When news broke of the NSA acquiring millions of metadata records from French phone companies, the response from the French government seemed like little more than an attempt to shift the focus off its own PRISM-esque collection programs. In response, the ODNI delivered a statement that rebutted the word salad created by an algorithmic translation of the original French article. Plausible deniability via translation tech. The NSA couldn‘t have asked for a better setup.

But the story swiftly faded into the background. The minimal outrage failed to sustain itself and was soon swept away by the exposure of more NSA documents. One French telco, Orange, has declared its intentions to sue the NSA for tapping its undersea cables, but further reaction from the government has remained almost nonexistent.