THE GREAT NETWORK OF CHINA: William Evanina, the U.S. counter-intelligence chief, told Reuters late last week that Chinese espionage agencies are using fake LinkedIn accounts to connect with Americans who may have access to classified information. Apparently, Beijing is creating bucket loads of bogus personas in an effort to link up with folks who might unwittingly share sensitive information, perhaps in hopes of landing a better job. Evanina noted that Twitter has recently taken down millions of fake accounts – but LinkedIn said they had taken down “less than 40” fake accounts.
WHERE YOU STAND ON JOHN BRENNAN, MAY DEPEND ON WHERE YOU SIT: Make no mistake, former CIA Director John Brennan inspires some strong opinions. As previously mentioned – several hundred former senior officials recently signed open letters supporting Brennan’s right to express his views about the President without having his security clearance removed (it should be noted that not all of those signing the letters agreed with Brennan’s views – but they supported his right to express them.) Last week, Brennan received a rapturous reception from the studio audience when he appeared on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher show. Again, not all of those who reviewed the appearance agreed with those sentiments. Who was most dismissive? We’re going to go with Vladimir Putin’s RT which headlined their story about Brennan’s appearance on the show: “In fit of anti-Trump pique, American liberals shamelessly embrace ‘deep-state’ criminals.” We’ll put them down as “undecided.”
RACKED WITH PATHOLOGIES? An article on the website Just Security this week spread the word that the Knight Institute and the ACLU are trolling for former public officials who have experience with (and angst about) the prepublication review requirements imposed on them. The article quotes a 2015 Washington Post OPED by Jack Goldsmith and Oona Hathaway which declared the government’s prepublication review process “broken” and “racked with pathologies.” The Knight Institute and ACLU say they are trying to “better understand how the prepublication review process works (or doesn’t.) The two outfits have filed multiple lawsuits trying to gain a more transparent manuscript review process.
POCKET LITTER: Bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
- F.O.I.A. – T.M.I.: It is common to hear complaints about the government’s handling of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests – but almost always the complaints are that the government moves too slowly and withholds too much. But CNN reportedon September 3 that due to some technical glitch, the Federal FOIA portal foiaonline.gov has been passing out way too much info. Apparently, a design error created during a system upgrade led to sensitive personal information about hundreds of individuals being shared publicly. The information released including social security numbers, dates of birth, immigrant ID numbers, addresses and contact details. CNN delayed publishing the story to allow the Federal FOIA folks to plug the leak. Well, at least it was a one-off mishap, right?
- Redefining Going Postal: One-off unless you count the case of Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer running for Congress in Virginia as a Democrat. Turns out, while Spanberger was waiting for her clearance to be approved in order for her to be hired by the CIA years ago, she applied for a temporary job as a postal inspector with the U.S. Postal Service. A super PAC collecting info on opposition candidates apparently sent a FOIA request to the Post Office. The postal service reportedly provided much more than the law requires (or allows) including Spanberger’s social security number, medical history and other personal info. Spanberger initially thought that the Trump administration might have intentionally leaked her info but apparently the USPS simply over delivered.
- Are you ready for some (political) football? When the calendar turns to September it seems everyone’s attention turns to football. And we mean everyone. For example (and we are not making this up) the verified Twitter account of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former President of Iran, tossed out this tweeton Monday: “The #NFL season will start this week, unfortunately once again @Kaepernick7 is not on a NFL roster. Even though he is one of the best Quarterbacks in the league. #ColinKaepernick #NFL”
We did not know Mahmoud was a fan. For those of you not following along at home, Kaepernick was the NFL quarterback who started the trend of taking a knee during the national anthem to protest alleged police brutality. The knee annoyed a lot of folks – none more than President Trump who told a crowd of supporters that he longed to seen NFL owners say “get that son-of-a-bitch off the field” when players kneeled. Kaepernick hasn’t been invited to try out for any NFL teams – but he was named one of the stars of Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign this week.
- Jack Ryan’s ‘Out Of Office’ Message: Way back in 2016, The Dead Drop first reportedon a forthcoming Amazon TV series about Tom Clancy’s “Jack Ryan” and we pointed out that it seemed unusual casting to have John Krasinski, the nice but boring paper salesman from “The Office” TV series – playing the iconic CIA analyst/action hero. Well, now the show is out – and as we pointed out recently, reviews are lukewarm. Perhaps it has something to do with the problem that people have with identifying ‘Jim’ from ‘The Office’ with ‘Jack’ from ‘The Company’. (We know, we know, nobody at the CIA calls it “the company.”) To help with the Jim/Jack disconnect, the folks at Funny or Die have produced a video mashup that merges the two images. It is worth the watch. What do you think of the show so far? Feel up to writing a review? Send it to us at thedeaddrop@thecipherbrief.com
- Don’t Believe Everything You Read:(Except at The Dead Drop, perhaps). We’ve told you several times about claims by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte that the CIA plans to kill him. Well, thanks to the Secretary of National Defense in Manila, we may have found out where that notion is coming from. “Maybe he read that in book,” said Department of National Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana.
The U.S. embassy is said to be sending messages to Duterte that he has nothing to fear. Maybe they should deliver the message in a book.
IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING: Got any tips for your friendly neighborhood Dead Drop? Shoot us a note at TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com.