What has a shadowy US government spy agency just shot into space?

The Daily Mail Online ^ | December 7, 2013 | Daily Mail Reporter

[Uncle Chip]

Top-secret group that boasts 'nothing is beyond our reach' blasts classified rocket into orbit

Despite ongoing anger about how the U.S. government is snooping on people around the world, one agency is still keen to boast about its spying - with a creepy cartoon octopus and an alarming logo.

A top-secret rocket carrying spy satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office launched from the central California coast late on Thursday, and it had a large badge emblazoned on the side

The new logo features a huge and sinister octopus, with just one angry eye visible, as it wraps its tentacles round the globe. Written underneath is: 'Nothing Is Beyond Our Reach.'

The Atlas V rocket lit up the night sky at about 11:15 p.m. Thursday, lifting off from Vandenberg Air Force Base toward low-Earth orbit.

The 19-story-tall rocket carried items for the NRO, which operates the U.S. system of intelligence-gathering satellites.

The agency has not released any details about the payload but it did cover the launch of the rocket live on Twitter.

Many people have expressed doubts over whether the logo is appropriate in the current atmosphere.

Christopher Soghoian, senior policy analyst with the ACLU, tweeted: 'Advice to @ODNIgov: You may want to downplay the massive dragnet spying thing right now. This logo isn't helping.'

Yet Karen Furgerson, an NRO spokesperson, told Forbes that the image and phrase fitted the mission well.

'NROL-39 is represented by the octopus, a versatile, adaptable, and highly intelligent creature.

Emblematically, enemies of the United States can be reached no matter where they choose to hide,' she said. 'Nothing is beyond our reach' defines this mission and the value it brings to our nation and the warfighters it supports, who serve valiantly all over the globe, protecting our nation,' Furgerson added.

[Uncle Chip]

Top secret -- but it covers the launch on Twitter.

[cripplecreek]

Sometimes its best to hide things in plain sight.

I don’t know anything about this particular launch but if it turns out to be as bad as the article claims they can claim they told people they were doing it.

[HereInTheHeartland]

Just because the NSA over reaches; doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have a robust intelligence capability.

[ClearCase_guy]

From Wikipedia:

Joseph Daniel Casolaro (June 16, 1947 – August 12, 1991) was an American freelance writer who came to public attention in 1991 when he was found dead in a bathtub in room 517 of the Sheraton Hotel in Martinsburg, West Virginia, his wrists slashed 10–12 times. A note was found, and the medical examiner ruled the death a suicide.

His death became controversial because his notes suggested he was in Martinsburg to meet a source about a story he called "the Octopus." This centered on a sprawling collaboration involving an international cabal, and primarily featuring a number of stories familiar to journalists who worked in and near Washington, D.C. in the 1980s—the Inslaw case, about a software manufacturer whose owner accused the Justice Department of stealing its work product; the October Surprise theory that during the Iran hostage crisis, Iran deliberately held back American hostages to help Ronald Reagan win the 1980 presidential election; the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International; and Iran-Contra.

[Sirius Lee]

I feel same way. Just because the SS sometimes overreached didn’t mean they shouldn’t have had efficient ovens.

[Uncle Chip]

Maybe it’s just calimari dinner delivery to the space station.

[Incorrigible]

.

[Uncle Chip]

Where is Captain Nemo when you need him???

[Faith65]

bookmark

[HereInTheHeartland]

“Just because the SS sometimes overreached didn’t mean they shouldn’t have had efficient ovens.”

So killing 6 million Jews is the same as our country having an intelligence gathering capability?

You think those are comparable!?

[markomalley]

It has been speculated that NROL-39 may be the third member of the Boeing-built Future Imagery Architecture (FIA) constellation of radar-reconnaissance satellites, due in part to the apparent retrograde nature of its orbit and the 123-degree inclination already revealed by the Atlas V’s secondary payload operators. The FIA was conceived in 1999 as the successor program to the Lacrosse imaging network, which saw five satellites launched—including one from the space shuttle—between 1988 and 2005. Significant cost and schedule overruns forced John Negroponte, then-Director of National Intelligence, to cancel its optical component in 2005, but the radar element continued under the code name of “Topaz.”

− American Space dot com

[Trailerpark Badass]

Who’s “we?”

[basil]

For the first time in my life, under the present resident and the people surrounding him, I am beginning to fear my government.

It has taken them many years of dumbing down our population to get where they are today—but it is what it is.

I don’t see much way that it can be turned around. When you have conditioned millions of people to live off of the earnings of others, they will always vote for the people who are giving them a free living.

We now have families that are 4th and 5th generation welfare families. It’s all they know—and it’s self-perpetuating, because when you pay people to have babies out of wedlock, why should they do anything else?

[1rudeboy]

I want one of those patches.

[ClearCase_guy]

I look at it this way -- after 9/11, George W Bush got the Patriot Act passed. Of course, the folks on the Left hated Bush and called him a nazi and said he was intrusively spying on American citizens. Some Conservatives agreed with that assessment. But, a lot of Republicans stood by their president and said that we needed to be safe, it was no big deal, and the Muslims were the enemy, not the US government, so there was no need to fear the Patriot Act.

And now Barack Hussein Obama is the is the US government and the IRS, the NSA, and the Justice Department all over your sh** and they know everything there is to know about you.

Conclusion: Too much government control is always a bad thing. And it leads to other things which are even worse.

[Uncle Chip]

It has been speculated that NROL-39 may be the third member of the Boeing-built Future Imagery Architecture (FIA) constellation of radar-reconnaissance satellites

I still think it's just a calimari dinner delivery service with the space station as their first customer.

[Paladin2]

"When the United States needs eyes and ears in critical places where no human can reach – be it over the most rugged terrain or through the most hostile territory – it turns to the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). The NRO is the U.S. Government agency in charge of designing, building, launching, and maintaining America’s intelligence satellites. Whether creating the latest innovations in satellite technology, contracting with the most cost-efficient industrial supplier, conducting rigorous launch schedules, or providing the highest-quality products to our customers, we never lose focus on who we are working to protect: our Nation and its citizens.

From our inception in 1961 to our declassification to the public in 1992, we have worked tirelessly to provide the best reconnaissance support possible to the Intelligence Community (IC) and Department of Defense (DoD). We are unwavering in our dedication to fulfilling our vision: Vigilance From Above."

[mdmathis6]

One image has a strange paled out area on the Saudi Arabian Penninsula(post #4).... this patch doesn’t. Went to the web and see that same paled out area on other images.

[null and void]

The answer to that may become much clearer in the next decade. It’s only 1933 in America.

[Iron Munro]

Whatever it is you can be assured its real function is to keep American citizens under the thumb of the feds.