Not even post-9/11; Post-Snowden. Post-9/11 post Snowden, you could still make a solid argument for "these tools are to keep you safe from Evil Chinese Hackers

Not even post-9/11; Post-Snowden. Post-9/11 post Snowden, you could still make a solid argument for "these tools are to keep you safe from Evil Chinese Hackers, criminals, etc." It's patriotic to defend US "critical infrastructure" from these threats! (and, ultimately, those are still the big threats today; NSA is a more interesting threat, and one where policy has some chance of working, but the ambient criminal threat is more commonly encountered.) I think NSA probably doesn't want their people giving even pro-NSA talks in public without a lot of screening and approval, though. At most they'd have reviewed/pulled his clearance and fired him, not Gitmo'd.