50 U.S.C. § 3122: Defenses and exceptions

Summary

You cannot be charged for revealing a covert agent if the U.S. government had already publicly said that person was an agent before you did. People who help, plan, or conspire with others are generally not guilty of that crime, unless they ran a pattern of trying to find and expose covert agents and knew it would hurt U.S. intelligence work, or they had authorized access to classified information. Telling a congressional intelligence committee is allowed. A covert agent may also reveal their own identity.

Title 50, §3122

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(a)Disclosure by United States of identity of covert agent

It is a defense to a prosecution under section 3121 of this title that before the commission of the offense with which the defendant is charged, the United States had publicly acknowledged or revealed the intelligence relationship to the United States of the individual the disclosure of whose intelligence relationship to the United States is the basis for the prosecution.

(b)Conspiracy, misprision of felony, aiding and abetting, etc.

(1)Subject to paragraph (2), no person other than a person committing an offense under section 3121 of this title shall be subject to prosecution under such section by virtue of section 2 or 4 of title 18 or shall be subject to prosecution for conspiracy to commit an offense under such section.

(2)Paragraph (1) shall not apply (A) in the case of a person who acted in the course of a pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents and with reason to believe that such activities would impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United States, or (B) in the case of a person who has authorized access to classified information.

(c)Disclosure to select congressional committees on intelligence

It shall not be an offense under section 3121 of this title to transmit information described in such section directly to either congressional intelligence committee.

(d)Disclosure by agent of own identity

It shall not be an offense under section 3121 of this title for an individual to disclose information that solely identifies himself as a covert agent.

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

Codification Section was formerly classified to section 422 of this title prior to editorial reclassification and renumbering as this section.

Amendments

2002—Subsec. (c). Pub. L. 107–306 substituted “either congressional intelligence committee” for “the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate or to the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives”.

§3122 Defenses and Exceptions

Summary

Title 50, §3122

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

Amendments

Citations & Metadata