Former House intel chairman: NSA ruling emboldens ISIS

The former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said on Sunday that last week’s ruling against the NSA’s bulk collection of phone records will make it harder to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

{mosads}Former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said the decision from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday makes the effort “more difficult” because it takes an important anti-terrorism tool “off the table.”

“The more we make this more difficult, the more likely we’re going to have [bad] event” in the United States, Rogers said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

The remarks come against the backdrop of a heated debate in Congress over how to handle the NSA program in the upcoming reauthorization of the Patriot Act.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) favors a clean reauthorization of the program, while an increasing number of Republicans and Democrats want to end or reform it.

Rogers told CNN that the United States doesn’t need “boots on the ground” to defeat ISIS in the Middle East, but that the administration should take the conflict seriously.

“If you treat this as a law enforcement issue, you are going to lose badly,” he said. “this is a group that has declared war against the United States.”