NEW YORK -- Simon & Schuster and author Valerie Plame Wilson, a former covert agent for the Central Intelligence Agency, said Thursday that they are suing the CIA for attempting to block her efforts to write a book about her years of service.
Wilson's memoir, "Fair Game," is due out in October, and the publisher said it was asking a New York federal court to declare that Wilson can list her years of service in the agency, even though officials have said such information is considered classified. In a statement, Simon & Schuster said these dates are already part of the public record, in an unclassified document released by the CIA and also on a website, http://www.gpoaccess.gov/.
Adam Rothberg, a corporate spokesman for Simon & Schuster, said the CIA's effort to keep such information classified — particularly the details of Wilson's service before 2002 — is "an unreasonable attempt at prior restraint of publication." The lawsuit also criticized the CIA for requesting that significant portions of Wilson's book be censored or masked as fiction in order to avoid reference to her service in the agency before 2002.Rothberg added that the publisher is still expecting to publish Wilson's book on schedule. She is expected to appear Saturday on an author's panel at the BookExpo America convention in New York, Rothberg added.
Wilson's memoir, "Fair Game," is due out in October, and the publisher said it was asking a New York federal court to declare that Wilson can list her years of service in the agency, even though officials have said such information is considered classified. In a statement, Simon & Schuster said these dates are already part of the public record, in an unclassified document released by the CIA and also on a website, http://www.gpoaccess.gov/.
Adam Rothberg, a corporate spokesman for Simon & Schuster, said the CIA's effort to keep such information classified — particularly the details of Wilson's service before 2002 — is "an unreasonable attempt at prior restraint of publication." The lawsuit also criticized the CIA for requesting that significant portions of Wilson's book be censored or masked as fiction in order to avoid reference to her service in the agency before 2002.Rothberg added that the publisher is still expecting to publish Wilson's book on schedule. She is expected to appear Saturday on an author's panel at the BookExpo America convention in New York, Rothberg added.
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