John Kiriakou's Dead Drop

THE BLURB: In prison, nobody helps anybody. Except their friends. In this episode, John will introduce you to his circle of friends, some of whom remained his friend long after they all got out of prison. Relationships that would probably never have happened except for prison can become some of the most profound, satisfying relationships one has. As you'lll hear...

SHOW NOTES
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THE BLURB: One thing about prison, there are rules upon rules. Upon rules. In this episode, John realizes that he's going to have to live by his own rules in order to survive. Those rules will be entirely based on the rules John learned - and had to live by - as a spy. As John keeps learning, there's an amazing amount of similarity between living life as a federal prisoner and living life as a spy.

SHOW NOTES
If you are enjoying Dead Drop, please check out our other podcasts at Costard & Touchstone.

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THE BLURB: In season one, we told the story of how CIA counter terrorism officer John Kiriakou chose to tell ABC journalist Jonathan Ross the truth - that the CIA had tortured and waterboarded detainees like Abu Zubaydah. The CIA went on the warpath against John, finally forcing him to accept a plea deal of thirty months reducible to 23 months in federal prison. In season two, John arrives at Loretto Federal Prison and enters a world unlike anything he'd ever encountered before. Though John had expected to serve his sentence at a "Club Fed" style work camp, the Bureau of Prisons chose instead to put John in a more prison-like prison with drug dealers, mafiosi and child molesters. Every bit of John's training as a spy would serve him well as a prisoner.

SHOW NOTES
If you are enjoying Dead Drop, please check out our other podcasts at Costard & Touchstone.

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THE BLURB: Having been a prisoner despite not deserving that fate, John is extremely interested in others similarly incarcerated. To that end, back before the 2024 election, we put together an episode of a podcast called "Prisoner Ex" where we told the story of Donnie Reynolds, Jr, a young, ambitious Black entrepreneur who got swept up in the US government's failed attempt to catch and prosecute Mexican drug cartel leaders by supplying them with GPS-carrying firearms. Donnie and his whole family were law-abiding citizens going about their business before the DoJ's so-called "Operation Fast and Furious" forced itself into their homes and lives.

SHOW NOTES
If you want to help Donnie Reynolds, Jr (and we urge you to join us in helping him), please send him a letter telling him you support him. Please address the enverlope this way:

Donald Ray Reynolds, Jr
Prisoner Number 32349-074, FCI Cumberland
14601 Burbridge Road SE Cumberland, MD 21502

For more great podcasts like Dead Drop, please visit https://costardandtouchstone.com/
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THE BLURB: In this episode, we ask a question: did author and ex-spy John Le Carre invent the modern spy by channeling his experiences as a Cold War spy into novels like "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold", "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", "The Night Manager, The Constant Gardner, Russia House and The Little Drummer Girl? What about real spies did le Carre capture that makes real spies respond to his fictional spies - and then imitate them and their language? We'll also talk shop about writing and the many challenges of repurposing a life in espionage as art.

SHOW NOTES
For more information about Barry Eisler, visit barryeisler.com.

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For more great podcasts like Dead Drop, please visit https://costardandtouchstone.com/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.