N.S.A. Gets More Latitude to Share Intercepted Communicationshttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/us/politics/nsa-gets-more-latitude-to-share-intercepted-communications.htmlhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/12/obama-us-intelligence-greater-access-warrantless-data-foreign-targets<< In its final days, the Obama administration has expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government's
16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections. The new rules significantly relax longstanding limits on what the N.S.A. may do with the information gathered by its most powerful surveillance operations, which are largely unregulated by American wiretapping laws. These include collecting satellite transmissions, phone calls and emails that cross network switches abroad, and messages between people abroad that cross domestic network switches.
The change means that far more officials will be searching through raw data. Essentially, the government is reducing the risk that the N.S.A. will fail to recognize that a piece of information would be valuable to another agency, but increasing the risk that officials will see private information about innocent people. Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch signed the new rules, permitting the N.S.A. to disseminate "raw signals intelligence information", on Jan. 3, after the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., signed them on Dec. 15, according to
a 23-page, largely declassified copy of the procedures. >>
