Title: S2E2 Rules Of The Game
Show: John Kiriakou's Dead Drop
Date: 2026-05-25
URL: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6a13a20b55b99c7f89a7e2b1/media.mp3
Duration: 0:39:30

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[06:17] They would then steal that amount of chicken, beef or pork for their customers. Each month, the recipient's family would then transfer $100 to $150 into the butchers or the cooks commissary account that worked out great for them. For those of us eating the prison chow, it meant chickenless chicken pot pie, hot dogs instead of roast beef and sloppy Joe's instead of pork loin. And remember, almost none of this was human grade food. It was almost all animal grade food. There was plenty of room for entrepreneurs.

[06:49] One guy made a decent living selling other prisoners used shoes. I actually bought two pairs of shoes from him. What I mean is he would sell another prisoner's old shoes that they weren't wearing anymore. Or if the prisoner was being released, he would just get rid of his shoes for an extra couple of bucks. And this guy would take a commission from the sale. Some prisoners had convenience stores in their lockers. Seriously, they sold sodas, candies, chips, always with a standard 30 percent markup. There were also a dozen bookies at Loretto, a good friend of mine, being the most successful of them all.

[07:21] Some prisoners made thousands of dollars every month via gambling. The smart ones sent it all home to build a nest egg for their release. Other prisoners repaired radios. Some did unofficial, unlicensed chiropractic work. Some sold underwear, socks and t-shirts all stolen from the laundry. And then there were the most enterprising. Their currency was books of stamps. Now, books of stamps sold at the time for eight dollars and twenty cents. On the street, so to speak, meaning in the halls of the prison,

[07:53] they were worth a flat seven dollars. And so rather than seven bags of mackerel stacked one on top of each other, a book of stamps was small, easy to hide, easy to use as currency. One prisoner provided, well, tantric massages behind the wreck building for one book of stamps. Those were complete with an index finger slathered in Vaseline. I'm not kidding. There was another prisoner who, for that same book of stamps, would let you watch him shove an entire dial deodorant roll on up his ass.

[08:24] A neat trick, if you can do it, I guess. Yet another entrepreneur sold his turnkey business and his list of a dozen clients for sixty five books of stamps, quite a haul. His service offerings included a hand job for one book of stamps, a blow job for two books of stamps. Or if you were feeling flush, you could pound him in the ass for five books of stamps. Me, I banked my dollar eight cents a month and relied on the generosity of family and friends for my necessary goods

[08:55] or anything else that I might need. But had I needed capitalism in prison, I was there. I'm John Kiriakou. Welcome to Dead Drop Season Two, doing time like a spy. As always, we thank you deeply for listening and especially for being proactive listeners. It really does help every time you like, rate, comment on or review the podcast. Not a revelation. Life in prison is extremely regulated. It's all rules, rules, rules.

[09:26] The daily schedule is set in stone. Breakfast is at six a.m. Work call where everybody heads out to their work assignment. That's at seven thirty. Recall where everybody must return to their respective housing units is at ten twenty a.m. Lunch is at eleven and then afternoon work call is at twelve twenty p.m. Afternoon recall is at three. Dinner is at five. Evening work calls at six. And final recall is nine p.m. That's also when all prisoners are locked down for the night.

[09:57] Lights out is at eleven. The only change to that schedule is on weekends and holidays when breakfast is served at the leisurely hour of seven and there is no work call. Weekends off. Yahoo. Prisoner movement is very tightly controlled. Prisoners can only move from point A to point B during something called 10 minute moves. Once the 10 minutes have passed, you are locked down wherever you happen to be. If you want to go somewhere else, you'll have to wait 50 minutes. Interspersed throughout the day and the night are counts. All of them are meant to ensure that nobody has escaped.

[10:30] Standing counts where you have to physically stand next to your bunk are at four fifteen p.m. and nine thirty p.m. Non-standing counts are held at midnight three a.m. and five a.m. Since most everyone is asleep at those times, CEOs go from bed to bed, shining a ridiculously bright flashlight in your face. That's to make sure you haven't escaped. That was another dumb rule or was it? Maybe my history with torture made me cynical. I don't know. We had been locked in our cubicles since 9 p.m.

