It has been reported that the FBI has been questioning Wilson's neighbors in recent days about whether they knew Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the CIA. What seems to have eluded most commentators on this topic is that the neighbors' knowledge or lack thereof is probably irrelevant as matter of law. The relevant section of the IIPA reads as follows:
It is a defense to a prosecution under section 421 of this title that before the commission of the offense with which the defendant is charged, the United States had publicly acknowledged or revealed the intelligence relationship to the United States of the individual the disclosure of whose intelligence relationship to the United States is the basis for the prosecution.
My theory below the flip.
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