Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I think it's pretty clear that the law doesn't criminalize what Novak did. Agree that he is a miserable hack, and that we would all be better off if he were incarcerated.
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Actually, I recall pretty distinctly from various second and third hand sources at the time the plame thing first came out that, in fact, the law does criminalize it. The law doesn't just apply to G servants, but anyone who makes public the identity of an intelligence agent, regardless of the source of their knowledge. In fact, I recall that breaking the law was cited as the main reason the other tipped journalists didn't publish the story (well, that and the usual "liberal bias" stuff). However, I haven't done any primary research on the matter, I'm just going by my memory of the hearsay from the Geo Stef./Tim Russert/NYT/etc. crowd from some months ago, plus some half-assed follow-up I did at the time, that left me with the distinct impression that what Novak did, even if he thought that the tipper was tipping everyone in town and it would be on the front page of the International Herald Tribune very soon, was criminal.
