It can try to limit secret wiretaps, assuming it can find them, and it can call cabinet secretaries and generals on the carpet to explain just why we are doing so badly in Iraq.

Some civil libertarians charge that the policy will make it much easier for the authorities to justify secret wiretaps and surveillance, using lower thresholds of evidence than traditional criminal warrants require.

But prosecutors had gathered, through secret wiretaps, huge amounts of evidence contradicting that assertion.

The F.B.I. believed it had enough evidence to seek a secret wiretap on Dr. Lee's phone calls, citing 20 reasons he was a prime suspect.

The court that heard applications for secret wiretaps under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act on people suspected of committing espionage against the United States.

How much safer has the world become as a result of the war in Iraq, Guantánamo, secret wiretaps, even the creation of the Department of Homeland Security?

But authorities said they believed that the evidence accumulated through secret wiretaps and the use of confidential informants constitutes a strong case against Sheik Mouyad and Mr. Zayed.

The drive for further easing of the legal standards covering secret wiretaps and secret searches of homes and possessions of suspected terrorists raised concerns among civil liberties groups.

With strong suspicions but little evidence, F.B.I. headquarters decided not to allow its agents in Minneapolis to open a criminal investigation, or to seek a warrant for secret wiretaps and clandestine physical searches.

The bureau approved Mr. Lee's new assignment, assuring the Energy Department, the lab owner, that it would seek a secret wiretap to monitor Mr. Lee's telephone conversations.