Law Said Necessary to Track Terrorists

WASHINGTON - Losing the country's ability to monitor Americans' conversations with people overseas would take away half of the tools the U.S. uses to fight terrorism, Director of National Intelligence J. Michael McConnell told senators Monday.

"If we lose FISA, we will lose, in my estimate, 50 percent of our ability to track, understand and know about these terrorists, what they're doing to train, what they're doing to recruit, and what they're doing to try to get into this country," McConnell said, referring to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

McConnell also credited the law …