A Leap of Faith

You’d think there’d be high-fives in FBI field offices across the country. When Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller granted broad new powers to federal agents pursuing terrorists, the White House and many members of Congress praised the move as an important advance in the fight against Osama bin Laden. Gumshoes can now trail suspicious people in public places and monitor them on Web sites and public databases, even if there’s no evidence that they’ve committed a crime.