In other words, everything else is justifiable collateral damage, from their perspective. Paul Syverson, the other co-creator of onion routing, pops onto that list every few months to address the latest person who finds out that Tor was funded by the US military -- and goes into panic mode. He says the same thing. A communications network that only the CIA uses is useless. Anyone chatting through the network must be a CIA agent. But if everyone uses, then it's deniable who you are. My ISP can see that I use Tor, but am I druggie, a pedo, a corporate whistle blower, an intelligence agent? They are like the entry guard. They know who I am but not what I'm doing.