Key lawmaker: Don’t scrap NSA phone surveillance

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WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House intelligence Committee is warning that a congressional plan to bar the U.S. government from collecting millions of Americans’ phone records would scrap an important tool for tracking terrorists.

Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said Tuesday that the U.S. cannot return to the pre-9/11 intelligence-gathering mindset he said limited investigators from piecing together clues and preventing an attack.

Rogers spoke at the start of a hearing where top intelligence officials were testifying, including National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander.

A bipartisan plan filed Tuesday would end the NSA’s massive sweep of phone records. Critics both at home and abroad have derided the program as intrusive and a violation of privacy rights.

The plan would require the government to seek only phone records related to ongoing terror investigations. Associated Press National Security reporter Lara Jakes wrote this report.