Larisa Alexandrovna

Valerie Wilson was in the process of changing her clandestine status from NOC to official cover, as she prepared for a new job in personnel management. Her aim, she told colleagues, was to put in time as an administrator — to rise up a notch or two — and then return to secret operations. But with her cover blown, she could never be undercover again.

Critics of the Washington Post report believe that the publication caved under pressure from the White House by not exposing the locations of these sites. According to FAIR, the Washington Post's decision to withhold the locations of these secret prisons was that since the revelations "could open the U.S. government to legal challenges, particularly in foreign courts, and increase the risk of political condemnation at home and abroad," the Post did its part to minimize these risks. Yet, according to FAIR, "the possibility that illegal, unpopular government actions might be disrupted is not a consequence to be feared, however — it's the whole point of the U.S. First Amendment." Furthermore, by not disclosing these locations it would make it impossible to have them closed and thereby the Post is enabling the rendition, secret detention, and torture of prisoners at these locations to continue. Another consequence might be that US soldiers and civilians are put at risk.

The complex at Stare Kiejkuty, a Soviet-era compound once used by German intelligence in World War II, is best known as having been the only Russian intelligence training school to operate outside the Soviet Union. Its prominence in the Soviet era suggests that it may have been the facility first identified — but never named — when the Washington Post's Dana Priest revealed the existence of the CIA's secret prison network in November 2005.

Former European and US intelligence officials indicate that the secret prisons across the European Union, first identified by the Washington Post, are likely not permanent locations, making them difficult to identify. What some believe was a network of secret prisons was most probably a series of facilities used temporarily by the United States when needed, officials say. Interim "black sites" – secret facilities used for covert activities — can be as small as a room in a government building, which only becomes a black site when a prisoner is brought in for short-term detainment and interrogation.

On March 16, 2007, Valerie Plame Wilson told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, "But I do know the Agency did a damage assessment. They did not share it with me, but I know that certainly puts the people and the contacts I had all in jeopardy, even if they were completely innocent in nature." Alexandrovna broke the story wide open that Plame was working on Iran, damage was done by her outing, and a damage report had been done. Citing "three intelligence officials, who spoke under condition of anonymity," Alexandrovna reports that

Mainstream media initially ignored this story, but on May 1, 2006, MSNBC correspondent David Shuster reported on the political news show Hardball that MSNBC had learned "new information" about the potential consequences of the leaks:

On September 6, 2006, David Corn published an article for The Nation entitled "What Valerie Plame Really Did at the CIA" in which Corn reports that Plame was placed in charge of the operations group within the Joint Task Force on Iraq in the spring of 2001 and that, "when the Novak column ran," in July 2003:

^ Larisa Alexandrovna. "Outed CIA Officer Was Working on Iran, Intelligence Sources Say", The Raw Story, February 13, 2006.

In 2005, the Washington Post exposed the use of foreign black sites by the CIA in a program of extraordinary rendition, under which terrorism suspects were taken to undisclosed sites for detainment and interrogation.

Both Alexandrovna and Dastych have stated that their sources told them that the same information and documents were provided to Washington Post in 2005. In addition, they also identified the methodology of concealing the black sites:

Larisa Alexandrovna initially published only poetry and short fiction. During the 2000 election, she said that she formally began to write opinion and news pieces. She first became recognized for her reporting after she wrote an investigative piece about election fraud in Ohio, which was later cited in What went wrong in Ohio, a report published by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) and later cited in several prominent articles, including in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s controversial Rolling Stone article.

Alexandrovna attended Cleveland State University where she majored in English and Creative Writing. It was during this time that she was the poetry editor for the Cleveland Review, also covering local news and culture. In addition, she worked with Russian poet Zoya Folkova to translate her work into English. She also developed a lifelong friendship with her writing mentor, Dr. Alberta Turner. In the mid 1990s, she moved to New York to work at Nasdaq, which she has said was a bad decision.

Larisa Alexandrovna (born 1971) is an American journalist, essayist, and poet. She has served as the Managing Editor of Investigative News of The Raw Story and contributes opinion and columns to online publications such as Alternet. She is also an American blogger for the Huffington Post and for her own journalism blog, at-Largely. Alexandrovna has had her work referenced in Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, and Newsweek, among others.