I'm still trying to figure this one out.

A CIA analyst has been fired for leaking about secret jails in Europe that the US is using.

The US denied there were any such jails or detention facilities.

So... why would the CIA analyst get fired for leaking a secret if there were no such things? She isn't being fired for telling untrue secrets.

Doesn't firing her prove they exist? Or existed?

Here's the story with pretty good background: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,18904510-31477,00.html

Of course they exist.

Yeah, but doesn't the administration denying they exist, but firing the leaker just make them look like liars? Lots of the European leaders were really up in arms about this. But they seem to have been mollified. Or at least, I'm not aware anyone is still upset over it.

Well... see it's UNclassified that they don't exist and CLASSIFIED that they do. I don't see it to be anymore contradictory than the rest of this administration's "sekret stuff". The reason that Bush gets so upset about the leaks is because they expose the lies that they've been feeding the voters. I don't think it's ever had anything to do with "national security". Bush has already said that he doesn't care WHAT the polls show the people want, he's got a job to do and he's going to keep doing it no matter who doesn't like it.

Politicians support whistleblowers until someone blows the whistle on their secrets. Then they sack or prosecute them. It's exactly the hypocrisy that drives the public to despair.

Bush has already said that he doesn't care WHAT the polls show the people want
Funny, I bet he cared what the polls said before he got reelected.

Funny, I bet he cared what the polls said before he got reelected.

Well, dead people seemed strongly in favor of him this past election.

Of course they exist.

The commission set up by the EU to investigate the claims have yet failed to find any evidence of secret US prisons in Europe.

From the EU interim report.

"Legal proceedings in progress in certain countries seemed to indicate that individuals had been abducted and transferred to other countries without respect for any legal standards,"

"The ... information gathered to date (has) reinforced the credibility of the allegations concerning the transfer and temporary detention of individuals, without any judicial involvement, in European countries."

The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.

source (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/01/AR2005110101644.html)

I think the problem is simpler than a conspiracy to cover up secret jails.

If you run around town denouncing the business you work for, the boss is probably going to let you go. Say you work for the local bakery. You decide to make a big announcement about having worms in the bread that your bakery sells. It turns out not to be true. You get fired. So does that mean there were worms in the bread? No, it means the owner of the bakery doesn't need a trouble maker working for them.

Sometimes a rose is just a rose.

Some people seem to believe that if you defend yourself you must be guilty and then on the other hand, if you don't defend yourself you must be guilty. Leaves you with little choice of what to do.

I think the problem is simpler than a conspiracy to cover up secret jails.With this, I agree. I think they needed an example to show other government employees "this could happen to YOU!" to stop leaks. She had put in for her retirement which was 10 days away. The agency isn't blocking her retirement package. It's most likely that she was given the retirement on a conditional basis... condition being that she wouldn't discuss it.

I read somewhere that some of the CIA employees are refusing to take part in meetings on stuff like this because they believe that if the Democratic party takes control again there will be investigations into this stuff and people will have to rack up enormous legal expenses defending themselves.

Omigod! New efficiency in government! Get people to stop going to meetings they don't need to be in!! :D

Hmmm... maybe the Republicans are implementing their "smaller government" scheme after all!

Omigod! New efficiency in government! Get people to stop going to meetings they don't need to be in!! :D

I have been to few meetings that were productive. Unless you count setting the agenda for the next meeting. All meetings are productive that way.

That is why you should always have a couple gun slingers in any organization, to get stuff done, and to break up the status stagnation that all the Robert's Rulers propagate.

Valerie Plame Wilson's cover blower should still be hung up by his or her 'nads. I don't care if it is the VP or Bush himself. It plays like that that gawd aweful "Clear and Present Danger" movie.

I don't have a problem with the CIA nabbing bad guys. Spoils of winning the Cold War.

I don't have a problem with the CIA firing secret leakers either. CIA agents don't make a lot of money anyhow, and have credentials and certs to make multiple amounts out in the real world. It is not like she did not know the risks(of termination), probably expected it(maybe even hoped for it). It's not like she is just some Norma Rae, or whatever, working in a textile mill in a company town, with no other sources of employment, with no skills.

If the secret "prison" leaks were false, she wanted to leave, anyway, for whatever reason. If they are true, she did not support them, and wanted to leave, anyway, out of principle.

If I were running some security, or 'Sneakers', type company. I would hire her in a heartbeat, for at least 3 times what she was making in the CIA. I WOULD have an ironclad NDA, with severe civil penalties if she leaked any of my companies secrets, though.

She can do books, tons more cash. Easy work, easy living.

Hell, she's probably got an MBA, they are still worth something out in the real world, I am sure.

Like Lyddie England, she can make a lot more money in the real world. Just needs to make lemonade out of lemons. England could easily become a millionaire, if she just signed up with Hogtied.com or Insex.com. Easy work, easy cash, and no one shooting at her.

Ah, but see... she says she didn't leak the info with which they are crediting her. The "official" word is that she was terminated because she had media contacts who weren't on the list of media contacts she supplied her employer. BUT, she isn't making any statements about it. A "spokesperson" is. That's why I think her silence was a part of the severance to get her retirement program.