Contractors, infrastructure, PR, salaries, promotions, training. That has been put into place.
Well it was there to spy on the Soviets. Then it was kind of sitting there waiting for a problem. And the problem was found. Terrorism. Drugs. Could be something else tomorrow. As long as Joe Smith in SIGINT department 15 gets his salary paid, he doesn't care. As long as L3 or whoever gets to build another data center they don't care. They will all collectively find some reason to justify it, but underneath, quite often is just making more money keeping busy.
They made the mistake though (mistake from their point of view), that one of the characteristics they look for in people they hire is patriotism. That can very very dangerous if eventually those people are forced to do un-patriotic things (or things they can't brainwash them into thinking they are patriotic). You end up with Binney and Snowden then.