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According to a memorandum leaked to The Guardian by Edward Snowden, the United States shares raw intelligence with Israel's intelligence agency — including possible information about Americans. This despite concerns about the trustworthiness of the Israeli agency.

The memo, dated two months after President Obama was first inaugurated, outlines the manner in which the National Security Agency will provide Israel with data it collects from its surveillance operations. That intelligence includes some information that is not "minimized" — that is, hasn't necessarily been screened to remove any data collected about Americans. Or, more precisely, "U.S. persons," a term the document describes in detail — in part to establish the guidelines for what Israel can and can't do with the information.

The Guardian summarizes what's contained in the sharing.

The five-page memorandum, termed an agreement between the US and Israeli intelligence agencies "pertaining to the protection of US persons", repeatedly stresses the constitutional rights of Americans to privacy and the need for Israeli intelligence staff to respect these rights.



But this is undermined by the disclosure that Israel is allowed to receive "raw Sigint" – signal intelligence. The memorandum says: "Raw Sigint includes, but is not limited to, unevaluated and unminimized transcripts, gists, facsimiles, telex, voice and Digital Network Intelligence metadata and content."

Further evidence that the information includes data on Americans is a specific stipulation demanding that Israel delete any data pertaining to American government officials.