> It's compartmentalized enough that the individual actors can justify their actions by the assumed competence and benevolence of the others.

I've talked to this before but this denial and self delusion is an important defense mechanism. Sometimes people write blogs and get into apologetic because they feel an internal dull pain of an inconsistency. "Hmm it looks we NSA did all these pretty bad things. I worked for them NSA. Surely I couldn't have worked for the bad guys." and then <proceed rationalizing and defending NSA, might as well put it in blog form>.

That cognitive dissonance, I believe, is pretty powerful. A lot of dark secrets and past transgressions can be filtered so well throw it.