I think it would be amusing if these "sympathetic NSA agent tipoffs" are actually tipoffs of bugs they've seen utilized by Iranian, Russian, etc. intelligence a

I think it would be amusing if these "sympathetic NSA agent tipoffs" are actually tipoffs of bugs they've seen utilized by Iranian, Russian, etc. intelligence agencies and would put activists friendly to American values at risk, but can't be revealed publically since that would reveal those ever-popular intelligence "sources and methods" of the NSA, or even the U.S. Intelligence Community at large. We already know that Tor is first and foremost a scheme to enable U.S. covert and clandestine operations, so it wouldn't be that surprising to see the USG trying to fine tune the balance of Tor security to be breakable against bugs only they possess while ironclad against vulnerabilities known to the rest of the world.