50 USC § 422 - Defenses and exceptions | Title 50 - War and National Defense | U.S. Code

USCPrelim is a preliminary release and may be subject to further revision before it is released again as a final version.

Current through Pub. L. 112-283. (See Public Laws for the current Congress.)

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

It is a defense to a prosecution under section 421 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 421 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 421 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 421 of this title for an individual to disclose information that solely identifies himself as a covert agent.

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

It is a defense to a prosecution under section 421 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 421 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 421 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 421 of this title for an individual to disclose information that solely identifies himself as a covert agent.

Source

(July 26, 1947, ch. 343, title VI, § 602, as added Pub. L. 97–200, § 2(a),June 23, 1982, 96 Stat. 122; amended Pub. L. 107–306, title III, § 353(b)(9),Nov. 27, 2002, 116 Stat. 2402.)

Amendments

2002—Subsec. (c). Pub. L. 107–306substituted “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”.

The table below lists the classification updates, since Jan. 3, 2012, for this section. Updates to a broader range of sections may be found at the update page for containing chapter, title, etc.

The most recent Classification Table update that we have noticed was Tuesday, April 16, 2013

An empty table indicates that we see no relevant changes listed in the classification tables. If you suspect that our system may be missing something, please double-check with the Office of the Law Revision Counsel.

How To Use

Multiple entries for a section are listed most recent first, within the section.

The Session Year indicates which session of Congress was responsible for the changes classified. The Congress number forms the first part of the Public Law number; each Congress has two sessions.

Abbreviations used in the Description of Change column:

An empty field implies a standard amendment.
"new" means a new section or new note, or all new text of an existing section or note.
"nt" means note.
"nt [tbl]" means note [table].
"prec" means preceding.
"fr" means a transfer from another section.
"to" means a transfer to another section.
"omitted" means the section is omitted.
"repealed" means the section is repealed.
"nt ed change" and "ed change" - See the Editorial Classification Change Table [pdf].

The Public Law field is linked to the development of the law in the Thomas system at the Library of Congress.

The Statutes at Large field is linked to the text of the law, in the context of its volume of the Statutes at Large, at the Government Printing Office. Please note that it takes a while for these pages to get posted, so for very recent legislation, you need to look at the "enrolled" version at the Thomas site.

The Statutes at Large references have been rendered in the format used as page numbers in the Public Law web pages to which we link, to facilitate copy-paste into browser "find on this (web) page" tools. We are still working on a more direct link facility.

For serious comparison work, we suggest copying all or a portion of the Public Law text into your favorite text editor, for convenient content traversal and window control.

Sections with change type "new" are a special case, still under development. All are now listed, at the title level only.

You will find that occassionally a specific update you notice in a Public Law listed in a classification table will already have made it into the Code. We assume this is an artifact of the LRC edit process. The LII does not edit the LRC content.

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General Reference

Refer to the LRC (Law Revision Council) for explanations about the US Code from the folks who put it all together.

You can look for information about what it is and is not, which titles are positive law, the schedule of Supplements, etc. Under download you can find the source data we use here (GPO locator files), as well as, PDF files that look just like the paper books (these may be rather large).

Refer to the Thomas site for changes that have not yet made it into the classification tables.

50 USC	Description of Change	Session Year	Public Law	Statutes at Large

This is a list of parts within the Code of Federal Regulations for which this US Code section provides rulemaking authority.

This list is taken from the Parallel Table of Authorities and Rules provided by GPO [Government Printing Office].

It is not guaranteed to be accurate or up-to-date, though we do refresh the database weekly. More limitations on accuracy are described at the GPO site.

32 CFR - Title 32—National Defense

32 CFR Part 1700 - PROCEDURES FOR DISCLOSURE OF RECORDS PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT

32 CFR Part 1910 - DEBARMENT AND SUSPENSION PROCEDURES

50 USC § 422 - Defenses and exceptions

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