Who is responsible for blowing the search warrant for Zacarias Moussaoui's computer? According to the congressional committee hearing evidence on intelligence gathering, it was the lawyers for the FBI .

"The frantic efforts of Minnesota FBI agents to search the computer and belongings of suspected terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui in August 2001 were thwarted by lawyers at FBI headquarters who misunderstood the law on foreign intelligence surveillance warrants, a congressional committee was told yesterday."

"Had the agents succeeded in obtaining a special intelligence warrant in the weeks leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks, they would have found materials that could have led them to al Qaeda members -- including hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi -- who had gathered for a key meeting in Malaysia in January 2000, Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), a member of the panel, said yesterday."

The lawyers worked for the F.B.I.'s National Security Law Center. The Congressional committee report says that they "advised FBI counterterrorism officials that agents did not have enough evidence to seek an FISA warrant. One of the lawyers said that Moussaoui would have to be linked to a "recognized" foreign power, which the committee staff's report called "a misunderstanding of FISA."

What does this all point to? "A serious deficiency in the FBI's knowledge and understanding of the radical fundamentalist network in the United States."