From PDA ( http://pdamerica.org [1] ) blogger Michael Short in Michigan:
Our Next speaker is... John Conyers introduced a former CIA case officer (Jim Marcinkowski) who told us how concerned he is by the people who have -- or at least are attempting to get -- a lock on the media. Who try hard to make dissent unpatriotic.
He explained that having undercover CIA agents is necessary because they help to protect us. They are the ones who get us the info we need to make plans and spoil the efforts of those who'd hurt us. We can't get this info any other way -- they won't just give it too us!
Exposing an agent not only costs us the "asset" it puts people's lives at risk.
When Valerie Plane (?) was outed (for sheer vengeance against a man
who was telling an inconvenient truth) the Bush administration
not only put her at risk -- they lost and continue to compromise
our network of agents.
The "network" is running scared that they might also be outed.
They have no confidence that it won't happen to them too.
Failing to bring this episode to a close will continue to undermine
out ability to find the very information we need to keep ourselves safer.
More later....