[11:00] It was impossible for any prisoner to get through concrete, steel bars, bulletproof glass, over two 12 foot fences topped with concertina wire, past the night vision security cameras and the motion detectors and then into the night. Those flashlights shined in our faces, served zero purpose other than to disrupt our sleep. And sleep disturbances are very much a torture technique. So stick a pin in that one. The learning curve in prison is steep, nasty and unforgiving. There's no orientation to welcome you or to explain anything.

[11:32] You have to just pick everything up on your own. That's prison culture. Nobody helps anybody else. I had to constantly remind myself, John, keep quiet, watch your back and quickly figure out the stuff you need to know. So that's what I did. The prison had its rules. The prisoners had their rules and I was going to have mine. Rules based on my training as a spy and every single experience I ever had as a spy working in the field. So welcome to John's rules to live by in order to survive federal prison.

[12:04] Rule number one, recruit spies to steal secrets or to steal anything else that I needed. Let's start by defining our terms, starting with the word secret. The secret is really any piece of information that is not publicly available. In the context of prison, most secrets are held by the prison administration and by the CEOs. The only way a secret might become valuable to an inmate is if that inmate could use the secret to his advantage. I'm not talking about rumors. We're going to get to rumors later. No, I'm talking about actionable information

[12:36] that one can use for one's own benefit. The same goes with unavailable goods. In the outside world, we take for granted that the stuff we want or need is just a click away with free delivery. In prison, none of that stuff is easily accessible. If it's accessible at all. That means either you'll have to be open minded about your wants and needs or you're going to have to recruit people who are behind bars alongside you who can access the things you need and facilitate getting them to you. The CIA trained me to identify a target, ID their vulnerabilities,

[13:07] assess my best access to the target and their vulnerabilities and then move in for the kill. Information, secret information especially has great power used correctly. It has even more power. Now, there are four reasons why a person would go against their own best interests and steal secrets for a spy. Revenge, greed, ideology and excitement. The best from a spy's perspective is ideology, even though you may have nothing in common with your target. And even though your interests and backgrounds may be diametrically opposite,

[13:41] the spy's goal is to convince their target that they are kindred spirits and that doing what the spy wants is actually doing what they want. If your target is a true believer, you could get them to believe practically anything. They really are the easiest to manipulate. Generally speaking, you really can't underestimate the collective stupidity and gullibility of your average inmate peer. They'll almost always surprise you. The goal is to use that to your advantage, starting with convincing your target that you are their best friend.

[14:13] Though no one helps anyone in prison. There you are helping them or so it seems. If you've done this correctly, your target should now be willing to take a personal risk on your behalf. Here's an example of how that might play out. Perhaps you're writing a book about surviving and thriving in prison. Let's say you find yourself in need of a few metal binder clips to help keep your documents together in the outside world. That's no problem. Depending on where you live, you might even be able to have them delivered into your hands in a few hours. But in prison, those metal binder clips are considered contraband

[14:47] and they're banned. Let's say you know, having seen them in the prison office complex supply room yourself, that there are hundreds of binder clips, rubber bands, paper clips, pens, pencils and not the cheap ones from the commissary and even a copy machine. Lots of goodies. How do you get access to them? One excellent way is to get to know the orderly who cleans the office. Obviously, they have regular routine access to it. If they have access to it, you could have access to it. Another is to ask yourself, what makes this guy tick?

[15:20] Which of his vulnerabilities should you exploit? Which should you exploit first? What would convince him to risk a good job and the possibility of solitary confinement just to help you get those binder clips? Maybe he's got a social conscience and believes all inmates should have binder clips or maybe he's gambling problems out of control. Maybe he needs cigarettes. Whatever could motivate him needs to be in your head. Let's examine a couple of possibilities starting with revenge. I might say to my target, hey, buddy, you know that asshole CO you work for.

