"Loose Lips Sink Spies"

This is Porter Goss, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Mr. Goss believes in keeping spy secrets secret. For National Security.

He wrote today in the New York Times:

"I take seriously my agency's responsibility to protect our national security. Unauthorized disclosures undermine our efforts and abuse the trust of the people we are sworn to protect. Since becoming director, I have filed criminal reports with the Department of Justice because of such compromises. That department is committed to working with us to investigate these cases aggressively. In addition, I have instituted measures within the agency to further safeguard the integrity of classified data.

Our enemies cannot match the creativity, expertise, technical genius and tradecraft that the C.I.A. brings to bear in this war. Criminal disclosures of national security information, however, can erase much of that advantage. The terrorists gain an edge when they keep their secrets and we don't keep ours."

This is Scooter Libby.Mr. Libby was the Chief of Staff for Vice-President Dick Cheney. This is a picture of the Vice-President.This is a picture of Valerie Plame:As related by former Nixon attorney John Dean:

"On July 14, in his syndicated column, Chicago Sun-Times journalist Robert Novak reported that Valerie Plame Wilson - the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, and mother of three-year-old twins - was a covert CIA agent. (She had been known to her friends as an "energy analyst at a private firm.")"

Jim Marcinkowski and Larry Johnson,former CIA operatives know how important it is to keep CIA agents identities confidential. Theycommented to CNN's Bill Hemmer back in 2003:

"HEMMER: Larry, tell me, what's the damage, though. Be specific, as best you can right now. Have lives been lost? Have people been sacrificed?

JOHNSON: I don't know if lives have been lost yet, but we have to start with the damage to Mrs. Wilson. Her life has been put at risk. The people that she was working with overseas who were spies, they are potentially at risk. You could potentially have people dead because of this. But the odds of finding that out as far as the CIA coming forth and detailing it, we are not likely to hear that because they have to protect the sources and methods."

And today it is reported:

WASHINGTON — Former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has told a federal grand jury that his "superiors" authorized him to leak highly sensitive intelligence to journalists, including a New York Times reporter he allegedly tipped off to the name of an undercover CIA operative.

Mr. Libby's superior was Vice-President Cheney.

But Mr. Cheney knows how important confidentiality about CIA information is. He commented about the leaks about wiretapping:

"The terrorist surveillance program was highly classified, and information about it was improperly given to the news media," the vice president said.

Noting that Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales had appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday, Cheney added: "As the attorney general pointed out this week, it's easy to imagine America's enemies shaking their heads in amazement that anyone would disclose this information, thereby giving notice to those enemies and [endangering] national security, putting our citizens at risk. But that is what happened."

Thank you for expressing this so clearly Mr. Cheney.

And let me repeat your quote of Attorney General Gonzales,

"...it's easy to imagine America's enemies shaking their heads in amazement that anyone would disclose this information, thereby giving notice to those enemies and [endangering] national security, putting our citizens at risk. But that is what happened."

America deserves better. We deserve an Administration that does not put our own CIA agents and their families and contacts at risk to advance a political agenda. We deserve confidentiality from the highest Office in the land. Every American must follow the law. Even the President and the Vice-President.

As Mr. Goss so eloquently stated today:

"The C.I.A. has put many terrorists out of action since 9/11. In our pursuit of the enemy, we accept the unique responsibility we bear as officers of a clandestine service serving an open, constitutional society. But we also know that unauthorized disclosure of classified intelligence inhibits our ability to carry out our mission and protect the nation."

And what kind of high crime and misdemeanor is it to disclose a CIA agent? And to interfere with the CIA protecting our nation?

Keep on coming Senator Kerry! We got your back! Together we can get America back on track!

Bob