Egypt on the line

A quick update on the situation of americans under travel ban in Egypt, subject of a recent post: at least two of them are being sheltered at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo for fear of being arrested. The current interpretation is that this is a new low in Egyptian-American relations, and even the annual US$ 1.3 billion in aid to the country is on the line. Would it go that far? Things are definitely worse this time, but it is certainly not the first case of American pro-democracy groups being investigated and threatened. I wonder if these events will have long lasting impacts in the work of such groups, and what they could be.