[vtlynch]

It's almost as if the government is made up of many departments and people who have different goals and values...

[konklone]

And this is a White House policy, with their official blog post and rationale here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/06/08/https-everywhere-...

"It is critical that federal websites maintain the highest privacy standards for the users of its online services. With this new action, we are driving faster internet-wide adoption of HTTPS and promoting better privacy standards for the entire browsing public."

(Disclaimer: I work on https://https.cio.gov, at GSA.)