NSA to share data with other agencies without “minimizing” American
     information

     On Thursday The New York Times reported that the Obama
     administration had recently finalized rules to give the National
     Security Agency (NSA) more leeway in sharing its vast trove of
     intercepted communications with the 15 other government agencies
     that make up the Intelligence Community.
     Previously, agencies like the Drug Enforcement Agency and the
     Federal Bureau of Investigation would have to request information on
     a target from the NSA. The NSA, in turn, would retrieve
     communications pertaining to that target and scrub the documents of
     information that was considered irrelevant to the search, including
     the names of innocent Americans—a process called “minimization.”
     Now, that middle step has been cut out. The agencies need only get
     approval from the NSA to access its data, and agents from the
     agencies are expected to carry out minimization on their own.
     As The New York Times puts it, “Essentially, the government is
     reducing the risk that the NSA 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.” Although the agency analysts who will have access to the
     NSA’s surveillance powers are directed to ignore and redact
     information pertaining to innocent Americans, if they see evidence
     of criminal acts in the data they access, they are directed to hand
     it over to the Justice Department.

   More, with links:
   [1]http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/01/obama-administration-rela
   xes-rules-on-nsa-intelligence-sharing/

References

   1. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/01/obama-administration-relaxes-rules-on-nsa-intelligence-sharing/