Rogers: Support for private database unlikely

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said he doesn’t think his panel would support a bill that would give private companies the National Security Agency’s database of phone records. 

“Given my conversations, I think, today, that would have a hard time passing,” Rogers said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

While Rogers has said he would oppose such a proposal, he added he’s spoken with members of both parties and the legislation is “still on the table.”

{mosads}President Obama announced in January he wanted to move the NSA’s metadata out of the government’s hands, and tasked Attorney General Eric Holder and officials in the intelligence community with determining where it would be transferred.

Obama ordered them to compile a report about the possible alternatives and deliver it to the White House by March 28.

One proposal is giving phone companies the metadata, but that idea has raised questions about liability issues.

The changes are the result of an uproar over the scope of the NSA’s domestic surveillance program, disclosed in documents stolen and leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.