Generally I can't help but see 'more powerful than the government' claims forever poisoned from their shallow use in the context of cryptography.

Where it was used in a rhetorical tantrum throwing response to their power refuse to do the impossible like make an encryption backdoor 'only for good guys' and have the sheer temerity to stand against arbitrary exercises of authority by using the courts to check them only to their actual power.

If actual 'more powerful than the states' occurs they have nobody to blame but themselves for crying wolf.