They don't get the benefit of the doubt. I've lost count of how many times these agencies have been caught illegally spying only to apologize and keep doing it in secret. There's probably even a Wikipedia page of all the whistleblowers.
This list does exist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_whistleblo...
1)https://krebsonsecurity.com/tag/emergency-data-request/ 2)https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30842757