And how…

“Valerie Wilson may be the best known former intelligence operative in recent history, but a federal judge in New York ruled Wednesday that she was not allowed to say how long she worked for the Central Intelligence Agency in the memoir she plans to publish this fall.

Although the fact that Ms. Wilson worked for the C.I.A. from 1985 to 2006 has been published in the Congressional Record and elsewhere, the judge, Barbara S. Jones of Federal District Court in Manhattan, said Ms. Wilson was not free to say so.

“The information at issue was properly classified, was never declassified and has not been officially acknowledged by the C.I.A.,” Judge Jones wrote.

Asked whether the ruling would affect the book’s scheduled publication date in October, Adam Rothberg, a spokesman for Ms. Wilson’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, said only that the book would appear “this fall,” suggesting that revisions required by the decision may cause a slight delay. David B. Smallman, a lawyer who represented Ms. Wilson and Simon & Schuster in the suit they had filed to include the information, said his clients had not decided whether to appeal.

C.I.A. employees sign agreements requiring them to submit manuscripts to the agency for permission before they are published. The C.I.A. has publicly acknowledged only that Ms. Wilson worked there from 2002 to January 2006, when she resigned.

But a February 2006 letter from the C.I.A. to Ms. Wilson about her retirement benefits said that she had worked for the agency since Nov. 9, 1985, for a total of “20 years, 7 days,” including “six years, one month and 29 days of overseas service.” The letter was published in the Congressional Record in connection with proposed legislation concerning Ms. Wilson’s benefits, and it remains available on the Library of Congress’s Web site.

Judge Jones acknowledged that the C.I.A. “does not contest that the information is, in fact, in the public domain,” adding that “the public may draw whatever conclusions it might from the fact that the information at issue was sent on C.I.A. letterhead by the chief of retirement and insurance services.”

Note the interesting “2002-2006″ period for which the Agency initially confirmed her working there. So what of the 1985-2002 time period? Can you say “No significant” in the realm of Super Secret Agentry? Can you say “Desk Jockey”?

Additionally this explains why Harlow had to call Novak back because obviously she was an obscure employee, not classified and therefore not covert.

Is the “Fifteen Minutes” up yet?