
FOIA request for NROL-39 surveillance satellite logo - danso
https://twitter.com/palewire/status/1181611182882353152
======
deep-root
From a previous FOIA request[1] explaining the logo:

 _" The secret origin of the patch is initially from [redacted] where the
problem during the test stage in the thermal vacuum was traced to a large
piece of cabling called an octopus harness. The running joke for the crew was
that the octopus harness had taken over the world."_

[1]
[http://www.paglen.com/download/octopus.pdf](http://www.paglen.com/download/octopus.pdf)

~~~
Rebelgecko
Apparently some NRO folks got smacked down on another mission when they tried
to use a quote from the Ricky Bobbie movie as the slogan "If you ain't first,
you're last"

[https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-
america-10/rec...](https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-
america-10/records-concerning-the-nrol-76-logo-37622/#file-154942)

~~~
lovehashbrowns
Ha, yup you're right! They even tried to preemptively get around that by
putting it in Latin, but that failed.

Quote:

I have the solution: "si non primus es novissimi". It is Latin and roughly
translates to "If you ain't first, you're last" according to Google
Translator. Someone can check this translation, but it should solve the
copyright issue since Ricky Bobby doesn't speak latin. It will also be more
mysterious for the average, non-latin literate observer.

This Latin approach has worked before and allowed one of my previous
organizations to have the slogan "Doing God's work with other people's money"
fly right through the approval process.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> It is Latin and roughly translates to "If you ain't first, you're last"
> according to Google Translator.

Google translate is not up to the task of translating more than an isolated
word without serious errors. I can't actually check your translation, but I
can point out some issues:

\- The verb, es, and the word "first", primus, are both singular. They match!
And they're supposed to. But novissimi is plural. In the sentence as given,
novissimi plays no role, much like the "cabbage" in the sentence "this
sentence contains cabbage six words".

\- Novissimi means, literally, "newest". (Heck, it doesn't just mean "newest",
the two words are etymologically identical.) It does metaphorically refer to
the rear of something, since the back of the army is where the least
experienced (newest) troops get placed. A better word for "last" would
probably be postremus, meaning literally "last" and metaphorically "worst".

\- There's only one verb. (Compare "if you're not first, you're last".) That
isn't the problem in Latin that it would be in English, but I flag it because
the final two issues require careful thinking about what verb to use where...

\- This is a conditional statement using a present indicative verb. The strong
implication is present that, as described, you _really aren 't_ first. If the
statement was meant to be hypothetical or counterfactual, you'd probably use
subjunctive mood.

\- I cannot guarantee that the _concept_ "to be first" is best expressed by
combining the verb "to be" with the adjective "first", as you've done here.
It's quite possible that there's a verb that describes winning a race or a
competition or whatever, and that verb would be a more idiomatic way of
expressing this meaning. I have no knowledge of whether that's actually true,
but it's the kind of thing that comes up a lot when you're trying to translate
between languages. (This sort of thing is why it's much safer to translate
things _into_ your native language than _out of_ your native language, even if
you have near-perfect command of the other language.) English is very free
with "be + adjective" constructions; many languages are more prone to
specialized verbs. (Compare the Latin verb rubere, "to be red". Expressing the
concept as _ruber esse_ , "to be" \+ "red (adj.)" is an error.)

~~~
Rebelgecko
Interestingly, I just plugged it into Google Translate and got a somewhat
different translation that makes more sense to me (granted my Latin is a bit
rusty):

si non prius, postremo te

------
PostOnce
It may be sinister, but its a damn fine design (interesting, and intimidating
in a thriller movie kind of way), isn't it? Beats the crap out of boring
bureaucracy.

Wonder what other cool logos / unit patches / etc I am not aware of.

~~~
MS90
Nuke commands have had some good ones throughout the years. Some funny, but
mostly just extremely eerie.

Death wears bunny slippers:

[https://media.wired.com/photos/5932c01d95879f6d0c009e10/mast...](https://media.wired.com/photos/5932c01d95879f6d0c009e10/master/pass/patch_bunny_slippers.jpg)

Politically incorrect:

[https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/bLwAAOSwaEhZHz9u/s-l300.jpg](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/bLwAAOSwaEhZHz9u/s-l300.jpg)

Satisfaction guaranteed:

[https://encrypted-
tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTiB52Y...](https://encrypted-
tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTiB52Y-HTES5GCiydIdD5tssV7hFdlT2lT9WRYOAca_24H-Xrx-g)

Central heating:

[https://www.airforcecollectables.com/images/USAF%20Patch%20S...](https://www.airforcecollectables.com/images/USAF%20Patch%20SAC%20337%20Bomb%20Squadron%20B%201B%20WPCH%20Warsaw%20Pact%20Central%20Heating%20Nuclear%20Dyess%20AFB%20PI.jpg)

~~~
dmix
Some of those are great, especially the Warsaw Pact Central Heating one.

It's always a bit reassuring to know that dark humor is allowed to exist
somewhere within these faceless organizations. They're still allowed to be
human. Being a secret agency and protected from the Twitter brigades always
helps!

