When law enforcement argues it needs a “backdoor” into encryption services, the counterargument has typically been that it would be impossible to limit such access to one person or organization. If you leave a key under the doormat, a seminal 2015 paper argues, a burglar eventually finds it. And now recent events suggest an even simpler rebuttal: Why entrust a key to someone who gets robbed so frequently?

This aptly describes US intelligence services of late. In March, WikiLeaks released nearly 9,000 documents exposing the CIA’s hacking arsenal. More so-called Vault 7 secrets trickled out as recently as this week. And then there’s the mysterious group or individual known as the Shadow Brokers, which began sharing purported NSA secrets last fall. April 14 marked its biggest drop yet, a suite of hacking tools that target Windows PCs and servers to devastating effect.

The fallout from the Shadow Brokers has proven more concrete than that of Vault 7; one of its leaked exploits, EternalBlue, facilitated last month’s WannaCry ransomware meltdown. A few weeks later, EternalBlue and two other pilfered NSA tools helped advance the spread of NotPetya, a ransomware outbreak that looks more and more like an act of cyberwar against Ukraine.

Petya would have caused damage absent EternalBlue, and the Vault 7 dump hasn’t yet resulted in a high-profile hack. But that all of this has fallen into public hands shifts the nature of the encryption debate from hypothetical concern that someone could reverse-engineer a backdoor to acute awareness that someone could just steal it. In fact, it should end any debate all together.

“The government asking for backdoor access to our assets is ridiculous,” says Jake Williams, founder of Rendition Infosec, “if they can't first secure their own classified hacking tools.”

If you think about the encryption debate at all, it’s likely in the context of the 2016 showdown between the FBI and Apple. The former wanted access to San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook’s locked iPhone; the latter argued that writing special code to break its own security measures would set a dangerous precedent.

That case ended in something like a draw. The FBI paid an outside company to break into the iPhone, quitting the court case before either side got a definitive ruling.

'The government asking for backdoor access to our assets is ridiculous.' – Jake Williams, Rendition Infosec

Apple facing off against the FBI was certainly high profile, but it only amounted to one skirmish in a long-fought encryption war. In the wake of the March terrorist attack by Khalid Masood outside the British parliament, UK home secretary Amber Rudd called for police and intelligence agencies to have access to encrypted messaging services like WhatsApp. British prime minister Theresa May struck a similar chord following a terror attack in London earlier this month.

In fact, you needn’t look even that far back to see encryption under duress. Five Eyes, the intelligence-sharing alliance of the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, met just this week to discuss their national security priorities. “We committed to develop our engagement with communications and technology companies to explore shared solutions while upholding cybersecurity and individual rights and freedoms,” the group wrote Tuesday morning, pushing for an encryption compromise that does not technologically exist.

A few hours later, reports began to emerge that NotPetya was wending its way through networks around the world, thanks in part to exploits that the NSA failed to secure.

“I think Vault 7 and Shadow Brokers illustrate the challenges that even intelligence agencies have in securing extremely sensitive information,” says Andrew Crocker, staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. And it’s hard to think of information that would be more sensitive than special access to the world’s encryption protocols.

The intelligence community’s apparent inability to keep its secrets appears bad enough on its face. But remember that Vault 7 and Shadow Brokers are simply the thefts that have gone public.