HAPPY 74.9th BIRTHDAY: The Dead Drop goes to bed on Thursday evenings – in order to be available to loyal readers on Friday mornings. So, this item is about something that may have happened by the time you read it – but had not by the time we wrote it. President Biden’s schedule for Friday calls for him to visit the George H.W. Bush Center for Intelligence (AKA CIA headquarters) on Friday. The purpose is to address the staff and “celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Agency’s founding.” We found that a bit confusing since conventional wisdom has it that CIA’s birthday falls on September 18,the date when the National Security Act of 1947, which established the place, went into effect. Or alternatively, you could mark the date as July 26, the day the law passed. In any case, President Biden’s July 8 visit precedes that anniversary by several weeks. But maybe the President wanted to beat the traffic anticipated for the fall. Anyway, Happy Almost Birthday, CIA.
NO RESPECT: Well, almost no respect. The Gallup polling people are out with their annual survey of what institutions and organizations the American public admire greatly. The answer: hardly any – and a lot fewer than last year. Just two entities are liked “a great deal or quite a lot” by more than half of respondents. “Small business” tops the list with 68% and “the military” are at 64%. But below that, “the police” come in at 45%, “large tech companies” are at 26%, which sounds bad until you see that “the presidency” is at 23% and “Congress” is in single digits at 7%. Gallup says the approval ratings are at record lows. While “Big Business” comes in at only 14% positive rating – on the bright side, if things keep going badly for them – they may soon be “small businesses” – and more likeable.
A LITTLE RESPECT: U.S. institutions aren’t the only ones worried about their public approval. There is a recently published piece by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Journal about “Public Perceptions of UK Intelligence.” The bottom line is that Britons are ambivalent about how their country’s intelligence agencies operate. The UK intelligence services have worked to be somewhat more open than in the past, but the British public is reportedly still pretty much in the dark about who does what to whom and why when it comes to their intelligence services. The truth is that one of the Brit’s strong points is the fictional James Bond. Former Secret Intelligence Service chief Colin McColl once said Bond is “the best recruiting sergeant in the world.”
TIME TO ARM MILITARY LEADERS WITH SOCIAL MEDIA SAVVY? A recent piece by Hannah Smith, a staffer at National Defense University, writing in Task and Purpose argues that military officials (active and retired) need to do a better job of using social media as part of their leadership responsibilities. She points to an effective and well-followed twitter account known as @DogFaceSoldier which turns out to be retired four-star Army General Robert Abrams. The tricky part for those wishing to follow in @DogFaceSoldier’s bootsteps is to figure out how to use the social media platforms without falling victim to some of the downsides like emotionally charged posts, trolls, and setting folks off with hot button social or political topics. Smith argues that DOD “should move beyond an ad hoc approach to online engagement and implement proactive social media literacy education at both the unit level, as well as throughout professional military education.” DOD’s “How to Tweet” guidance was said to have last been updated in 2010. Wait, Twitter existed in 2010?
WHY DIDN’T WE THINK OF THAT? Somewhat lost in all the news out of the NATO summit last week, which was dominated by news of Finland and Sweden being invited to join the alliance – was another announcement – that NATO launched an “Innovation Fund” – the world’s first multi-sovereign venture capital fund. The announcement said, “The Fund will invest 1 billion euros in early-stage start-ups and other venture capital funds developing dual-use emerging technologies of priority to NATO. These include; artificial intelligence, big-data processing, quantum-enabled technologies, autonomy, biotechnology and human enhancement, novel materials, energy, propulsion and space.” Kinda sounds like In-Q-Tel, launched by the CIA in 1999, to us.
JOBS REPORT: An outfit called “American Global Strategies” announced last week that former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, has joined the firm as a “Senior Advisor.” AGS is led by its chairman, former National Security Advisor, Ambassador Robert O’Brien. Ratcliffe will reportedly work with the firm’s clients “across the defense, aerospace, technology, cybersecurity, and private equity sectors.” Ratcliffe was last in the news during the January 6 hearings where it was reported that he counseled the last administration not to put too much stock in reports that U.S. votes had been changed using Italian satellites and American thermostats. So, we know he can give good advice.
POCKET LITTER: Dead Droplets and bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
FLOATS LIKE A BUTTERFLY, STINGS LIKE A CARBINE: Talk about unlikely opponents. Army Times describes a skirmish between the Texas National Guard and the National Butterfly Center, a nature preserve in Mission, Texas. The Guard is tasked with trying to enforce border security with Mexico but the Butterfly Center boss, Marianna Treviño Wright, has accused them of trespassing and illegally cutting her facility’s barbed wire fence while looking for border crossers. Last week, a Texas National Guard soldier reportedly entered the facility and “left a loaded M4A1 carbine in a running pickup truck with its doors unlocked.” Ms. Wright took custody of the weapon, posted pictures of her trophy on social media and says she “returned the abandoned automatic weapon to the sergeant ‘in charge’ of this merry band of dipshits.” Losing your weapon is generally considered a serious military offense – not to mention the outrage of leaving a truck engine running with gas going for about $5 a gallon.
YOU KNOW WHAT BUGS US? LOSING TRACK OF WEAPONS…AND NEWS TIPS: If you have found any (news tips) send them to us as TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com.
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