It doesn’t matter what Plame’s neighbors did or did not know, which is why sending FBI agents out to interview neighbors had, in my view, little to do with the law, and everything to do with Fitzgerald wanting to announce, as he did today, that her neighbors didn’t know she worked at the CIA. Fitzgerald is trying to claim this is about defending a CIA officer’s identity and national security. But this is not the case. The issue, as a matter of law, is whether she was classified as covert by the CIA, and whether the CIA took steps to protect her identity.