After decades of this kind of stuff, you have to start attributing it to malice. I'm pretty young but even I know about the CALEA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_L...) from 1994.

Seriously, at what point can we start attributing things to malice? Attributing such large things to incompetence is kinda scary; we're hiring or voting for morons. That doesn't frighten you?