Feds to review use of NSA wiretaps

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department's inspector general Monday announced an investigation into the department's connections to the government's controversial warrantless surveillance program, but officials said the probe will not examine whether the National Security Agency (NSA) is violating the Constitution or federal statutes.

In a letter to House lawmakers, Inspector General Glenn Fine said his office decided to open the probe after conducting "initial inquiries" into the program. Under the initiative, the NSA monitors phone calls and e-mails between people in the United States and others overseas without court oversight if one of the targets is suspected of ties to terrorism.

The "program review" will examine how the Justice Department has used information obtained from the NSA program, as well as whether Justice lawyers complied with the "legal requirements" that govern it, according to Fine's letter. Officials said the review will not examine whether the program itself is legal.

The announcement signals a new level of scrutiny for the NSA program, which was launched shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and revealed in December 2005. The program has been ruled unconstitutional by one federal judge, but White House officials have defended it as a legal and efficient way to protect the nation from terrorist attacks.

The probe comes amid a dramatically changed political environment. Democrats who have been sharply critical of the surveillance program soon will control the Judiciary and Intelligence committees, which oversee Justice and the NSA. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, called Fine's investigation "long overdue."

Meanwhile, a newly active presidential civil-liberties board received its first detailed briefing about the NSA program. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which was established by Congress and whose five members were appointed by President Bush, was provided details about the workings of the NSA program last week.

One member, Lanny Davis, a White House lawyer in the Clinton administration, said he was "pleasantly surprised" by the privacy protections built into the program. He declined to discuss the program in detail because of secrecy restrictions.

"I was astonished at the extent to which they are all concerned about the legal and civil liberties and privacy implications of what they were doing," Davis said. "It was a constant theme of concern, awareness and training way beyond what I expected."

Davis said the briefings convinced him that the program had been carefully constructed from the start. "It was clear that as they thought about it, they put it together in a way that minimized problems to the best extent that they could," he said.