>Remember that their programs haven't been shown to save a single person.
To be fair, any attempt the NSA did make to justify itself to the public would immediately be dismissed as propaganda, fabrication or parallel construction and entrapment. And their job doesn't require public goodwill - the people they actually have to answer to have security clearances. So if they had ironclad evidence that their methods worked, there's no reason to reveal it to you or I, Snowden or otherwise.
To be fair, any attempt the NSA did make to justify itself to the public would immediately be dismissed as propaganda, fabrication or parallel construction and entrapment. And their job doesn't require public goodwill - the people they actually have to answer to have security clearances. So if they had ironclad evidence that their methods worked, there's no reason to reveal it to you or I, Snowden or otherwise.