ARTWORK > Secret Codewords of the NSA

Woodblock print of iceberg by artist illustrator Annie Bissett depicting a secret code word of the NSA called iceberg
ICEBERG
Japanese woodblock (mokuhanga)
6" x 6" (15.24 x 15.24 cm)

I is for iceberg, which is "a major NSA backbone project." Not a lot to go on there, but it's probably something to do with the NSA grabbing data as it passes through the fiber optic cables that make up what is called the backbone of the internet. Most of those cables lie deep in the oceans, and they carry phone and internet traffic from every country in the world, including the U.S.

If you Google "NSA iceberg," there's nothing about the NSA Iceberg program, but you do get pages and pages of articles with headlines that say something like "NSA revelations the tip of the iceberg." New documents leaked by Edward Snowden reveal that the NSA spied on other governments at the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009, giving U.S. negotiators advance information about other governments' positions. World leaders at that summit failed to agree to a strong deal on climate change.

Six applications of color, with blind emboss
Kochi Kozo paper
edition: 20