~~~
PavlovsCat
> They're still allowed to be human.

Are they, and are they, by extension, allowed to see "the enemy" as humans,
too, or are these stickers part of the rituals of compensation?

> _[Hobbes] foresaw the necessary idolatry of power itself by this new human
> type, that he would be flattered at being called a power-thirsty animal,
> although actually society would force him to surrender all his natural
> forces, his virtues and his vices, and would make him the poor meek little
> fellow who has not even the right to rise against tyranny, and who, far from
> striving for power, submits to any existing government and does not stir
> even when his best friend falls an innocent victim to an incomprehensible
> raison d 'etat._

\-- Hannah Arendt

In light of that, "tough and mischievous", variations of which 99% of these
patches seem to be, doesn't have quite the luster. On the extreme end we have
stuff like calling children "fun-sized terrorists", which is _clearly_ not
dark humor that expresses humanity, but cartoonish dehumanization.

> protected from the Twitter brigades

Covering one's ears further removes any semblance of luster.

~~~
nyolfen
>In light of that, "tough and mischievous", variations of which 99% of these
patches seem to be, doesn't have quite the luster. On the extreme end we have
stuff like calling children "fun-sized terrorists", which is clearly not dark
humor that expresses humanity, but cartoonish dehumanization.

yes, i suppose when you bring up something totally unrelated to the subject at
hand spoken in a different context by unconnected people, it does seem pretty
bad

~~~
PavlovsCat
It's not "totally unrelated" or "unconnected", it's the container these
stickers are made in. You failing to see that doesn't change it, and "seems
pretty bad" is just saying nothing.

~~~
nyolfen
i think what we can all agree on here is that you are morally superior to the
funny patch slogan people

------
throwa8Hk30J
Wow nice one. What a logo.

I am stopping by to mention Trevor Paglen's work who helps uncover and
popularize some of this junk. You can watch his full presentation "Seeing The
Secret State: Six Landscapes"[0] for background on this unclassified unit
patch as well as surprising photos and TLEs and much, much more.

What a time we live in!

0: [https://media.ccc.de/v/30C3_-_5604_-_en_-
_saal_1_-_201312282...](https://media.ccc.de/v/30C3_-_5604_-_en_-
_saal_1_-_201312282300_-_seeing_the_secret_state_six_landscapes_-
_trevor_paglen)

------
whalesalad
My dad worked at the Skunk Works for 20 years, and Northrop Grumman for almost
as long. He has a billion of these mission patches in boxes and/or framed in
his home office. I love them. Wish there was a big online repo of them to
browse.

~~~
et-al
Sounds like you could start one!

~~~
throwaway2048
many of the patches themselves will be classified, his dad could get into
trouble if they were documented.

------
noodlesUK
These logos are awesome! I’ve seen lots of military and IC logos, and they all
have relatively similar art styles. Who actually draws these things? Are these
by ordinary members of the community who work on the project, or is there an
art department that works on these?

------
lxe
It baffles me that in order to request a file from some database you need to
write a letter to a person who then responds back after a month. Did you end
up incurring fees of $48/h for searching and per-page fees as well? I thought
that a major benefit of the internet is that we don’t have to do this anymore.

~~~
kube-system
If you can write a program that can automate this, then you're a better
programmer than most of us.

[https://www.justice.gov/oip/blog/foia-update-freedom-
informa...](https://www.justice.gov/oip/blog/foia-update-freedom-information-
act-5-usc-sect-552-amended-public-law-no-104-231-110-stat)

~~~
nyolfen
the request end is automated at least:
[https://www.muckrock.com/foi/create/](https://www.muckrock.com/foi/create/)

------
pizza
I don't quite have the time to find them right now, but there was a series of
quite hilarious internal emails that were sort of exasperated about how there
should never be a repeat of the octopus logo from now on

~~~
TeMPOraL
You may be referring to the document linked by 'Rebelgecko here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21217671](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21217671).
On page 17, I found the following quote from a chain of e-mails:

"[redacted] said after the octopus logo, the White House threatened to require
presidential approval if the NRO approved any more menacing logos."

