Above: WHNT report on NSA surveillance revelations, including comments from Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks

In an interview that aired Sunday evening with Huntsville CBS affiliate WHNT’s Daniela Perallon, Rep. Mo Brooks spoke on recent revelations reported by the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald last week that the federal government was engaged in surveillance of the so-called metadata of the phone records of Verizon customers.

Brooks told WHNT viewers to expect “a more vigorous debate” going forward about the agencies involved in this data collection.

“We’re going to have more vigorous debate than we’ve ever had before between the kind of information that the National Security Agency, the CIA and others are trying to acquire versus a desire to prevent New York City, or Washington, D.C., or Redstone Arsenal from being subject to weapons of mass destruction,” Brooks said.

He also pointed to Benghazi as a reason to be skeptical of the federal government on this issue.

“If they aren’t going to tell us the truth on Benghazi and similar types of issues, then it tends to undermine the trust that is necessary for we the people to bestow upon the government the information gathering abilities that they demand they say are going to protect us,” he said.

In her report, Perallon said Brooks expected Congress to limit the capabilities of the NSA data collection.

“Until such time as there is a restoration of the breach of trust that has arisen,” Brooks added.

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