[15:54] Did I tell you what he did to me? During a shakedown, that bastard took all my binder clips. Now my legal work is in total chaos. It's like that jerk is trying to trample my constitutional rights to defend myself. Well, if you pitch it right, you're now morally outraged target should say something like, hey, I can get you some of those binder clips. If they don't pick up on the queue, you can nudge it along with too bad that piece of shit doesn't trust you enough to give you access. In that case, you might hear, hey, wait a minute, I do have access. In which case you're then off and running.

[16:26] The best part of doing it that way, the target will walk away thinking that it was all his idea in the first place. Maybe greed is your best approach. Let's say your target doesn't care about the CO he works for. Maybe he gets no money from home or he gambles badly or he smokes too much. You could offer to pay him with a dollar bag of mackerel or if he really comes through for you, you could offer to pay him a whole book of stamps. Perhaps your target is deep into this us versus them thinking. The man is keeping us down, trying to control every aspect of our lives.

[16:59] Our first names in prison are inmate this or inmate that. And the target deeply resents such treatment. He's willing to give you those binder clips just because you're both inmates and you have to stick together against the cops. Maybe in an earlier conversation, you gave the target the impression that you care about him, you care about his family, you care about his problems. Finally, there's excitement at your disposal. Experts estimate that as many as 80 percent of American prison inmates have at least some degree of diagnosable mental illness.

[17:31] And most inmates have extremely low self-esteem. They want to be something that they simply aren't to do something heroic and exciting despite the fact that they are neither of those two things. What they are is impulsive. It's a good thing. Their impulsivity is your secret weapon to manipulate them. Even so, be careful. Impulsive thrill seekers like the kind you meet in prison are the most tricky to control and they often get caught. I became friendly and later roommates with Robert, an Australian arsonist.

[18:04] Robert had been convicted of burning down a Department of Motor Vehicles office in Buffalo, New York over a sales tax dispute. He was extremely gregarious, always joking, always wanting to be involved in everything. It also became clear to me quite quickly that Robert was a clinical sociopath. In fact, he would have checked every single box on Dr. Robert Hare's psychopathy checklist revised. Among the many characteristics that psychologists use to identify sociopaths is their pathological lying.

[18:36] And my friend Robert was a full on pathological liar. Sociopaths like Robert would rarely be motivated by greed or ideology. Frankly, a person with Robert's personality would rarely be motivated by revenge. But Robert was an unusual case. He was an excitement junkie above all else. That made it easy to manipulate him. I just had to make him feel well involved. Summertime and the living is easy. Am I right, John? That is one of the best parts of Summer Allen. Living really does feel easier.

[19:07] You're about to travel. Good thing you've got a couple of quints pieces going with you. They are as relaxed and comfortable as I want to feel. That's why, whether I'm traveling or staying at home, I reach for the same quints go anywhere pieces again and again. Quints focuses on well made essential. They're the t-shirt I reach for first every time. In all seriousness, I just bought another one today. They're my favorite t-shirts too. And when the ocean breeze kicks in at night, as it does here in LA, a quince lightweight cotton sweater is sublime and perfect for travel to,

[19:40] which these days has all kinds of new challenges that impact how you pack. So versatility really matters. You got to pack smart like a spy. That's why a pair of quince is 100 percent European linen pants and a couple of linen shirts are coming with me. They're breathable and easy to throw on. Sometimes I add a t-shirt underneath for a whole other look. They're the summer upgrade anyone's rotation needs. Starting at just thirty four dollars. That's not a typo. No, it's not. Everything at quince is priced 50 to 80 percent less than similar brands.

