Thread by @The_War_Economy

"Obama Administration Set to Expand Sharing of Data That N.S.A. Intercepts"

Charlie Savage, February 25, 2016, The New York Times

nytimes.com/2016/02/26/us/…

"The Obama administration is on the verge of permitting the National Security Agency to share more of the private communications it intercepts with other American intelligence agencies without first applying any privacy protections to them."

"The change would relax longstanding restrictions on access to the contents of the phone calls and email the security agency vacuums up around the world..."

"... including bulk collection of satellite transmissions, communications between foreigners as they cross network switches in the United States, and messages acquired overseas or provided by allies."

"The idea is to let more experts across American intelligence gain direct access to unprocessed information, increasing the chances that they will recognise any possible nuggets of value. That also means more officials will be looking at private messages..."

"... not only foreigners' phone calls and emails that have not yet had irrelevant personal information screened out, but also communications to, from, or about Americans that the N.S.A.'s foreign intelligence programs swept in incidentally."

Skipping ahead.

"Until now, the National Security Agency analysts have filtered the surveillance information for the rest of the government. They search and evaluate the information and pass only the portions of phone calls or email that they decide is pertinent..."

"... on to colleagues at the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies. And before doing so, the N.S.A. takes steps to mask the names and any irrelevant information about innocent Americans."

"The new system would permit access at other intelligence agencies to obtain direct access to raw information from the N.S.A.'s surveillance to evaluate for themselves."

"If they pull out phone calls or email to use for their own agency's work, they would apply the privacy protections masking innocent Americans' information - a process known as 'minimisation' - at that stage, Robert S. Litt said."

Skipping ahead.

"Under current rules for data gathered under a parallel program - the no-warrant surveillance program governed by the FISA Amendments Act - N.S.A. and C.I.A. officials may search for Americans' information only if their purpose is to find foreign intelligence..."

"... but F.B.I. agents may conduct such a search for intelligence or law enforcement purposes. Some lawmakers have proposed requiring the government to obtain a warrant before conducting a search."

Note from TWE: While this article exists on February 25, 2016, IT DID NOT COME INTO PLACE AT THIS TIME.

This is actually, essentially, what comes into place when Clapper and Lynch sign off on dissemination in December 2016 / January 2017.

It gets delayed.