The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 (Pub.L. 97-200, 50 U.S.C. §§ 421–426) is a United States federal law that makes it a federal crime for those with access to classified information, or those who systematically seek to identify and expose covert agents and have reason to believe that it will harm the foreign intelligence activities of the U.S.,[1] to intentionally reveal the identity of an agent whom one knows to be in or recently in certain covert roles with a U.S. intelligence agency, unless the United States has publicly acknowledged or revealed the relationship.
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The law was written, in part, as a response to several incidents where Central Intelligence Agency agents' identities were revealed. Under then existing law, such disclosures were legal when they did not involve the release of classified information. In 1975, CIA Athens station chief Richard Welch1 was assassinated by the Greek terrorist group November 17 after his identity was revealed in several listings by a magazine called CounterSpy, edited by Timothy Butz. A local paper checked with CounterSpy to confirm his identity.2 However, the linkage between the publication of Welch's name and his assassination has been challenged by pundits that claim he was residing in a known CIA residency (Garwood, "Under Cover").
Another major impetus to pass the legislation was the activities of ex-CIA agent Philip Agee during the 1960s and 1970s. Agee's book CIA Diary and his publication of the Covert Action Information Bulletin (CAIB) blew the cover of many agents. Some commentators say the law was specifically targeted at his actions, and one Congressman, Bill Young, said during a House debate that "What we're after today are the Philip Agees of the world." 8
The law passed the House by a vote of 315–32, with all opposing votes coming from Democrats. The law passed the Senate 81–4, with the opponents being Democratic Senators Joseph Biden, Gary Hart, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Republican Senator Charles Mathias.
As of July 2005[update], there has only been one successful prosecution involving the statute.[2] In 1985, CIA agent Sharon Scranage was sentenced to five years, and served 8 months, for giving the names of other agents to her boyfriend in Ghana.[3]
Between 2003 and 2007, an investigation was conducted by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald into whether this law and others were violated in the identification of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative in a 2003 newspaper column by Robert Novak. 3 As a result of the investigation, former Vice Presidential chief of staff "Scooter" Libby was convicted on two counts of perjury, one count of obstruction of justice and one count of making false statements to federal investigators4 and sentenced to 30 months in jail. 5 In a court filing related to Libby's sentencing, the CIA stated that Plame was a covert agent at the time of the leak. 6 In addition, the leak enabled the identification of Plame as an employee of the CIA front company, Brewster Jennings & Associates, and in doing so enabled the identification of other CIA agents who were "employed" there. 7
In 2011 Ray Nowosielski and John Duffy of SecrecyKills.org planned to release an audio documentary entitled "Who is Rich Blee?", focusing on the CIA's Bin Ladin unit before 9/11, and the way certain CIA officials blocked information on 9/11 hijackers from reaching the FBI before 9/11. In the documentary they planned to reveal the identity of two CIA agents. One of them is "Frances", the red-headed CIA agent mentioned in several reports on the War on Terror, including Jane Mayer's The Dark Side and an AP news story from 2011 about the Khalid El-Masri case.[4] However, after receiving threats under the IIPA, Duffy and Nowosielski decided to release the documentary with the names redacted.[5]