As if by some benign bureaucratic miracle, 60 pages of formerly classified NSA documents have landed in the lap of an internet information security enthusiast and furry. Last year, X (Twitter) user kotaKat filed a Freedom of Information Act request, partly as a joke, in order to gain hard evidence of an alleged NSA memorandum regarding the agencies' banning of Furbies in the 90s.
"Please do not introduce [Furbies] into NSA spaces"
As these 60 pages confirm, the kids' toy was no laughing matter. NSA employees believed that "Fropie's", as I'm going to call them from now on, would be able to record and repeat employee's conversations about top secret government time travel experiments. Or whatever the NSA was up to in the 90s.
When the back and forth internal emails got out of hand, self-aware NSA agents demanded that the conversation stop, as they correctly predicted that this absurd discussion would likely end up in the news, redacted to high heck but still readily quotable and easily mocked.
The NSA was completely right, and you can read the whole story on 404Media.
Previously: The Furby was coded for cuteness.
