we don’t need no stinking patches

The fallout and negative public reception towards the National Reconnaissance Office’s choosing a world devouring octopus (which is a trope all on its own) as a mission patch for its launch and delivery of a classified payload into orbit back in 2013 was exemplary of the sort of obliviousness that dominates that culture and work environment and nearly prompted the White House to demand oversight and creative input on logos and slogans for all future missions.
Several other tone deaf, in-jokes have followed, however, and there’s no push for improving image and relations, of course, and it’s probably too high of a demand to expect anything coming from the NRO or any intelligence service to not be sinister. Though I cannot personally vouch for the authenticity—and wonder what might possess to label something so covert with a scary and inscrutable that only invites speculation escapes me—it would seem that the embargo against Latin mottos (the agency’s own is simply Supra et Ultra—Above and Beyond) might be at least a little premature with this emblem gracing the NRO’s latest launch on a Delta 4 rocket. The watch-word of the Florentine knight slaying the dragon is “evil will never prevail.”