A NEW REALITY SHOW AT ODNI? The leadership page of the ODNI website now officially reflects William J. Pulte as Acting Director. This, as CNN reports that Pulte showed up at ODNI on Thursday and according to two unnamed sources – asked for a list of every employee in the office “so that he could assess whether to fire them.” It’s no secret that the administration is looking for efficiencies in the organization. Former Senior Intelligence Community Executive Shelby Pierson and former Deputy Director of Intelligence for Sensitive Activities and Special Programs, (yes a real title) Renee Novakoff laid out a list of what’s waiting in Pulte’s inbox in this Cipher Brief exclusive.
THE NAME GAME: The Trump administration’s Department of War announced Tuesday that U.S. Indo-Pacific Command — USINDOPACOM — will henceforth be known again as U.S. Pacific Command. The move restores that name that was changed by (checks notes) the first Trump administration. In 2018, SECDEF Jim Mattis renamed it INDOPACOM to signal Washington's growing strategic embrace of India. On Tuesday, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth reversed that noting on social media: "U.S. Pacific Command…is back." The rename is the latest in a cascade of rebranding exercises by an administration that has already rechristened the Gulf of Mexico, Denali, and the Department of Defense itself — the last of which is now, at least ceremonially, the Department of War, To be fair, name changes are nothing new to DOD/DOW (you pick your favorite.) In October 2002, Donald Rumsfeld issued a memo declaring that the title "Commander in Chief" would henceforth be reserved for the President alone — canning names like “CINCPAC” and retiring an honorific that certain military commanders had carried for decades. Rumsfeld's rationale: the Constitution gives that title to exactly one person. We note that the Constitution also provides for only one “president” – but there are still people with titles like “President” of National Defense University and “President” of the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals. Meanwhile in the Pacific, the command's area of responsibility, mission, and partnerships remain unchanged, the announcement noted, which, come to think of it, is roughly what they said in 2018, too which kinda makes this a change in name only.
SIX SECONDS: According to The Insider, Russian satirist and political émigré Semyon Skrepetsky (real name Robert Kuzovkov) was shot and killed on June 15 in a parking lot in Biała Podlaska, Poland. Three days earlier, he had staged a performance outside the Russian Embassy in Berlin in which he pulled a Russian flag from the back of his pants and deposited it in a trash bin; the protest also featured a painting of Stalin cradling an infant Putin. On Monday, Skrepetsky posted a note on Telegram saying that "Russian patriots" had responded with threats, and included a screenshot of one: "Kadyrov will personally rape you on Putin's orders after the war. And finding you is a six-second job." Just one hour after Skrepetsky shared the threat on Telegram, he was shot and killed. No group has publicly claimed responsibility.
TAIWAN'S OPEN-ENROLLMENT SPY PROGRAM: Taiwan's National Security Bureau launched a public website this week soliciting intelligence tips from Chinese nationals, citing growing economic hardship and political discontent on the mainland as evidence (or a hope?) that Beijing's own citizens are ready to share information. The site, built with anonymity protections and separate submission workflows for users inside of China is modeled on similar recruitment channels run by intelligence agencies in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel. The website features an AI-generated promotional video. Applications are apparently now being accepted. We’re guessing that experience sharing secrets is a plus.
LAPSED JUDGMENT: Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act expired at midnight Friday after the House rejected a last-ditch extension on Thursday by a vote of 198-218, and headed home for a weeklong recess. The law authorizing the warrantless collection of foreigners' electronic communications - and, incidentally, some Americans' communications as well - is officially expired. The surveillance isn't, however. Thanks to annual certifications approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in March, collection can continue under existing orders until March 2027. What Congress also failed to do before leaving town: release a classified March 17 FISA Court opinion that Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Thomas Massie say details serious FBI misuse of the program. Senate Intelligence Committee leaders formally requested declassification in April and asked for a response within 15 days. That deadline came and went. The question now is whether Americans are less safe because of it.
SHELL GAME: We are taking this report with a grain of salt, but China's Ministry of State Security is warning their nation's fishermen, researchers, and vessel owners: watch out for fish. In a post on the ministry's official WeChat account, Beijing alleged that foreign intelligence agencies are waging an "invisible secret war" beneath China's coastal waters, deploying sea turtles and fish fitted with electronic sensors to collect data on water temperature, salinity, and ocean currents - then transmitting the haul to overseas satellites. "Relatively large living marine animals have been fitted with sensors to swim in specific areas," the ministry said, without identifying a specific location, or providing any supporting evidence. The creatures, Beijing warned, could be used to map underwater weak points in China's coastal defenses. China has named no suspect country and perhaps not surprisingly, the sea turtles have remained silent.
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE BUREAUCRATIC KIND: The Pentagon released yet another batch of files last Friday involving what officials call "unidentified anomalous phenomena" which is government-speak for things flying around that nobody can readily explain. The latest dump includes reports, images, and videos, some of which show military personnel reacting to mysterious objects. The Dead Drop has noticed a curious pattern: whenever things seem to be going badly elsewhere in Washington, another tranche of UFO records appears. Coincidence? Probably. Still, the timing is becoming so dependable that one imagines an emergency Pentagon procedure: "In case of turbulence, release the aliens." Is the truth out there, or just buried under another stack of government paperwork? Maybe we’ll ask Steven Spielberg what he thinks.
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