The Justice Department’s internal investigations division said Monday it has opened an inquiry into the agency’s use of information gathered in the government’s warrantless surveillance program.

In a letter to House Judiciary Committee leaders, Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said his investigators would focus on the Justice Department’s role in carrying out the spying program run by the National Security Agency.

Fine wrote that he wants to ensure that prosecutors are following laws governing the handling of information that NSA gathers when spying on suspected terrorists in the United States.

“After conducting initial inquiries into the program, we have decided to open a program review that will examine the department’s controls and use of information related to the program,” Fine wrote in the four-paragraph letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.

A federal judge ruled a week ago that the NSA is not required to release details about its secret wiretapping program, in which the agency monitors phone calls and e-mails between people in the United States and people in other countries when a link to terrorism is suspected.

Civil liberties groups criticize it as an unconstitutional expansion of presidential power, but the Justice Department says it is a necessary tool to fight terror.

“This is a long overdue investigation of a highly controversial program,” said Rep. John Conyers, who will chair the Judiciary Committee in the House of Representatives when the Democrats take control of Congress on Jan. 4.

The White House agreed to give investigators special clearances to look into the program, Fine noted in his letter to Conyers and the panel’s current chairman, Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner. The request for clearances came Oct. 20 and was approved last week, after the Nov. 7 elections in which the Democrats supplanted President George W. Bush’s Republicans in Congress.

Early this year, Fine’s office said it lacked jurisdiction to investigate the legality of the administration’s domestic eavesdropping program. At the time, Fine’s office referred calls for an inquiry to the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which reviews allegations of misconduct involving employees’ actions when providing legal advice.

The Office of Professional Responsibility was denied extra security clearances to conduct an investigation that would have included looking at some classified documents and other information that the Justice Department already has.

Source: AP