Actually, I think it would be criminal not to include something based on it. Chew on this for a bit.
Since ETAK was designed to translate garden-variety Shivan transmissions, if the Shivans used any encryption whatsoever, ETAK is capable of defeating it. The GTVA thus possesses the means to read, at the least, Shivan tactical transmissions in real-time. (And possibly all Shivan transmissions; we don't know if they even bother to encrypt them at all.) This would obviously confer some advantages, and the GTVA is going to be grabbing for whatever advantages it can get.