Louis Wolf on CIA Secrecy

CovertAction Quarterly (named CovertAction Information Bulletin until 1992) is an American publication focused on and critical of the US Central Intelligence Agency. It was founded by former CIA officer turned agency critic Philip Agee and others in 1978. It is most famous for its "Naming Names" column which published the names of undercover CIA officers. The column ended in 1982 with the passage of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which made the practice of revealing the name of an undercover officer illegal under U.S. law. http://secretsofthecia.blogspot.com/2009/12/intelligence-identities-protection-act.html The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 (Pub.L. 97-200, 50 U.S.C. § 421426) is a United States federal law that makes it a federal crime to intentionally reveal the identity of an agent whom one knows to be in or recently in certain covert roles with a U.S. intelligence agency. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 (50 U.S.C. 15411548) was a United States Congress joint resolution providing that the President can send U.S. armed forces into action abroad only by authorization of Congress or if the United States is already under attack or serious threat. The War Powers Resolution requires that the president notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days, with a further 30 day withdrawal period, without an authorization of the use of military force or a declaration of war. The resolution was passed by two-thirds of Congress, overriding a presidential veto. The Salvadoran Civil War (19801992) was a conflict in El Salvador. It was between the military-led government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition or umbrella organization of five left-wing militias. Significant tensions and violence had already existed, before the civil war's full outbreak, over the course of the 1970s. The United States supported the Salvadoran military government. The conflict ended in the early 1990s. Some 75,000 people were killed.