Attorney General Michael Mukasey, declaring the risk of terrorism in the U.S. is rising as the nation elects a new president, said Wednesday that he would soon release rules to streamline FBI investigations.

The guidelines will give agents more leeway to conduct spying and use informants to protect national security and will expressly authorize the FBI to collect intelligence domestically, Mukasey said.

“We must ensure that all of our country’s security measures are attuned to the increased threat we face during this time of transition and that we respond and adjust appropriately,” Mukasey said in a speech in Portland, Ore. He noted that when the next president takes office in January, it will be the first change in administrations since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The FBI, led by Director Robert Mueller, has been under congressional pressure to remake itself as an intelligence agency, rather than one that solves crimes. Mueller has made preventing terrorism the bureau’s top priority and has instituted numerous internal changes, including setting up a national security branch.

In his speech, Mukasey said the new FBI rules will “help in the bureau’s transformation into an elite national security agency.”

The effort will create one set of guidelines for all FBI activities, Mukasey said. Agents now operate under five different standards that depend on what type of case they are handling. For example, investigating a bank robbery has a different set of rules than infiltrating a terrorist cell.

The new guidelines will make it easier to recruit and assign informants in national security cases, Mukasey said. Also, the FBI would be able to use cameras to spy on suspected terrorists based on a tip, the same rule that now applies in criminal cases.

Existing rules make it “harder to gather information about threats to the national security than it is to conduct ordinary criminal investigations,” Mukasey said.

The attorney general said it will still be forbidden to investigate based on race or religion. There will be “robust and effective oversight measures” to ensure that FBI agents follow the law, he said.

Mukasey said he has been consulting with lawmakers about the changes and will issue them publicly in the next few weeks.