Putting aside this story for one minute and looking at the larger picture one thing I find fascinating is how the protagonists are absolutely winning the PR battle. The irony here is that when Snowden or this owner go public the overly secretive government can't or won't reply in an effective manner. That secrecy, so effective when operating in the dark, is suddenly impotent when the light is shined on it. The only attempts at any type of rebuttal have come from Obama and have had little to no effect to change the tidal flow here.

So we just get this one sided narrative with a "fresh" new story every 2 or 3 days. It may be disturbing that he can be arrested but is that really news to anyone here? What's the point of a surveillance order if you can't back it up? We lock people up for contempt of court. You have to have a stick if you want folks to comply. Yet here is this story a few days after the main story and just as Lavabit was falling off the global media front page. This keeps the issue alive and hammers the government again. All trademarks of an excellent PR campaign. This narrative is having a withering effect upon those driving these programs as politicians see their constituents slowly turn from understanding of the need for these programs to alarmed by them.

That the government has been unable to mount any sort of credible counter story is pretty amazing to me and somewhat a relief. After all, true police states have amazing propaganda machines. This one feels reminiscent of an intern running marketing at a startup!