Earlier quoted context omitted.
The end in this case being the ability to decrypt cellphone traffic. And what will that capacity be used for? Spying on foreign nations? Halting nonexistent terrorist plots? Further secret surveillance of American citizens? If we judge the means by the ends, I do not believe that their end provides sufficient justification for their means. They appear to believe otherwise, however they fail to offer any evidence for…
Decrypting cellphone traffic is also a means. It's a means towards information and human connections and so on. That's the sort of stuff that can make or break an operation. Did it? Has it? Unknown. The trouble with intelligence is that it's only effective when done with secrecy and fairly broad latitude to operate. There are few easy answers here.
In short, it sounds like you are advocating for an agency which can take arbitrary extralegal action at its own discretion, without providing reason or explanation, and without providing any demonstrable benefit to anybody, because it's secret.
Frankly, I find the idea terrifying. I understand that intelligence agencies need some quantity of secrecy and some degree of latitude. Like you have repeatedly stated, there are no easy answers. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't ask the question. What the hell are these people doing, and should we let them continue? What is growing in our intelligence sector -- is it an institution that will be found to have brought the world benefit, like Bletchley Park, or will it be seen to have become a thin facade over a malignant, self-interested organization, potentially culminating in something like a secret police?