Why the Sun 2 has a message “Love your country, but never trust its government”

I wonder if this trap street message, which was inserted in some code initializing a DES chip, was chosen because it was rumored that NSA had backdoored DES. The article doesn't mention it, but it would be quite a coincidental choice!

The entire article explains what the string is doing there. You don't have to speculate.

The article explains that the message is a trap street; it says that Gilmore had read it and noted it years before and at he "plucked it" as the secret message.

I can't seem to find in the article the reason he plucked just that message, and why he stuffed it in the DEC routine.

Am I missing something?

John Gilmore's political views are well known. And the statement was likely chosen because he felt it was inline with his own beliefs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gilmore_%28activist%29