fitzgerald's motives are, but if a crime has been committed, then there should be an indictment. I guess we only have to wait a couple more weeks.

Dude, she was NOC--do you really think the CIA would have gone to all this trouble and the Special Prosecutor would have done all this if she wasn't? Come on--you're smarter than that.

As to Miller, if she really did have that clearance and didn't tell her editors, then she ought to be canned--that $1.2 million for her book will make the landing soft--and if her editors knew, then they ought to be canned as well.


Aslo, the issue is not just Plame's identiy. In Novak's article, he revealed the name and address of a fictional consultation company that operated as a cover operation for CIA agents. Additionally, Plame had many contacts with other agents and foreign operatives. None of the laws says anything about specifying a specific agent by name, they all say something like "information leading to..."

Therefore exposing an agent's contacts and cover job is breaking the legal code. Plame's personal status may not even be the issue here!

P.S., does it make me a bad person in that when I saw this headline, it made me think Miller had gotten involved in some prison shower escapade involving a prison-improvised "marital aid"?

Dude, she was NOC--do you really think the CIA would have gone to all this trouble and the Special Prosecutor would have done all this if she wasn't? Come on--you're smarter than that.

As to Miller, if she really did have that clearance and didn't tell her editors, then she ought to be canned--that $1.2 million for her book will make the landing soft--and if her editors knew, then they ought to be canned as well.

The other twist is that Valerie Plame, while an employee of the CIA, was not working under deep cover. The regulations apparently only apply to CIA officers under deep cover.

The other twist is that Valerie Plame, while an employee of the CIA, was not working under deep cover. The regulations apparently only apply to CIA officers under deep cover.
Dude--that's been answered already. No way that this case goes this far without her being deep cover--not in this political climate when the people under investigation run every branch of government.

Dude--that's been answered already. No way that this case goes this far without her being deep cover--not in this political climate when the people under investigation run every branch of government.

Then how do you answer the following. Consider that in order to convict someone of doing this, you have to have intent. What intent would there be if:

1. According to Judith Miller's notebooks and emails, she was talking about Valerie almost two weeks before her husband ever said a word about Iraqi nuclear ambitions. If Wilson hasn't said anything yet, how can there be intent to scare Mr. Wilson?

2. Mr. Wilson testified before a committee that he was unable to debunk the Nigerian uranium connection, despite what he wrote in his book. Why would he testify to one thing, and write another?

3. Judith Miller had a security clearance. This means that she's the last person in the chain of custody. Technically, she could have been given an interim Top Secret during the WMD affair (which she was covering and had special access to cover). Considering that it's WMD, TS is a safe bet. The people around her are high ranking enough to not have to worry about "need to know" - so it's her butt on the line for leaking secret information.

Come to think of it, an interim TS is so easy to grant, the government, before speaking to reporters, should issue them. Then, if the reporters report the secret information, the government officials are blameless, and the reporter goes to jail.

Catch-22. It's the best catch there is.

I'm going to bet that Val Plame's status was Confidential, at the most. Maybe just For Official Use Only at the very least. Confidential information is treated very differently in the government world than it is in the civilian contractor world. How many rolls of toilet paper delivered to the Pentagon is probably Confidential.

So my point is that access for a cleared person to Confidential information is pretty easy to come by. Miller could easily have discussed this with anyone from Cheney to the CIA janitors. In fact, information classified as Secret isn't all that well controlled, access-wise. About the only difference between it and Confidential information is that the Secret stuff gets locked up in a safe at night.
Her clearance was secret, not confidential

Then how do you answer the following. Consider that in order to convict someone of doing this, you have to have intent. What intent would there be if:

1. According to Judith Miller's notebooks and emails, she was talking about Valerie almost two weeks before her husband ever said a word about Iraqi nuclear ambitions. If Wilson hasn't said anything yet, how can there be intent to scare Mr. Wilson?
Wrong--Miller's notebooks date back to two weeks before Wilson's Op-Ed appeared in the NY Times. He'd been talking to lots of people about the situation long before that. More importantly, the outing of his wife was not meant to scare Wilson so much as it was meant to scare anyone else who was thinking about stepping forward.

2. Mr. Wilson testified before a committee that he was unable to debunk the Nigerian uranium connection, despite what he wrote in his book. Why would he testify to one thing, and write another?
Can you cite that, in Wilson's own words? Or are you talking about the ludicrous conclusion that some Republicans on the congressional investigating committee came to? If you can cite Wilson's own words, I'd like to see it.

3. Judith Miller had a security clearance. This means that she's the last person in the chain of custody. Technically, she could have been given an interim Top Secret during the WMD affair (which she was covering and had special access to cover). Considering that it's WMD, TS is a safe bet. The people around her are high ranking enough to not have to worry about "need to know" - so it's her butt on the line for leaking secret information.

Come to think of it, an interim TS is so easy to grant, the government, before speaking to reporters, should issue them. Then, if the reporters report the secret information, the government officials are blameless, and the reporter goes to jail.

Catch-22. It's the best catch there is.She certainly claimed to have that clearance--whether she actually did or not is still up for some debate and is cause for some other concern among her journalistic peers and employers. But none of that affects the question of whether or not a crime was committed by the leaking of Plame's CIA connection--there most certainly was a crime committed, or this investigation wouldn't have continued to this point.

So, the Bush/Rove apologists are saying Miller had Top Secret clearance in the absence of all evidence, but that Plame was just an unimportant desk jockey...who had a 2 year justice dept. investigation called on her behalf to investigate the blowing of her non-existant cover. Right.

Can you cite that, in Wilson's own words? Or are you talking about the ludicrous conclusion that some Republicans on the congressional investigating committee came to? If you can cite Wilson's own words, I'd like to see it.

