COLEEN ROWLEY is making a vital contribution to the war on terrorism, though not in the way she would have preferred.

Rowley, you may recall, works as general counsel in the FBI’s Minneapolis field office. In late August, Zacarias Moussaoui, an Algerian attending a Minnesota flight school, aroused suspicions within her office. Moussaoui was detained on an immigration violation, but Immigration and Naturalization Service agents, as well as those in the FBI who worked with, Rowley suspected he might be involved in a terrorist plot. Rowley wanted to search the suspect’s computer. To do that, she sought approval from FBI headquarters in Washington. But she was turned down–unjustifiably, in her view.