CarolC,

Your second point is well taken. It has already gotten Scooter Libby.

Your first point is a little more dificult. The CIA has thousands of employees and in many cases it is known where they work. From there it is easy to find out where they live. Unless it can be shown that she was involved in something in the past that might have upset someone enough to come after her, that her family might face increased danger now that her identity is known is going to be very hard to prove.

The only place that someone goes after a former covert operative is in the movies. The international intelligence community would not risk exposure to take out someone who last did covert work nearly 15 years ago. Revenge simply is not a motive to these people. It serves no useful purpose and, as I said, it has the added risk of discovery.

As far as some individual coming after her on his/her own, anyone who has his/her picture appear in the paper runs the risk of some nutcase deciding that all their problems would be solved it that person was dead.

I think that Plames lawyers will have a real uphill fight to make any kind of case based on increased danger.

As I said before, I think it's political.

troll