Former House Intelligence Committee member: NSA programs “legal,” but “mistakes were made”

Former California Congresswoman Jane Harman told CNN’s New Day that she was around during the development of National Security Agency’s surveillance programs PRISM and XKeyscore when she was a Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee, and that they are legal programs.

“The administration and leaders of the intelligence committees on a bipartisan basis are right. I was there when these programs were put together,” Harman said. She continued, “When an American is involved, there has to be an individualized warrant, that means an effort to go to a federal court with your name on it to get access to your data. And that can only be used if a threshold is met and you are connected to a foreign terrorist. There [are] a very limited number of people who’ve ever been in the system and 54 plots have been foiled.”

On unauthorized individuals getting access to personal information, Harman said, “I do think mistakes were made in the Snowden case. I do think there were people responsible…. Now there is a two man rule, meaning two people have to watch each other and that should’ve been implemented from the beginning.”

New Day airs weekday mornings 6-9am ET on CNN.