That's not a fair assessment. The problem with NSA isn't that their authority is opaque. The problem is that their authority, dating back to the cold war, is so broad that it's difficult to cabin what their doing into public policy objectives.
In other words: once you pass a law that gives the government authority to dragnet communications, no matter how specific and overt the law is, the authority you've delegated does grave and intrinsic harm to transparency.
In other words: once you pass a law that gives the government authority to dragnet communications, no matter how specific and overt the law is, the authority you've delegated does grave and intrinsic harm to transparency.