Many details of the new approach remained unclear yesterday, because administration officials declined to describe specifically how the program will work.

Officials would not say, for example, whether the administration will be required to seek a warrant for each person it wants to monitor or whether the FISA court has issued a broader set of orders to cover multiple cases. Authorities also would not say how many court orders are involved or which judge on the surveillance court had issued them.

We participated in a conference call yesterday in which "senior Justice Department officials" explained the change--or rather in which they explained very little, citing national security to keep all details secret. About all we gleaned was that the agreement between Justice and the FISA court was very complicated and was the result of negotiations that went on for "almost two years."

What the administration does not say, but many who have supported it on this issue (including us) suspect, is that this was a capitulation--that, faced with a Democratic Congress and a Supreme Court majority eager to meddle in wartime matters, the administration backed down to avoid a confrontation it was likely to lose. The administration still argues that the executive branch has the inherent authority to conduct such surveillance, but now that proposition will not need to be tested under unfavorable conditions.

This announcement may show that the administration has more flexibility and foresight--in a word, competence--than its critics acknowledge. The New York Times first revealed the existence of the program in December 2005, and it noted:

The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting.

That would mean the administration became aware around December 2004 that the Times had the story, and within a couple of months was at work on a backup plan to bring the program into formal compliance with FISA in case that should become politically necessary.

The question to our mind, though, is to what extent the agreement compromises national security in the name of legal formality. "These [FISA court] orders can provide the speed and agility that is needed and that was available under the terrorist surveillance program," one of the senior Justice officials assured yesterday.

We hope so, and we're willing to give the administration the benefit of the doubt (even if hardly anyone else still is). But we wish we had some concrete information on which to judge its claims.