I'm cross-posting this article from /tech/
Anyone who's concerned about their privacy should be worried that this is getting formalized. Traditionally, for low value targets, you could safely assume all the good data the higher agencies collect would almost never be used for local law enforcement or the FBI. It happened off the books (parallel construction), but they wouldn't risk it for petty lawbreakers.
If NSA data is made widely available to the FBI, it gives the FBI a stool and removes its quota when it goes picking for low-hanging fruit.
The last barrier would be that data being directly queried by your local donut eater, which we're now one step closer to.
Archived: https://archive.is/zksNO
Original: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/03/10/surprise-nsa-data-will-soon-routinely-be-used-for-domestic-policing-that-has-nothing-to-do-with-terrorism/
Original original: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/us/politics/obama-administration-set-to-expand-sharing-of-data-that-nsa-intercepts.html?_r=0
>Surprise! NSA data will soon routinely be used for domestic policing that has nothing to do with terrorism
>What does this rule change mean for you? In short, domestic law enforcement officials now have access to huge troves of American communications, obtained without warrants, that they can use to put people in cages. FBI agents don’t need to have any “national security” related reason to plug your name, email address, phone number, or other “selector” into the NSA’s gargantuan data trove. They can simply poke around in your private information in the course of totally routine investigations. And if they find something that suggests, say, involvement in illegal drug activity, they can send that information to local or state police. That means information the NSA collects for purposes of so-called “national security” will be used by police to lock up ordinary Americans for routine crimes. And we don’t have to guess who’s going to suffer this unconstitutional indignity the most brutally. It’ll be Black, Brown, poor, immigrant, Muslim, and dissident Americans: the same people who are always targeted by law enforcement for extra “special” attention.
>Obama Administration Set to Expand Sharing of Data That N.S.A. Intercepts
Also, general privacy thread.