> Not every analyst can perform every function, and no analyst can operate freely. Every search by an NSA analyst is fully auditable, to ensure that they are proper and within the law.
Didn't Snowden specifically deny that this is true?
No, Snowden even mentioned that the audit rate was rather low. 2% or 8% or something like that, and elsewhere in this thread someone pasted a direct quote of his that analysts are indeed not given full permissions to do anything.
But the NSA is saying that all analysts don't have full powers; that doesn't mean that the permissions they do have are not still overly broad, or that programs like these don't need much more transparency.
You can't so much as send a nuclear ship to sea without their engineering department being audited (almost literally) up the ass to verify they won't break the reactor, so there's surely more that Congress and DoD can do to ensure proper oversight of the NSA.
No, he specifically said that not everyone can perform every function. He's also as far as I know not claimed the searches aren't auditable - I believe he even claimed that audits do happen, but that they're mostly along the line of "that excuse is flimsy, let's figure out how to make it sound less flimsy" rather than any real oversight.
Snowden wasn't an 'analyst'. And there may only be 13 analysts with FULL access. However, there are literally thousands of IT admins with ADMIN access. Which, most of us around here know, is actually a step above full access.
Didn't Snowden specifically deny that this is true?