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How NSA spooks spaffed my DAD'S DATA ALL OVER THE WEB

TV star plundered for key PRISM asset without so much as a thank-you

Pics Shock, horror, scandal! America's NSA secretly took data from my website for its fiendish PRISM web-snooping project - and it ended up blasted all over the internet!

Top-secret slides detailing the massive electronic surveillance programme were leaked last week by ex-CIA techie Edward Snowden. A close inspection of the presentation reveals a terrible scandal missed by the entire mainstream media: the project's weird logo is startlingly similar, if not an exact copy, of my father's own work.

The leaked slides now all over the internet … notice the PRISM logo in the top right corner


NSA PRISM logo upside down

That NSA PRISM logo in full - but flipped upside-down so you can compare it to the image below

The NSA may have set aside a paltry annual budget of $20m for its internet-data hoovering program (we're doomed, doomed, I tell you), but that didn't stretch as far as bunging over some loose change for using my dad's prism photo for its creepy PRISM logo: the original image is hosted on my online gallery for free-to-use pics, although there are caveats (such as a requirement to credit and link to us). Here's the original:

Photo by Adam Hart-Davis

Look familiar? … prism photo snapped by former Tomorrow's World presenter Adam Hart-Davis* (used with permission, full source)

On the other hand, I'm not convinced we really want a picture credit.

I am considering finding a bean-counter at the NSA and asking if he or she could scape together a small donation (which larger organisations often do, generously, in lieu of a fee), although I wonder if all my sites and activities would experience, ahem, enhanced scrutiny for a little while. ®

* Yes, that prism photo is by the Adam Hart-Davis, him off Tomorrow's World back in the day - sub-ed

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