Dead Drop: January 3

ADVISING THE CANDIDATES: In the very first Dead Drop, published almost four and a half years ago in August 2016, we had an item about who was advising and endorsing the various presidential candidates on matters of national security. Well, we have the first installment for the 2020 election. The website The Grayzone (which is a new one to us) ominously writes that Pete Buttigieg is the choice of a lot of intelligence veterans. They don’t know why – but it appears they think that is a bad thing. Among those reportedly endorsing Mayor Pete is David S. Cohen, former deputy director of the CIA, Charlie Gilbert who is identified as a former deputy director of the National Clandestine Service,  John Blair former chief of staff of the CIA’s Middle East Task Force, CIA veterans Dennis Bowden, Sue Mi Terry, Martijn Rasser, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Ned Price and more.

PENTAGON SPITS ON IDEA OF HOME DNA TESTS: The Department of Defense has advised service members not to use “consumer DNA kits.”  Outfits like 23andMe and Ancestry.com are getting millions of people around the world to send them saliva samples and (for a fee) they will tell them all about their parentage.  But DOD’s Under Secretary for Intelligence, James N. Stewart, said in a memo that “Exposing sensitive genetic information to outside parties poses personal and operational risks to Service members.” Stewart was unclear on exactly how the tests would put troops at risk. Yahoo News, which first reported on the DOD memo, quotes a law professor as speculating that the data could be used to track down covert operatives involved in missions like the killing of Osama bin Laden. “It’s not hard to imagine a world where people are blithely sharing information online without realizing their third cousin is a Navy SEAL, or an operative of the CIA.”