“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, according to officials familiar with the deliberations.” [New York Times] Currently, NSA analysts in possession of information about Americans gathered “incidentally” during foreign intelligence gathering apply rules to remove or mask information relating to innocent Americans’ activities. Under the revised rules, downstream agencies would instead be responsible for screening out information they are not supposed to use. Notwithstanding earlier assurances, the step makes it more likely that data from global telecom surveillance will wind up in the hands of the FBI and other domestic agencies for purposes of domestic law enforcement policing having nothing to do with terrorism. [Radley Balko]

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