Time has posted Joe Klein's excellent column on the highly classified NSA program disclosed by James Risen and the New York Times. Disregard Klein's misplaced apologetics for the liberal reaction to what the New York Times has done here, and focus on the substance. Klein notes:

It would have been a scandal if the NSA had not been using these tools to track down the bad guys. There is evidence that the information harvested helped foil several plots and disrupt al-Qaeda operations.

There is also evidence, according to U.S. intelligence officials, that since the New York Times broke the story, the terrorists have modified their behavior, hampering our efforts to keep track of them—but also, on the plus side, hampering their ability to communicate with one another.

Coincidentally, the Baltimore Sun's Gregory Kane puts the civil liberties concerns aroused by the Times and others in the proper context. His fine column is "Bush order to spy must be seen in perspective." (Courtesy of Lucianne.)