§§ 421–426) is a United States federal law that makes it a federal crime for those with access to classified information, or those who systematically seek to identify and expose covert agents and have reason to believe that it will harm the foreign intelligence activities of the U.S.,[1] 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, unless the United States has publicly acknowledged or revealed the relationship.

In 1975, CIA Athens station chief Richard Welch[3] was assassinated by the Greek urban guerrilla group November 17 after his identity was revealed in several listings by a magazine called CounterSpy, edited by Timothy Butz.

Some commentators say the law was specifically targeted at his actions, and one Congressman, Bill Young, said during a House debate, "What we're after today are the Philip Agees of the world.

[7] Biden had written an op-ed column in the Christian Science Monitor published on April 6, 1982, that criticized the proposed law as harmful to national security.

During Congress's consideration of the measure, much attention is paid to subsection 421(c), which states: 421(c) Disclosure of information by persons in course of pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents.

The Conference Committee assured that U.S. intelligence critics would be beyond the reach of law so long as they do not actively seek to identify or expose covert agents.

[12] Between 2003 and 2007, an investigation was conducted by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald into whether this law and others were violated in the identification of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative in a 2003 newspaper column by Robert Novak.

One of them is "Frances", the red-headed CIA agent mentioned in several reports on the War on Terror, including Jane Mayer's The Dark Side and an AP news story from 2011 about the Khalid El-Masri case.