This sentiment was also echoed by Snowden in the original video interview. He supposedly had greater insight as to how civil rights at large were being violated, only because as a sysdmin he (and not others) had a broader picture of what was going on, and at what scale it was going on.

So, it's easy to imagine NSA recruiters coaxing potential hires with convincing lines like "we have internal courts, procedures, and checks and balances systems to prevent abuse of citizens' privacy".