Making matters all the worse, the Attorney General hardly helped himself when he continued to take an ambiguous position during his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

FORBES: A Kind Word For Senator Rand Paul From A Typically Unkind Critic

Prof Randell continued to badger civil servants and his efforts were helped by the appearance of several books about Bletchley and code-cracking that mentioned the machines used to read messages sent by the Wermacht, Luftwaffe and Hitler's generals.

BBC: The road to uncovering a wartime Colossus

The issue continued to be a topic of discussion Tuesday, with commenters on CNN and other online venues debating what the unusual appearance meant.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS