According to intelligence officials, some executives within the National Security Agency were opposed to the secret collection of American telephone records even before Edward Snowden publicized the NSA's phone tapping program back in 2013.

The executives that opposed the program believed that it exceeded the agency's authority to focus on foreign spying and would ultimately serve little benefit when stopping terror plots.

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In 2009, the executives secretly asked the Obama administration to consider a plan that would stop gathering private phone records, however the government quietly rejected the plan without any public involvement.

On Tuesday, the Senate rejected a proposal that would prevent the NSA from collecting private phone records and leave the records in the hands of the telephone companies.

Read more about the NSA debate in the Huffington Post.

Read more about the Senate ruling in Politico.

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