An automated technique implemented in a computer system for selecting one or more resources on which a principal is authorized to perform at least one action comprises the following steps/operations. First, one or more authorization policies that apply to a given principal are selected. Then, the one or more authorization policies are transformed based on meta-information associated with the one or more resources so as to form a query against a resource store that selects the one or more resources on which the one or more authorization policies allow the given principal to perform the at least one action. The query may then be executed to select the one or more resources from the resource store. In another automated technique, the query may be formed without use of the one or more authorization policies, but where the policies are used to remove unauthorized resources from the superset of resources returned as a result of query execution. The techniques may return no resources on which the user is allowed to perform an action, if, for example, no such resources are stored in the resource store. Also, it may also be that no authorization policy applies to the user.