DOJ begins internal investigation of Bush's warrantless spy program

[Bluebear]

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department has begun an internal investigation into its handling of information gathered in the government's domestic spying program. However, Democrats criticized the review as too narrow to determine whether the program violated federal law.

The inquiry by Glenn A. Fine, the department's inspector general, will focus on the role of Justice prosecutors and agents in carrying out the warrantless surveillance program run by the National Security Agency.

Fine's investigation is not expected to address whether the controversial program is an unconstitutional expansion of presidential power, as its critics and a federal judge in Detroit have charged....

Former Reagan administration national security official Robert F. Turner, now associate director at the Center for National Security Law at the University of Virginia, said congressional demands for sensitive information about the program puts them at odds with long-standing presidential powers over the collection of foreign intelligence. "It's good that the executive branch, on its own, is making sure that someone's not abusing this power," Turner said. "But when Congress usurps power vested in the president by the people through the Constitution, then it becomes the lawbreaker."

Countering, Caroline Fredrickson, the director of the ACLU's office in Washington, urged Fine "to seek the hidden truth about this program. ... No one, not even the president, is above the law."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061128/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/domestic_spying