The underlined is something that chould send a chill down your back every time you read it. A secret court, aka Star Chamber, is a direct violation of the 6th Amendment, in particular: "to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence" — a "secret court" violates every single one of these. Every single one.
So then, this PRISM project is the government throwing off the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments.
Actually I used the word secret, but the existence of the court was public information. At least I could find plenty of information on it when I knew to go looking for it.
And if people aren’t being prosecuted in that court then they aren’t denied opportunity to face their accuser. I don’t have a problem with law enforcement getting warrants to wire tap or other secret surveillance of specific individuals or organizations when evidence warrants it. But this surveillance of everybody and it’s not clear what controls existed.
At least one of the documents of the FISA court pointed to unconstitutional surveillance which implies that activity had already taken place that would clearly be considered even by the FISA court to be unconstitutional. So at least preventive controls were insufficient.