Overall the response is appealing to the "fear" message: "We live in a dangerous world. We continue to face grave security threats like terrorism, cyber-attacks

Overall the response is appealing to the "fear" message: "We live in a dangerous world. We continue to face grave security threats like terrorism, cyber-attacks" The fear message is the primary tool authoritarian regimes use to control its population. And this: > Mr. Snowden's dangerous decision to steal and disclose classified information had severe consequences ... "Steal" makes no sense as a description of what Snowden did. He didn't delete digital information, he just copied it. Everything that Snowden has is still with NSA. It seems this official response was written to appeal to non-technical people who are easily convinced by well-crafted government speech.