Well, being that in 1997 when I was working for the University of Illinois, the .gov already had access to all state funded school email systems as well as being able to request automate dumps of the campus web cache, the fact that this is only surfacing now means that this is old news and they have something more advanced in place.

It is like the laser weapons in vietnam, they existed, you needed a halftrack to move the damn things, but they were there. Now you hear about the navy conducting tests...why? because they already have something better.

As bad as it appears the .gov is at keeping secrets it is because they have been so good at the misinformation game for over half a century.