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Dead Drop

NOUN

  1. A location to secretly pass information without a face-to-face meeting.

Each week we hope to give our readers tidbits of gossip from the world of national security and intelligence. The Dead Drop is a source of fun or intriguing news you can’t get anywhere else.

Got a tip for us? Email us at  thedeaddrop@thecipherbrief.com  and share the scoop. We promise to protect our sources and methods.

Below is our recent intelligence collection:

Dead Drop: June 13

SHOULD GREENLAND AND PANAMA BE (EVEN MORE) NERVOUS: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was engaged in a war of words this week with lawmakers during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Thursday that focused on the Secretary’s use of Signal to discuss an ongoing military operation earlier this year. While an Inspector General report is expected on this matter, it was another topic that lawmakers asked about that likely had some folks in Greenland and Panama on edge. When asked about whether the Pentagon has contingency plans to take Greenland and Panama by force ‘if necessary’, the [...] Read More

Dead Drop: June 6

THE TANGLED WEB: For an excellent deep dive into the meaning and mechanics of Ukraine’s stunning deep strike into Russia that destroyed or damaged [...] More

Dead Drop: May 30

A GOLD MEDAL SPORT: Remember those senior members of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s staff who were summarily fired for – well, it was never [...] More

Dead Drop Archive

Dead Drop: May 23

IN THIS WEEK’S DEAD DROP RUMINT FILE: The NSA may have a new Deputy Director very soon and that could be followed by a new NSA director being named [...] More

Dead Drop: May 16

CHANGE IS IN THE AIR: On Tuesday, Fox News was the first to report that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard removed the top two officials [...] More

Dead Drop: May 10

CIPHER BRIEF EXPERTS ARRIVE IN KYIV: This week’s DD is a day late. And it’s not because our spies blew their deadline. It’s because a lot of Cipher [...] More

Dead Drop: May 2

THE SIGNALS WERE THERE: President Trump announced Thursday that Mike Waltz will no longer be serving as National Security Advisor and that he is [...] More

Dead Drop: April 25

THE CIPHER BRIEF SPEAKEASY IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS (BRIEFLY): While all the buzz was about The Cipher Brief HONORS Dinner last weekend and the amazing [...] More

Dead Drop: April 18

THE BEST NATIONAL SECURITY BALL OF THEM ALL: The Cipher Brief is hosting its annual HONORS Dinner this week in Washington, recognizing the best of [...] More

Dead Drop: April 11

“LUDICROUS”: CIA Director John Ratcliffe reportedly made a secret trip to Dubai this week to oversee the release of U.S. Russian dual national Ksenia [...] More

Dead Drop: April 4

EXPERTS NEED NOT APPLY: The Dead Drop has learned that NSA Director General Timothy Haugh (who also serves as Commander of U.S. Cyber Command) and [...] More

Dead Drop: March 28

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN: With The Cipher Brief HONORS Dinner just two weeks away, we thought we’d have a little fun introducing you to one of this year’s [...] More

Dead Drop March 21

ROGAN RUSHES TO DEFEND CANADA’S FREEDOM: Everyone agrees that Donald Trump did his candidacy a LOT of good by spending a whopping two hours and 59 [...] More

Dead Drop: March 14

THEY SAID IT WOULDN’T LAST: Or maybe it was: “shouldn’t last.” We forget. But in any case, welcome to the 500th edition of The Dead Drop. Our first [...] More

Dead Drop: March 7

BEST YEAR EVER FOR NATIONAL SECURITY GOSSIP: We have to keep reminding ourselves that it’s only March because the flurry of activity in Washington [...] More