> I think you're right, which of course makes the entire statement a tautology. "The NSA has assured me it's not legal to do anything that's not legal." Thanks

> I think you're right, which of course makes the entire statement a tautology. "The NSA has assured me it's not legal to do anything that's not legal." Thanks for sharing. That's true for the vast majority of law enforcement though. The police have the technical ability to pepper spray you, or arrest you, or shoot you. It is compliance with policy and legal requirements that (generally...) prevent them from not shooting you, not a technical safeguard. It's policy/legal safeguards that prevent the local health inspector from arbitrarily shutting down your restaurant. NSA analysts get held to policy as well; there have been analysts caught looking up information on ex-wives, for example, and fired for cause, so while an analyst may have the technical ability to task PRISM inappropriately, it's not an unlimited ability. Do I think that PRISM should have better technical safeguards on it? Absolutely, if only because it's easy enough to do, and the system is way more powerful than what a random county sheriff might have available to them. But I wouldn't read any more sinister connotation into the current level of safeguards; even nuclear weapons can be disabled by only 2 compromised missile techs, so this level of protection seems pretty ordinary for government work.