Before he leaves office, Obama has made it easier for the NSA to share what it finds with other governmental agencies.

The Register explains:

A last-minute rule change signed off by the outgoing Obama administration has made it much easier for the NSA to share raw surveillance data with more than a dozen government agencies.

The changes [PDF] are tacked onto executive order 12333, which was enacted by then-President Ronald Reagan to allow intelligence agencies to share information on non-US nationals. The new rules will allow the NSA to share unfiltered signals intelligence with other members of the intelligence community if it is deemed necessary.

"The procedures permit IC [intelligence community] elements to have access, under appropriate conditions, to the unevaluated or unminimized (ie, 'raw') signals intelligence (SIGINT) information that the NSA collects pursuant to EO 12333, thus enabling elements to bring their own analytic expertise to reviewing that information and to use that information in support of their own missions," the office of the Director of National Intelligence explained today. "The procedures therefore provide an important mechanism for enhancing information sharing, integration, and collaboration in the IC."