• Tearful Joe Biden bags freedom medal from Obama
• As U.S. Military Bombed Afghan Homes in ‘Self-Defense’ Against Taliban

Barack Obama, in one of his final acts on national security, has permitted US intelligence and law enforcement agencies far greater access to raw communications data warrantlessly collected on foreign targets, a move that has alarmed privacy advocates.

Under an executive order, the CIA, FBI and other security agencies will be able to access unfiltered surveillance aimed at foreigners abroad, before information identifying or revealing Americans they may be in contact with gets censored out.

A copy of the 23-page unclassified rulebook was obtained and published on Thursday by the New York Times. The document stated that the changes were being made to enable US intelligence agencies “to conduct their national security missions more effectively”.

The rules do not change the scope of the NSA’s foreign-oriented surveillance dragnets, but they now permit greater unfiltered access to the massive communications databases. Nor do they apply to surveillance conducted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa), a law circumscribing the conduct and reach of surveillance aimed at people inside the United States.

Instead, the rule change applies to surveillance under a highly influential and mostly secret Reagan-era executive order, known as 12333, which sets rules governing exclusively foreign-focused intelligence collection.

Privacy advocates and whistleblowers have long pointed to broad latitude presented within 12333 that they contend provides a way of avoiding the ostensibly court-ordered surveillance of Fisa. Some said that the new rule change underscores their fears.

“This development is very troubling for Americans’ privacy,” said John Napier Tye, a former state department official turned surveillance whistleblower. “Most people don’t realize this, but even our purely domestic email and text messages are often stored on servers outside the United States. And the NSA has written extremely permissive rules for itself to collect data outside US borders.

“So in operations overseas, the NSA is scooping up a lot of purely domestic communications. And now, with these new rules, many different federal agencies can search and read the domestic communications of normal Americans, without any warrant or oversight from Congress or the courts.”

The changed rules will be inherited by the administration of Donald Trump following his inauguration next week, which comes in the wake of an extraordinary public dispute between the president-elect and the US intelligence agencies that concluded he was the beneficiary of interference by Russia in the presidential election.

They mean that NSA officials are no longer required to filter out information about innocent people whose identities have been scooped up before passing the intercepted communications to officials from other agencies, who will now be able to search through raw caches of data.

The rules state the head of another agency must make a written request for the intercepted communications that sets out how the agency will use and safeguard the data, how the data would further a particular mission and why it cannot be obtained another way. The NSA may, however, flag up potentially interesting data to other agencies “on its own initiative”.

Under the new procedures, a “high-level” NSA official will be tasked with evaluating requests from sister intelligence agencies for access to the raw surveillance.

The listed criteria for approving a request include the reasonableness of the request, a lack of available alternatives to acquire equivalently valuable information, and the ability of the requesting agency to “protect and handle raw [communications data] properly” – a significant concern within the intelligence agencies after recent mass leaks.

But the procedural changes do not set ironclad prohibitions for accessing raw data on Americans.

While US intelligence agencies may not search through the raw data using query terms “intended to select domestic communications”, analysts are permitted under certain circumstances to examine foreign communications “to, from or about a US person or a person located inside the United States if they are already subject to a Fisa court-authorized order”.

In the meantime, President Barack Obama has awarded an emotional and surprised Joe Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest US civilian honour.

Mr Obama praised his vice-president for his “faith in your fellow Americans, for your love of country and your lifetime of service”.

The award comes as both men prepare to leave office when Donald Trump is inaugurated on 20 January.

Mr Biden has said he plans to stay active in Democratic Party politics.

A visibly emotional Joe Biden stood by as Mr Obama heaped praise on what he called the “best possible choice, not just for me, but for the American people”.

The medal was awarded with distinction, according to the New York Times.

That additional honour has been reserved in recent administrations for just a handful of recipients, including Pope John Paul II.

Mr Obama joked that the internet would have one last chance to mock the pair’s “bromance”.

Twitter users did that, with tears.

And some looked up to the two men for inspiration.

Mr Biden said he was “part of the journey of a remarkable man who did remarkable things”.

He said that he had had no idea the award was coming.

“I had no inkling. I thought we were coming over to Michelle for you, Jill and Barack and I and a couple of senior staff to toast one another and say what an incredible journey it’s been.

“Mr President, you got right the part about my leaning on Jill but I’ve also leaned on you and a lot of people in this room.

“Mr President, I’m indebted to you. I’m indebted to your friendship. I’m indebted to your family.”

In another development, American forces called in airstrikes on civilian homes in Afghanistan after an operation to capture Taliban leaders spiraled out of control into a bloody firefight, a U.S. military report found Thursday.

November’s incident resulted in the deaths of 33 Afghan civilians, two U.S. soldiers, three Afghan Army commandos and approximately 26 Taliban fighters, according to the investigation by U.S. Forces — Afghanistan.

“Regardless of the circumstances, I deeply regret the loss of innocent lives,” said Gen. John Nicholson, commander of America’s forces in the country.

The report said Taliban fighters were firing from inside civilian homes, and that U.S. aircraft “used the minimum amount of force required” to take out the militants and protect friendly forces.

“The investigation concluded that U.S. forces acted in self-defense, in accordance with the Law of Armed Conflict, and in accordance with all applicable regulations and policy,” it said.

The Americans were providing “advice and assistance” to Afghan commandos attempting to capture Taliban leaders involved in violence in the region two months earlier, the report said.

They arrived on Nov. 2 at Boz Village, near the northern battleground city of Kunduz. After they began taking fire they said they were forced to call in airstrikes on the area to defend themselves.

“No civilians were seen or identified in the course of the battle,” the report said. “The civilians who were wounded or killed were likely inside the buildings from which the Taliban were firing.”

These airstrikes were also used to provide cover for medical personnel, who came under Taliban fire while trying to evacuate the dead and wounded.

“On this occasion the Taliban chose to hide amongst civilians and then attacked Afghan and U.S. forces,” Nicholson said. “I wish to assure President [Ahsraf] Ghani and the people of Afghanistan that we will take all possible measures to protect Afghan civilians.”

U.S.-backed Afghan forces have been involved in fierce battles with a resurgent Taliban in and around Kunduz, which the Taliban briefly captured in late 2015.

During the fightback, a U.S. AC-130 gunship mistakenly bombed a Doctors Without Borders hospital and killed at least 42 people, including at least 14 staff and 24 patients.

Despite President Barack Obama’s declaration that the Afghan combat mission over in 2014, U.S. warplanes carried out more than 700 airstrikes last year — far surpassing the 500 of last year — according to Reuters. Nearly 9,000 U.S. personnel remain in the country.

The military’s report brought scant closure for some locals caught up in the bombing, however.

Dad Mohammad, a 45-year-old elder in the village, told NBC News that “those who ordered this attack and those who bombed us should be brought to justice in open court.”

Mohammad’s cousin and his cousin’s children died in the attack, and he said kids as young as two months old were among the victims.

“They say to us, ‘We are fighting against insurgents and terrorism,’ they say, “We have advanced and state-of-the-art weapons.’ Then how can they bomb a residential area?” he said. “I didn’t see any kind of bloody incident like this in my entire life.”

Guardian with additional report from BBC and NBC