Let’s talk about what it means to be undercover, or a covert agent. Here is a breakdown of the different degrees of cover given to CIA employees:
Light cover. Many of the CIA’s analysts and scientists fall under this category. Their families and friends might know who they really work for, but publicly, they claim to be employed by some other innocuous government agency or group. One former intelligence officer described this as “the cover you use if your airplane gets hijacked”: It’s safe enough to use on a quick visit overseas, say to meet with intelligence counterparts in a friendly country, but insufficient cover for spies stationed abroad.
Official cover. Most CIA employees engaged in operations overseas are given official cover: a sham job in the U.S. embassy (or working for another government agency) that affords them diplomatic immunity. These spies work under varying degrees of secrecy—the CIA station chief in a major ally nation may be well-known on the diplomatic cocktail circuit, but his subordinates, who actually recruit new informants, may not be. Such spies probably confide in their immediate families, but otherwise are unlikely to reveal their true occupation. (Although some operatives working in allied nations are “declared” officers, which means the CIA informs the host government that they are spies.) The advantage of official cover is that if officers are caught, they enjoy the benefits of diplomatic protection; at worst, they’d be publicly outed and sent home in disgrace.
Nonofficial cover. NOCs (the word rhymes with “rocks”) are the most covert CIA operatives. They typically work abroad without diplomatic protection (often they pretend to work for some commercial enterprise). If these spies are caught, there’s no guarantee that the United States would admit their true identities. When using official cover could put a spy’s life and work at risk, NOC is the only alternative.
People are arguing over whether on not Valerie Plame was operating with non-official cover, as if that matters. It doesn’t. Let’s look at the relevent clause in the statute:
The United States is taking ‘affirmative actions’ to conceal the relationship of all it officers, whether they have official or non-official cover. They are all covert agents working undercover. The only possible exceptions to this are when we ‘declare’ an officer to a foreign government. Even then, though, we are still not broadcasting their identity to the whole world. We are still providing them with some cover.
So, it doesn’t matter whether Plame had official cover, or non-official cover. But, just in case you really care, the NY Times reported back on October 2, 2003:
That cover story, standard for American operatives who pretend to be diplomats or other federal employees, was not an option for Ms. Plame, people who knew her said on Wednesday. As a covert operative who specialized in nonconventional weapons and sometimes worked abroad, she passed herself off as a private energy expert, what the agency calls nonofficial cover.
I suppose that the leakers could argue that a CIA employee that was openly telling their friends that they worked at the agency was not undercover, or covert. But officers that are pretending to work at the state or treasury departments are being given ‘affirmative’ cover. This whole thing is a double red herring.
