"It's a shame the government didn't work with Levison to either allow Levison to add the requested intercept himself (which, yes, would have required Uncle Sam to trust him) or to allow a third-party (or even a third party requested from both sides) to audit the proposed interception code."

No - it is a plan that the government doesn't work with service provider and instead demands data and intercepts that "just happen" to let them spy on an entire network.

Indeed, everything Edward Snowden has revealed points this being the plan, the modus operandi of the state everywhere. It has an official right a few reasonable seeming things and executes that right in a way that gives it the potential for anything and everything.

And it can all just look like a "shame", a mistake, "an example of how the government doesn't understand the Internet", etc.