The Great Seal of Disapproval

No sooner had we ended our latest chat with old mustached German (OMG) for the post "The invisible recruiter" than we realized we had not asked the one question which is so important to Americans: what do the seals of German intelligence agencies look like?

So, we called again. 

German military intelligence, known under the acronym MAD, has an emblem like any military outfit, the Wikipedia entry is here. We hate to say that it is not as pretty as the seal of the NSA but the Germans have less money to waste on designing seals, and maybe re-doing them every other generation factors in, too.

"What about the others", we wanted to know.

"Don't have any", came the reply.

"Really?"

"Did you find any on the internet, no, that's because they don't do seals."

Silence.

"Are you disappointed? If you know anyone who wants to do a parody like the American who made a t-shirt and then got slammed for alleged copyright violation, you can print whatever you want to make fun of the Germans. Go and have one made by a specialized t-shirt printer, not Zazzle, use alphashirt for instance. The trick is to blend in with all the other camo nuts, that's a perfect site for it."

"Thanks, we'll put it in the post as a hint for enterprising Germans, what we would still like to know is what does the letterhead of these guys without seals look like?"

"Plain text, the name of the agency, then underneath the department, go google around some more."

"Can I ask you a personal question?"

"You can ask... what gives?"

"Have you ever been under surveillance?"

"Not sure if you want to call it surveillance, but a bunch of people looked into me over time. The NSA first heard of me when few people here knew them, and I am sure they have zero record of that. The West Germans checked before they gave me a clearance, the East Germans tapped phones, there may still be faded photos of suited up me in some forgotten East German archive, and I can tell you other stories one day. And before you ask, yes, I find the revelations of the last few months very interesting and believe that some of the current crop of intelligence folks and politicians are clueless and some outright dangerous."

"Can we say this in the blog?"

"Be my guest, it's small enough, you'll see who reads it? How'd you say in an earlier post, a coalition of the dumb and the greedy? That sounds about right."

"It was the fearful and the greedy, and we should add the power hungry. Take care, and see you around for a beer."

Translation by the K-Landnews.