His own words, in a letter to the Intelligence Committee were published in Salon. And in the Committee hearings.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/07/16/wilson_letter/index_np.html


WILSON (letter to the Intelligence Committee): My article in the New York Times makes clear that I attributed to myself “a small role in the effort to verify information about Africa's suspected link to Iraq's nonconventional weapons programs.”...I went to great lengths to point out that mine was but one of three reports on the subject. I never claimed to have “debunked” the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa. I claimed only that the transaction described in the documents that turned out to be forgeries could not have occurred and did not occur.

Amazing, isn’t it? I never claimed to have “debunked” the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa! Readers, what has the last year been about if Wilson didn’t claim to debunk Bush’s claim? (Think hard—we know you’ll come up with something.) Let’s compare two important statements—Bush’s famous 16 words, and Wilson’s amazing new admission:

BUSH: The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

WILSON: I never claimed to have “debunked” the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa.

Finally! This is what we’ve always told you—Wilson had no way of knowing if the 16-word statement was right or wrong. He had no way to debunk it! But throughout his thrilling and best-selling book, he calls this statement a “lie-lie-lie-lie,” over and over and over again.

I bet some people are upset that Wilson said he never debunked the uranium claim. Especially those anti-Bush die hards who paid money to buy Wilson's book.

OVERSTATEMENT CENTRAL: “I never claimed to have ‘debunked’ the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa,” Wilson says. But he calls the allegation a “lie” all through his overstated book. Here’s one example of his overstatements—the first one that we turn to:

WILSON (page 337): Had I been the chief executive of this operation, as President Bush likes to say that he is, I would have been furious that a member of my staff had inserted such an obviously false claim in the most important speech I might ever make.

Was Bush’s claim false? We still don’t know—and neither does Wilson! But then, he overstates wildly all through his book. Sadly, Dems are now going to pay a price for accepting his loud overstatements.

ILLOGIC CENTRAL: Wilson has long been a fount of illogic. Here’s one instant example:

WILSON (page 334): The path to writing the op-ed piece had always been clear in my mind. My government had refused to address the fundamental question of how the lie regarding Saddam’s supposed attempt to purchase African uranium had found its way into the State of the Union address... I had to raise it, publicly and in my own words. I realized that my credibility would be called into question, and I was steeled for that. But whatever one might say about me—and there is a lot—the truth remained: There was never any evidence of Iraqi uranium purchases from Niger. [Wilson’s emphasis]

Within one paragraph, Wilson floats from an alleged “attempt” to purchase uranium to the claim that there was never any evidence of such purchases. But Bush didn’t claim there had been any purchases—only that there had been an attempt. Wilson’s illogic has been endless, but so what? He calls Bush’s statement a “lie” all the same, even though he doesn’t know, even today, if the statement was true or false. Sadly, Dems are now starting to pay a price for buying this blatant illogic.

His own words, in a letter to the Intelligence Committee were published in Salon. And in the Committee hearings.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/07/16/wilson_letter/index_np.html


WILSON (letter to the Intelligence Committee): My article in the New York Times makes clear that I attributed to myself “a small role in the effort to verify information about Africa's suspected link to Iraq's nonconventional weapons programs.”...I went to great lengths to point out that mine was but one of three reports on the subject. I never claimed to have “debunked” the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa. I claimed only that the transaction described in the documents that turned out to be forgeries could not have occurred and did not occur.

Amazing, isn’t it? I never claimed to have “debunked” the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa! Readers, what has the last year been about if Wilson didn’t claim to debunk Bush’s claim? (Think hard—we know you’ll come up with something.) Let’s compare two important statements—Bush’s famous 16 words, and Wilson’s amazing new admission:

BUSH: The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

WILSON: I never claimed to have “debunked” the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa.

Finally! This is what we’ve always told you—Wilson had no way of knowing if the 16-word statement was right or wrong. He had no way to debunk it! But throughout his thrilling and best-selling book, he calls this statement a “lie-lie-lie-lie,” over and over and over again.
I don't see the contradiction. Wilson said very clearly what he knew--that the Niger documents were a forgery and that what they described couldn't have happened, and he was right. Bush's State of the Union address made a much larger claim--that British Intelligence had claimed that Iraq was trying to get uranium from Africa, a much wider statement that--and this is the important part--they backed away from and said shouldn't have been included in the speech. So many Wilson attackers neglect that little part--the White House backed off the uranium claim within days of having made it and said it shouldn't have been included in the SOTU speech.

And again--what does any of this have to do with Plame's NOC status? It smells like a diversion from the topic at hand to me.

I claimed only that the transaction described in the documents that turned out to be forgeries could not have occurred and did not occur.


In other words, Wilson is saying that the only evidence the Bush administration had for the Niger story was bunk. The Niger transaction could have happened, but there was no evidence for it, and it could not have happened in the way the Bush administration said it did.

Gee Sierra, your reading comprehension really does seem to fluctuate from sentence to sentence.

In other words, Wilson is saying that the only evidence the Bush administration had for the Niger story was bunk. The Niger transaction could have happened, but there was no evidence for it, and it could not have happened in the way the Bush administration said it did.

Gee Sierra, your reading comprehension really does seem to fluctuate from sentence to sentence.

That can't be the meaning of what he said. He said,

“I never claimed to have ‘debunked’ the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa."

That can't be the meaning of what he said. He said,

“I never claimed to have ‘debunked’ the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa."

And what's the very next sentence in his statement? You're right, he is covering his butt, in case any evidence in the future comes out to support the Iraq/Niger claim. But, and this is very important, the evidence the Bush administration had at that time, which has not been added to since, was not only faulty but clearly at odds with the facts.

Context, my friend, context.