Privacy and security in the balance.(Legal Update)

Before the dust had settled from the World Trade Center collapse in September 2001, First Data Corp. called the FBI to offer its assistance. That is the first assertion on the first page of a new book recounting worldwide terrorist hunts, war and tough issues of liberty versus national security stirred up by the worst terrorist attacks on American soil.

Ron Suskind, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former Wall Street Journal reporter, begins "The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of its Enemies Since 9/11" with an exchange between FBI employees: "At noon on September 13, a passing agent ducked his head into the office of [FBI financial crimes section chief] Dennis Lormel. He said someone had called from the Omaha FBI office. A company called First Data Corporation, with a huge processing facility out there, wanted to help in any way it could."

The FBI soon installed agents in First Data's Omaha, Neb., processing facilities, where they monitored credit card and Western Union transactions, often as they occurred, according to Suskind. "They were deep inside a Fortune 500 company, a place where federal agents had never roamed so freely, prowling through First Data's massive computer banks.... Billing addresses were matched with charging history, locations matched with dates."

It is the kind of literary journalism that includes such scene setting as: "A red-eyed Lormel looked up from his desk. 'Oh, that's big,' he said, breaking into a weary smile."

Such passages have led many to assume Lormel and former CIA Director George Tenet are among 100 unnamed sources Suskind says he interviewed. He also claims 19,000 pages of supporting documents. …