The only thing I might agree with is that this may be a bellwether event.
It's not useful scrounging up, uh, conspiracy theories for how it happened unless there is evidence.
The only argument you're invoking is abduction - that no other approach fits the facts. But the thing about the NSA is the level of spying and power that's demonstrated gives a strong indication they just don't have much reason to care what the public thinks. The average NSA bureaucrat isn't worried about the public at all but what argument their boss or colleague will use against them. And letting out information goes so hard against the default impulse that letting information out intentionally seems way unlikely, even as part of a clever master plan. I mean, if we're wandering to wild speculation land, the NSA has dozens of potential master plans. One that releases information and makes them look bad wouldn't do well in the "master-plan competition" - held yearly at Area 51!
At the time this story was in the news in August I thought it was most likely leaked on purpose by the government in an attempt to shine the image of the NSA.
Now My thoughts are 1) I hope I was wrong and 2) karma's a bitch.
I don't think this situation requires any level of intentional conspiracy. Intelligence agencies always want to know more secrets, law enforcement wants their job to be easier, and digital media were trivial to wiretap since early beginnings. Surveillance systems like NSA's seem like something that would naturally evolve - and accelerate post 9/11, as there was suddenly lots of money available to anyone uttering the words "fighting terrorism" and "national security".
I don't think anyone worth a damn as far as this subject is concerned would have labeled you a conspiracy theorist. Anyone with an even passing knowledge of security assumed something of this nature was going on. It just logically follows, given the explosion of computers in every aspect of life, that the NSA would be doing this.
Side note, what black image in a remote area of Utah? If you're talking about the Bluffdale data center, it's been visible on Google maps this entire time IIRC. You can even see historical images of it being built in Google Earth:
With my tinfoil hat securely fastened, who wants to hazard a guess that this is just a 'distraction' to the Heartbleed news that the NSA could've exploited for their own nefarious means?
No, I am saying that there _was_ at least one valid conspiracy by NSA. It doesn't makes any particular conspiracy case like this one automatically valid, but it gives some Bayesian evidence for it, in my opinion, enough to at least consider it, not dismiss automatically.
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