[26:46] It was a very well made movie. Time magazine's Richard Corlis called it, quote, a fine movie, a police procedural on a grand scale, unquote. David Denby at the New Yorker wrote, quote, the virtue of Zero Dark Thirty is that it pays close attention to the way life does work. It combines ruthlessness and humanity in a manner that is paradoxical and disconcerting, yet satisfying as art, unquote. The New York Times critic, Manola Dargis, wrote, quote, it shows the unspeakable and lets us decide if the death of bin Laden was

[27:20] worth the price we paid, unquote. The problem and Dargis seems to have sensed it was that the movie pushed the lie that torture had led America to Osama bin Laden or did it? That question all by itself was the movie Pro Torture caused a wave of journalistic outrage. Journalist Michael Wolfe called the movie, quote, a nasty piece of pulp and propaganda, unquote, and Bigelow, its director, he called a fetishist and a sadist. Wolfe disputed the efficacy of torture and the claim that it contributed

[27:52] to bin Laden's capture. Jane Mayer, the celebrated author of The Dark Side about the use of torture during the Bush administration and a writer at the New Yorker, accused Bigelow, quote, of milking the US torture program for drama while sidestepping the political and ethical debate that it provoked, unquote. In The Guardian, philosopher Slavoj Zizek criticized movies normalization of torture. To him, the movie's neutrality toward torture was already a type of per se endorsement. My friend John McCain, who was tortured during his time as a POW in North

[28:24] Vietnam, said that the movie left him sick, quote, because it is wrong, unquote. Screenwriter Boll called the Pro Torture accusations preposterous. Director Bigelow stands behind the movie completely. She said, quote, I think it's a deeply moral movie that questions the use of force. It questions what was done in the name of finding bin Laden, unquote. The key here is less the disagreement and much more the fact that America was having this conversation to begin with out in the open with lots of passion.

[28:57] Exactly the way we needed it to be. Torture was no longer flying under America's radar and how ironic. Back at Loretto, I was trying to fly under the radar that takes us to rule number two of John's rules for prison survival. Seek and utilize available cover or blend in with your environment. In the life of a field operative, this rule is very straightforward. When the shit hits the fan, get the hell away from the fan. Take cover immediately to protect yourself.

[29:28] Make yourself a difficult target for the flying shit. In prison, that rule is just as important. When a predator enters a space in nature, the crickets stop chirping. The birds stop singing. The smaller animals all run for cover. It's pure survival instinct to seek cover and go silent. But as humans evolved, we lost that instinct. Now it takes training like the kind I received at the farm to regain those duck and cover instincts, not having them can put you in extreme peril.

[30:01] In 2011 in Pakistan, a CIA contractor named Ray Davis shot and killed two Pakistani nationals who were trying to rob him in Lahore while he was stuck in traffic. Being a contractor, Davis wasn't as well trained as he might have been. Seeing the men approach with guns drawn, he fired through his windshield, killing one of them. He then got out of his car and shot the second man in the back. Instead of seeking available cover or in CIA parlance, getting off the X or getting out of the kill zone, fleeing the scene, Ray Davis got back in his

[30:34] car, called the American consulate for help and sat and waited. A few minutes later, a consulate SUV sped to the scene. But before it got to Davis, the SUV struck and killed an innocent Pakistani man riding a bicycle that left Davis at the scene with the two dead gunmen laying in the street. He was standing there like a deer in the headlights as Pakistani police arrested him on the plus side. They actually saved him from the murderous mob that was gathering. But Davis's situation was compounded when the Pakistani authorities found

[31:04] a black mask at the scene, a hundred bullets and a cell phone containing photographs of Pakistani military installations. Had Ray Davis been a trained CIA field officer, he would have fled the shooting scene immediately and found his way to a safe house or some predetermined safe site. Still using the tournament with an online sports book time to ditch the app. Enjoying Kashi, America's number one prediction market platform. Kashi is live and regulated in all 50 states. On Kashi, you're trading against peers in a live market,

[39:08] And until then, I'm John Kiriakou. Dead Drop is written by John Kiriakou and Alan Katz. Costart and Touchstone Productions produces the podcast. And John Kiriakou, Alan Katz and Nick Mechanic are its executive producers. This podcast is a cost and touchstone production.
