These things are "legal" because of the fiction that they're supposed to be grounded through the cover-plate screw on a grounded box. The reality is that everybody, from the manufacturer, to UL, to the store, to the user, knows full well that the real purpose is to allow 3-pronged devices to connect to older, ungrounded receptacles. The alternative is that people would be cutting off a lot more ground pins than they already are, making a bad situation even worse. (That is, if they leave the ground pin intact, then there is at least the possibility that the appliance will be properly grounded on occasions when there is a grounded receptacle available.)
So, we have the legal fiction that these things are going to be connected to grounded screws. Why we need to do things this way, I don't know. (The answer probably starts out with, "What do you call a thousand lawyers chained together on the bottom of the ocean?" But that's another thread...) But, there's no reason to get too anal about these gadgets--they're intended to be used the way they're being used.
[This message has been edited by SolarPowered (edited 01-24-2005).]
