Attorney General John Ashcroft has a gift for making the most draconian policy changes sound seductively innocuous. He was at it again yesterday, describing new domestic spying powers for the Federal Bureau of Investigation as nothing more than the authority to surf the Internet or attend a public gathering. That is profoundly misleading. In reality Mr. Ashcroft, in the name of fighting terrorism, was giving F.B.I. agents nearly unbridled power to poke into the affairs of anyone in the United States, even when there is no evidence of illegal activity.

The New York Times is clearly unhappy with recent changes at the FBI. But they seem to be narrowly focused on the negative privacy implications, while not assessing the likelihood that these changes will prove (in)effective in "preventing" future acts, or that they will disrupt the FBI's responsibilities with regard to law enforcement.