I don't mind that statement from Parsons, tbh. I can imagine the events of the past few days (and subsequent days/weeks/months) will probably take some years off his life at the end of it. You get the impression that the bigwigs had no idea what was going on. What else can he say? There's a lot of bridges to mend with fans, but one thing at a time.
I do agree with him re. the proportionality of the punishments, but at the same time if we can't prove (or disprove) the effectiveness of this spying across the timeframe it was carried out, we can't therefore objectively prove we would have finished where we did, therefore it's void.
Amazing just how many people the actions of a few have affected.