It did. And the State Department & CIA use it to promote subversion activities in other countries. And the FBI and NSA try to crack it & discourage its use to monitor everyone's traffic.

"The government" isn't a monolith; it's made of quasi-independent agencies often operating at cross purposes.

> "The government" isn't a monolith;

And somehow individual is expected to be.

it's just strange to me that on the one hand parts of the government would be trying to "crack" this system that ... other parts of the government came up with

wouldn't it render the system not-as-useful if it were to be "cracked" or weakened?

And still funded by the Federal government.