It's certainly being used as a pretext to lock down legal control of independent computation. The proposed updates to the CFAA and Obama's siding with Cameron

It's certainly being used as a pretext to lock down legal control of independent computation. The proposed updates to the CFAA and Obama's siding with Cameron on the intolerability of government-opaque communications have more credibility as a result of it. And it lends credibility to the steady reports from "a government official with knowledge of the matter" that US infrastructure is only an exploit away from being disabled by a hostile nation state, and to possible anti-hacker propaganda like the movie "Blackhat."