A blow to Plame's game
"WASHINGTON -- A federal judge today dismissed a lawsuit by former CIA operative Valerie Plame and her husband seeking damages against Vice President Dick Cheney, former Cheney aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and two others she accused of conspiring to disclose her identity.
Plame and her husband, former diplomat Joseph C. Wilson IV, had alleged that Cheney, Libby, White House political advisor Karl Rove and former State Department official Richard L. Armitage had violated their constitutional rights in the events that led to Plame being identified in news reports in the summer of 2003.
U.S. District Judge John Bates rejected the lawsuit in a 41-page ruling today.
Without offering an opinion on the merits of the case, Bates said it was barred by other statutes that Congress had enacted to cover instances of alleged harm to CIA operatives and other federal employees.
"The court finds that, under controlling Supreme Court precedent, special factors — particularly the remedial scheme established by Congress in the Privacy Act — counsel against the recognition of an implied damages remedy for plaintiffs' constitutional claims," the judge ruled."
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