IN THIS WEEK’S EDITION: CIA’s existential threat might not be what you think it is, the CIA’s EXDIR is back in business, a warning to be careful of online love, especially when your new ‘boo’ asks for national security secrets and China is turning flying insects into cyborgs now? Seriously?
The Dead Drop uses its own sources and methods to bring you the best collection of national security gossip anywhere, so let’s get to it.
CIA’S EXISTENTIAL THREAT: It might not be what you think, according to former CIA Executive Mark Kelton, who wrote a piece exclusively in The Cipher Brief this week saying the greatest threat to the Agency’s future may not come from a foreign adversary but is more likely to stem from a lack of trust - not just with policy makers, but with the public, too. Kelton notes in his piece that leakers have caused damage sometimes not understanding the consequences of sharing the information they leak, and he also opined that former Agency officers should exercise more care when sharing views that could be construed as political in a highly-charged political environment. Armed with a bunch more questions, Cipher Brief CEO & Publisher Suzanne Kelly went in-depth with Kelton about his views for the State Secrets podcast (available wherever you listen to podcasts) and also asked Kelton address the elephant in the room and the gray area that exists today around what’s considered political and what isn’t. (No, seriously, what isn’t?)
EVERYTHING NEW IS OLD AGAIN: Meanwhile, the CIA announced this week that Dustin Gard-Weiss will be taking over as the third-ranking person at the Agency. Gard-Weiss is coming from the Office of the Secretary of Defense where he had been “performing the duties of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.” What caught our eye is that in his new role, his title will be Executive Director. The EXDIR as the job is referred to by insiders, will replace the position of Chief Operating Officer, aka the COO. Titles for senior positions at the Agency are changed with some regularity (perhaps to confuse the enemy). The Executive Director position dates back to the early 1960s but it was changed to COO back in 2017, (as The Dead Drop reported at the time) by then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo. As far as we know, the duties remain about the same – but the title has flipped back to what it was.
DOD DRONE VIDEO TEMPORARILY GROUNDED: You may have seen the video posted on X recently of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth standing on the lawn outside the Pentagon to announce an era of “American drone dominance” - as a drone delivered a memo for him to sign about overcoming bureaucratic risk aversion. The original version of the video had a soundtrack of Metallica’s iconic 1991 song “Enter Sandman” playing in the background. The tune is a heavy metal anthem with an ominous guitar riff and pounding rhythm that evokes a sense of dread and unease. But using it seemed to hit a sour note. The Pentagon later said, “This afternoon, representatives from X reached out to DoD regarding a video posted to our social media page and asked that the video be removed due to a copyright issue with the song “Enter Sandman” by Metallica. They added, “The video has been taken down, corrected, and re-uploaded to our page.” Here’s the video (minus Metallica).
UFO SIGHTINGS ARE LOOKING UP: During the first half of 2025, more than 2,000 sightings of UFOs have been reported according to an outfit called the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC.) That’s an increase of over 600 from the same period over the previous year. NUFORC, a non-governmental, non-profit, organization has been around since 1974 – but full confession - we’re just hearing about it for the first time. They offer an online form for reporting your UFO sightings but gravely warn, “If you are thinking of submitting a hoax or joke report, save yourself the time and trouble. It will be ignored and immediately discarded.” Where are the X-Files when you need them?
SECRET INFORMANT LOVE: Who could have guessed that someone claiming to be a Ukrainian woman on a dating app asking questions about national security might not have been who she appeared to be? Not David Slater, a 64-year-old retired Army Lieutenant Colonel who was working as a U.S. Air Force civilian at the Strategic Command and Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. Slater just pleaded guilty to conspiring to transmit confidential national defense information after being caught sharing classified information with his online sweetheart. If the federal government knows the identity of Slater’s sweetie – they are not disclosing it – referring to her (we assume it is a her) only “co-conspirator 1.” “CC” as we’ll call her was apparently no shrinking violet when it came to eliciting hot details from her beaux. Prosecutors said CC made online comments like, "Beloved Dave, do NATO and Biden have a secret plan to help us?" Also, "Dave, it's great that you get information about [Specified Country 1] first. I hope you will tell me right away? You are my secret agent. With love." And this gem: "Sweet Dave, the supply of weapons is completely classified, which is great!" Slater’s sentencing is set for October 8th and he’s facing up to 10 years in prison. That’s a long stretch in the slammer – but at least he’ll have plenty of time for pen pals.
