I'm sure they have plenty of proof ready to share with the public, to prove that the system is worth it, even though it's unconstitutional, but apparently no one cares about that and about American values anymore:
Or to explain that and how they stopped a threat might reveal how much they know, who their informers are, what type of codes they can break, and hence make it hard to stop the next one. If you tell Bad Guys™ (a) that and (b) how you stopped a previous attack, then the next set of Bad Guy™ will know not to make those mistakes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Etm4dHdaApo