[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on Tuesday upheld [opinion, PDF] the dismissal of a lawsuit against members of the Bush administration which was brought by Valerie Plame [Washington Post profile], the former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative whose disclosed identity precipitated the 2003 CIA leak scandal [JURIST news archive]. The appellate court found that the officials who allegedly leaked information about Plame's identity were acting within the scope of their employment, and such government workers are generally protected by qualified immunity. Dissenting in part, Justice Rogers disagreed with the court's finding that the lawsuit “would inevitably require judicial intrusion into matters of national security and sensitive intelligence information,” and wrote:

The disclosure concerns identified by the court as counselling hesitation are either unfounded or premature because there has been no discovery or presentation by the Wilsons to the district court of how they will attempt to prove their claims. Contrary to separation of powers, then, the court effectively cedes to Congress the judiciary’s defined role to decide issues arising under the Constitution