S3E1 Whistleblowers & Spies

In 2007, John Kiriakou became the first CIA officer to publicly confirm that the agency had tortured detainees. He did it expecting a one-day story. He landed at LaGuardia Airport forty-five minutes later to find thirty-six voicemails from every major news network in the world. A U.S. senator was calling for his execution. His boss at Deloitte was furious. And the CIA, he says, never stopped punishing him for telling the truth. Season three of Dead Drop opens with Kiriakou reflecting on what it cost to blow the whistle — and what it still costs.

Whistleblowing as a new organizing principle

After two seasons focused on his own story — his CIA career, his arrest, his two years in federal prison — Kiriakou announces a shift. This season will examine whistleblowers and spies as overlapping categories. "Spies make great whistleblowers and whistleblowers make great spies," he says. The season will feature whistleblower roundtables, practical guidance on how to blow the whistle safely, and deep dives into stories he has long wanted to tell, including the 1986 assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme and the career of the terrorist Carlos the Jackal. The goal is not just to tell stories but to "nurture an environment that inspires whistleblowers to come forward." Kiriakou frames whistleblowing as "the cure for corruption" and says the present moment — "corruption's gol