GROK MARKET REPORT: The Pentagon has awarded contracts to Anthropic, Google, and xAI for “up to” $200 million each for “agentic” AI. What exactly is agentic AI? We decided to ask ChatGPT for a definition: “Agentic AI refers to artificial intelligence systems that can act autonomously to achieve goals. Unlike simple tools that only respond to direct input, agentic AIs can plan, make decisions, and take actions in pursuit of objectives, often adapting to changing environments. They exhibit a degree of initiative, persistence, and self-direction, which makes them resemble human “agents” in behavior.” xAI announced on Elon Musk’s X platform that they are rolling out “Grok for Government.” Grok, an AI chatbot, is having a turbulent time lately, though. It recently went rogue and posted antisemitic remarks for which the company later apologized. Hopefully, they’ll sort all that out before they unleash Grok on Pentagon programs.
ASPEN IN-SECURITY FORUM: Senior DOD officials have been speaking at the annual Aspen Security Forum (ASF) going back at least 15 years. And several were scheduled to do so this year – until the day before the event started. Then, suddenly, the Pentagon pulled the plug on participation by people like: Secretary of the Navy John Phelan, Commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Samuel Paparo, head of the U.S. Special Operations Command, General Bryan Fenton, and Vice Admiral Frank Whitworth, director of the National Geographic-Intelligence Agency. The rapid retreat was (sorta) explained by DOD spokesman Sean Parnell who said “The Department will remain strong in its focus to increase the lethality of our warfighters, revitalize the warrior ethos, and project Peace Through Strength on the world stage. It is clear the ASF is not in alignment with these goals.” If that wasn’t feisty enough, Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson was also quoted in the publication Just the News as saying, “The Department of Defense has no interest in legitimizing an organization that has invited former officials who have been the architects of chaos abroad and failure at home,” adding, “They are antithetical to the America First values of this administration. Senior representatives of the Department of Defense will no longer be participating in an event that promotes the evil of globalism, disdain for our great country, and hatred for the President of the United States.” We won’t weigh too deeply into the politics around this debate, other than to say if not talking to people you don’t like was an option, how would Congress even get anything done?
ON THE MOVE: Washington is like one big game of musical chairs. Here's a look at who's where and what they're doing:
General Tim Haugh (Ret.), who served as Director of the National Security Agency and Commander of U.S. Cyber Command before being fired for no (good) reason earlier this year, has been named a Blue Senior Fellow at Yale University. Haugh is probably one of the best-informed people in the world on understanding the threats to U.S. national security posed by China. That makes us think that while Yale took a win on this one, we imagine it’s just a matter of time before we hear more announcements about how Haugh is continuing his national security mission from the private sector.
The Hon. Susan Gordon, who served as the Principal Deputy Director for National Intelligence during the first Trump Administration, has launched a new podcast called “Understandable Insights: From Information to Intelligence with Sue Gordon”. Gordon is teamed up each week with ex-Marine Eric Koepp to talk about what’s happening in the world and to share the intelligence insights that she’s drawing from current events. We thought the first episode was pretty good, with Gordon tackling questions about her health (she’s been fighting cancer, like so many other Americans) and then turning to the headlines. The podcast is available wherever you listen to podcasts.
David Cattler, Director of the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DSCA), says he is retiring from federal service at the end of September, capping a 35-year career that included both military and intelligence leadership roles. Cattler, who also served as Assistant Secretary General for Intelligence and Security at NATO, said he is leaving for personal reasons.
Delice Bernhard is taking on a new role with Anduril as Director of Counterintelligence. She currently served as executive director of strategic threats at JPMorgan Chase and traces her roots back to the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency.
POCKET LITTER: Dead Droplets and bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
'ALL THE BUZZ' IN THE WORLD OF ESPIONAGE: Forget drones (at least the metal kind) for a moment. The South China Morning Post says Chinese scientists have “turned bees into cyborgs” by inserting tiny controllers into their brains. Zhao Jieliang, a professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology, claims that researchers have inserted devices that weigh less than a pinch of salt into the brains of bees – giving operators the power to control the movement of the bees. Eventually they hope to have the ability to equip the bugs with cameras, sensors and other bugging devices. So, how do you attach a controller to a bee? Using very small needles that inject the devices into their brains. If we were closer to April fools, we’d suspect the article was part of a sting. According to the piece – the cyborg bees could be used as military scouts or search for victims of catastrophes. Officials said that when they sent instructions to the bees – they correctly obeyed nine times out of ten (which is probably a higher percentage than human scouts.)
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