&gt;Remember that their programs haven&#x27;t been shown to save a single person.<p>To be fair, any attempt the NSA <i>did</i> make to justify itself to the public would immediately be dismissed as propaganda, fabrication or parallel construction and entrapment. And their job doesn&#x27;t require public goodwill - the people they actually have to answer to have security clearances. So if they <i>had</i> ironclad evidence that their methods worked, there&#x27;s no reason to reveal it to you or I, Snowden or otherwise.