Trevor Paglen

On page 130 in the book, there's a patch with three snakes circling the world with the latin words "Nunquam Ante Numquam Iterum," translated "Never Before, Never Again." I wrote that the patch is entirely obscure to me (i.e. I don't know what it's for other than it's an NRO payload). A reader who wishes to remain anonymous has some interesting theories:

The tails of the three snakes curve around the Earth in the paths of three orbits used by Satellite Data System (SDS) relay satellites. The three stars at the top suggest that it is the third such satellite. USA-162 is believed to be the third satellite of the current (third) SDS constellation (sometimes known as Quasar), and was launched by an Atlas IIAS rocket on 11 October 2001. USA-162 is located in a geosynchronous orbit. The tail of the centre snake follows an equatorial path, similar to a geosynchronous orbit, and this snake has some form of crest, which makes it stand out from the other two. The eight white stars down the side have also appeared on the recent launch patch for NRO L-24, which is believed to be an NRO satellite in a Molniya orbit.

And the latin phrase about "never before, never again"?

SDS-3 satellites are rumoured to carry a system codenamed HERITAGE or RADIANT AGATE for the detection of ballistic missiles, although this has never been confirmed. Maybe it is some kind of reference to this, and how it could be potentially used in the prevention of nuclear war. I don’t really know for sure.

This is one of my all-time favorite patches: the green dragon holding the world in its clutches, American flag wings, and its tail wrapped around a diamond. I didn't know what this was for a long time, although I knew that it was from the National Reconnaissance Office and had to do with a classified satellite. When I stumbled on an information compartment called BYEMAN/IMPROVED CRYSTAL/DRAGON, which had to do with the infrared imaging capabilities on advanced KH-11 imaging satellites, I assumed that I'd found the source of the patch's imagery. I was wrong. Aerospace researcher Dwayne Day has the whole story in an excellent article at the Space Review.

According to Day, the patch comes from the B-36 Titan IV launch from Cape Canaveral on September 8, 2003. The payload apparently went into a geosynchronous orbit, which means that it wasn't an imaging satellite. The satellite is probably a signals-intelligence satellite descended from the Rhyolite spacecraft. The more recent code names of these SIGINT birds are reportedly ORION, MAGNUM, and MENTOR. The dragon image shows up on several patches associated with these types of payload. And what does the diamond/crystal on the patch refer to? I wish I knew.
(Added 01/16/2008)