My point is less NSA and more NSO. The UAE was denied a root CA[0]. DarkMatter applied to be its own root CA until it was denied[1] over concerns raised about potential spying/espionage[2].

There are people from these CAs who were denied in the past explicitly for concerns about spying who now work at eMudhra[3,4].

    0: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1474556
    1: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1427262
    2: https://groups.google.com/g/mozilla.dev.security.policy/c/nnLVNfqgz7g/m/TseYqDzaDAAJ
    3: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2083449#c43
    4: https://emudhra.com/en/blog/scott-rea-joins-emudhra-as-senior-vice-president-global-strategic-advisor

Again, I have no proof. There may never be any proof. But I think it's time we think about who might have found out about this weak key when it was first issued a year and a half ago and trusted by the whole world and what they would have done with that information.