Final Obama EO Changed Intel SIGINT Rules Right After Trump Won the Election to Expand Russia Gate Spy Ring
On January 12th, 2017, the New York Times <https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/us/politics/nsa-gets-more-latitude-to-share-intercepted-communications.htmlreports that "in his final days", Obama expanded the power of the NSA to "share globally interception communications with the 16 other intelligence agencies BEFORE APPLYING PRIVACY PROTECTIONS."
The changes right as he left office put into place procedures that allow the NSA to share certain raw, unminimized signals intelligence information with other Intelligence Community elements, specifically for authorized foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes. With respect to the copy of the updated procedures, DNI James Clapper signed these new rules on December 15th, 2016 and Loretta Lynch signed them on January 3rd, 2017.
Prior to this, the procedures were governed by Executive Order 12333. This order permits dissemination of signals intelligence data "only in accordance with procedures established by the DNI in coordination with the Defense Secretary and approved by the Attorney General." Traditionally, NSA analysts MUST filter the surveillance information for the rest of the government—searching and evaluating the information directly, passing on only those portions of emails and phone calls that they determine relevant to colleagues at other agencies, and masking names and other information about innocent Americans using minimization procedures.
The Clapper Changes are as follows:
10 sections change outlining the procedures intelligence elements must follow when it comes to requesting, protecting, processing, retaining, disseminating, oversight, and legal use of raw SIGINT.
See the changes here:
https://www.lawfareblog.com/eo-12333-raw-sigint-availability-procedures-quick-and-dirty-summary