![\"NSA\"](\"https:\/\/hcsblogdotorg.files.wordpress.com\/2016\/04\/nsa.jpg\")
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Civil liberties and government transparency groups are rallying to oppose a new plan that would allow the National Security Agency (NSA) to share more of the information that it collects about people\u2019s communications and activity on the Internet with other federal agencies.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n On Thursday, 33 advocacy groups signed on to a letter<\/a> insisting the changes \u201ccould allow agencies like the FBI to circumvent constitutional protections and will pose new threats to the privacy and civil liberties of ordinary Americans.<\/p>\n The changes, which top intelligence community lawyer Robert Litt attempted to outline last month<\/a>, will give more agencies access to the reams of data the NSA picks up as part of its work.<\/p>\n Litt said in a March 31 blog post the move was to prevent information from being \u201cstovepiped\u201d within a single agency, but that NSA data would only be used for intelligence operations \u2014\u00a0not routine law enforcement.<\/p>\n Critics remain unconvinced.<\/p>\n Days before Litt\u2019s blog post, a bipartisan pair of lawmakers warned that the proposal was a \u201cradical policy shift\u201d<\/a>\u00a0that could be \u201cunconstitutional and dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n In their Thursday letter, advocacy groups worried the scope of NSA surveillance allowed under the law made it inevitable that the agency was collecting information about Americans without a warrant.<\/p>\n Handing that information to other agencies such as the FBI, they warned, \u201cwould allow them to circumvent the strict, constitutionally mandated rules of evidence gathering that govern ordinary criminal investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n\u00a0\u201cMoreover, the reported changes would fatally weaken existing restrictions on access to the phone calls, emails, and other data the NSA collects,\u201d they added.<\/div>\n