> I think it is more appropriate to say that the NSA is between a rock and a hard place.

I think they're between breaching the constitution with far-reaching surveillance the Stasi would've given their left nut for, and hiding behind secret courts to legitimise their acts through rubber stamping. The surveillance continues. The genie is out of the bottle, justified by the biggest lie you were told - i.e. that there ever was a rock or hard place to begin with.

Or, they could hire a heckler (or manipulate a likely heckler in to being there) to make sure they get heckled, in just the right way, so they can respond and seem calm and win over some coverts to their cause, sow confusion and fracture the opposition.

In my mind, I imagine what I wrote above as being disinformation 101.

every article that I saw yesterday painted the general as a hero and the heckler as a turd. It seemed like a concerted PR effort to me. It's about discrediting you opponents in the public forum.

Aside from that, It struck me that a lot of people at conferences like this are on the NSA payroll one way or another. I'd hardly call the group a bunch of freedom fighters.