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Dead Drop: September 30

Dead Drop: September 30

VETO THIS: Congress stuck its fingers in the eye of President Obama on Wednesday, overwhelmingly overriding his veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA). The House vote of 348 to 77 looked like a squeaker compared to the 97-1 whomping the President took in the Senate. About the time of the vote, CIA Director John Brennan issued a written statement stressing that while he deeply understands the pain of families who lost loved ones on 9/11, his view is that JASTA “will have grave implications for the national security of the United States,” and that messing with the concept of sovereign immunity, as the bill does, could have a severe impact on CIA officers serving abroad. Seems to us it is pretty unusual for a CIA Director to take such a stance on a piece of legislation. White House spokesman Josh Earnest took a different tack – saying the vote was “the single most embarrassing thing the United States Senate has done possibly since 1983…”  We’re pretty sure if we had some time to research it – we could find even more embarrassing actions from the Senate.

WHISTLERBLOWER BADGE: We learned from the Federation of American Scientists’ Steve Aftergood this week that the Intelligence Community plans to establish a new award “to recognize superior service by an intelligence professional in effectuating change by speaking truth to power, by exemplifying professional integrity, or by reporting wrongdoing through appropriate channels.”  The award was revealed in a so-called “Self-Assessment Report on the Third Open Government National Action Plan” that was released by the White House. We haven’t detected any mention of the award on the DNI’s website.  The Dead Drop imagines that this is not exactly the type of award someone working for the government hopes to win someday.  We guess the “reporting wrongdoing through appropriate channels” means Ed Snowden need not apply.

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