How can we know what the purpose of the NSA is? After all, the Presidential Order creating it (
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB24/nsa02b.pdf) in 1952 was classified (I think) until 2008. We can be pretty certain that the NSA is operating under a legal basis, but we can also be pretty certain that the legal basis is either not what we think it is, or is interpreted in such a fashion as to make the wording of that basis irrelevant.
How do we know if the NSA should exist, or if it's acting outside its jurisdiction? All that info is classified, or crapagandized.