------
boardwaalk
I can't be the only one who cringed at the "release the swag" comment. You
won't catch me dead wearing/carrying something with something spy agency-
related on it.

~~~
danso
The parodies are pretty funny:

[https://twitter.com/sli/status/1181736342063108096](https://twitter.com/sli/status/1181736342063108096)

------
dpflan
Is there a site with all of the available logos? Surely, someone is
aggregating these. Appreciate the already linked logos!

~~~
danso
There appears to be a handful of NROL logos (and related documentation) FOIAed
on Muckrock:
[https://www.muckrock.com/search/?q=nrol](https://www.muckrock.com/search/?q=nrol)

edit: Check out the wikipedia list of NROL launches
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NRO_launches](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NRO_launches)

~~~
theandrewbailey
A handful of those look like they're asking for memes.

------
dole
Batman (1966), Joker, Penguin and Catwoman were part of the "United
Underworld"... always wanted to get this logo [1] on a t-shirt but never got
it cleaned up enough to scale.

[1] [https://i.imgur.com/KP6Gf7e.png](https://i.imgur.com/KP6Gf7e.png)

------
weej
_" The enemy has nowhere to hide"_

Love the logo, but damn if that isn't ominous and intimidating.

------
userbinator
Interesting that the PDF was created 2019-01-03 10:34:05 and modified
2019-10-04 10:35:22, assuming the metadata is in any way accurate, considering
that NROL-39 was launched in 2013.

------
knolax
Reminds me of the book "I Could Tell You but Then You Would Have to Be
Destroyed by Me". It's all about various patches from secret projects.

------
algaeontoast
Damn, I'm totally having this logo professionally printed and framed.

------
ohlookabird
Krakens on globes. I still find the similarity to the propaganda drawing from
a 1938 Stürmer (Nazi propaganda publication) unsettling: see e.g. "World
domination" section at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitic_canard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitic_canard).
Sure, it's been used before as well, but it's what I feel reminded of. In many
different classes in (German) school we talked quite a lot about Nazi Germany
and propaganda, where we also talked about this image and all the messages it
transport. A similar logo was also used in the ACTA protests 2010 and found
itself criticized for its similarity, e.g.
[https://taz.de/!5101105/](https://taz.de/!5101105/).

Apart from that, thanks for this FOIA request! It's great that the original
vector graphics are now available.

~~~
Aengeuad
It should be noted that there's an extensive history[0] of octopi being used
in propaganda posters dating back to 1877, depicting countries such as:
Russia/USSR, England/Britain, Prussia/Germany, Japan, America (by both the
Nazis and various communists), not to mention more abstract things like
imperialism, landlordism, oil companies, company directors, etc. The Nazis
didn't even coin the depiction of Jews as octopi, as there's a late 19th
century example depicting the Rothschild family as such[1]. Hell, the same
year as the crude and anti-semitic Nazi example you have Americans publishing
books calling Hitler an octopus in both title and artwork.[2]

It's understandable that a German class on Nazi propaganda would focus on the
anti-semitic element, and I sympathise with those that are going to have a
stronger emotional reaction to such images, but it's important to remember
that it's minority of anti-semitic examples compared to numerous examples
without such connotations. Perhaps especially so when it's an org depicting
itself as the octopus.

[0] [https://hyperallergic.com/375900/the-map-octopus-a-
propagand...](https://hyperallergic.com/375900/the-map-octopus-a-propaganda-
motif-of-spreading-evil/)

[1] [https://atlanticsentinel.com/2017/08/the-octopus-in-
politica...](https://atlanticsentinel.com/2017/08/the-octopus-in-political-
cartoons/)

[2]
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/120380035@N05/13567332414](https://www.flickr.com/photos/120380035@N05/13567332414)

~~~
ohlookabird
Thanks for links, there were quite a few images I didn't know. I was certainly
aware of uses before the Nazis, but what I tried to say was this cartoon in
particular has a similar composition and overall layout. Which is probably the
main reason I felt reminded of this particular image.

------
sdinsn
Note that this is nothing new. The logo was already public.

~~~
saagarjha
Was the vector version public?

~~~
brokensegue
no

------
toomuchtodo
Shoutout to Muckrock for powering that FOIA request!

------
not_a_cop75
Can we get one of the alien logos next?

