Dead Drop: February 2

THEY’RE BACK: Well, at least every once in a while.  We noted in our January 5^th Dead Drop that CIA seems to have soured on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter (but come on, who hasn’t?).  Or at least that’s what we thought because they hadn’t posted anything in more than three months. Well, it seems they’re back on the X, posting a new video aimed at Russia (that we mentioned in last week’s Drop) and this past week, a new article from CIA Director Bill Burns titled Spycraft and Statecraft, where he explains what he’s doing to transform the CIA for an ‘age of competition’ (it’s a good read).   

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING! THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING! Or maybe not. One of the many long-standing themes we have in The Dead Drop is noting when politicians and organizations mislabel foreign military equipment in ads and graphics as being ‘American’.  The latest to fall victim to this malady is CBS.  The television network has been promoting the season premiere of their “NCIS Hawaii” tv series with a video that contains animated graphics of a mighty warship off Oahu. Unfortunately for CBS, however, eagle-eyed observers noticed that the ship is not some U.S. Navy cruiser in Pearl Harbor…but a Russian Slava class cruiser like the one seen in silhouette here. Oops.