The NSA's intercepts are a lot different from this. The problem with PRISM and the FISA courts that the NSA is intercepting all the data they think they'll ever need, then they need a warrant to query it. It inverts the intention of what warrants are for, which is to require just cause before any surveillance happens.

With iMessage, if the FBI gives apple a warrant to include their snooping pubkey as an additional encryption endpoint for all messages for a user, by definition it only gives access to messages made from then on, which is in keeping with how I would expect a search warrant to work.

My comment to which you replied was tongue-in-cheek, responding to the fellow who was defending lawful intercept. The point is that the NSA's intercepts, though controversial, have not halted nor have they been declared unlawful. (Not talking here about 215 programs.)

You're correct about iMessage, which is an important point to make. But you're not correct about PRISM; see my article from last summer: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57588337-38/

This is a stale thread but I thought I should reply:

I made no claim that about direct access to servers, but I guess since the rumors of direct server access and "PRISM" are synonymous in popular news articles, it was misleading to use the term. My point still stands if you replace "PRISM" with "NSA's dragnet surveillance", which is surely happening.

And it would also only be for a specific user, rather than the dragnet surveillance (biggest fishing trip in history) that the NSA, et al, are conducting.