The government will say that to the public indeed. "We don't pay ransom to terrorists", but you don't know what happens behind closed doors and guess what, bitcoin makes dealing with them suddenly quite easy. Saying stuff and actions are a completely different thing.

Then again, I don't believe the NSA will ever pay the hackers. They will more likely focus all their efforts to rehack the hackers or something or figure out who they are somehow if they left even the slightest trace.

Especially absurd ransoms like 1 million bitcoin are almost impossible to be met (there is not enough liquid bitcoin to get this at a "normal" price).