But that's the core of the problem. By the nature of what they do, their successes are never clear.

Not that this is a very robust intellectual defense, but the US is far from the only country to do this. Just two days ago the NYT had an article about Brazil spying on Americans within its borders:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/world/americas/brazil-ackn...

If we shut down the NSA tomorrow we would be an an international disadvantage.

Can we please try not to equate a diplomat's car being followed around a city's public areas with the indiscriminate collection of private communications from every man, woman and child on the planet?

Look, my eyes are open. I'm spying on you. Everybody spies!

Difference in quantity turns into difference in quality sometimes. It is stupid to disallow taking pictures on public streets. It is not stupid to say to the government "you should not film everything on public streets 24/7 and keep it for years, because we don't want you to". Citizens are owners of the government and can set rules of what it is allowed to do.

can we please try not to equate reality with "indiscriminate collection of private communications from every man, woman and child on the planet"

I understand the line "By the nature of what they do, their successes are never clear." but I would think that will all of the bad "publicity" the NSA is receiving they would at least pull one example out where they prevented an attack. They have only release vague numbers on the number of incidents prevented and when put under a microscope they weren't a very big part of the plots they claimed to have foiled. I understand the "international disadvantage" but I don't think we can allow everything the NSA does with "Everyone else is doing it" defence.

An annual transparency report from the NSA? Good luck with that.

I doubt the NSA cares about negative publicity. Deep inside the NSA it's business as usual.

This is why my opinion is that the TLA policies and limits should be set by Congress in open debate. While their work may be secret, the limits and approach to the work should be set by the representatives of the people, publicly.