by Robert J. Caldwell

About the author: Robert J. Caldwell is the editor of the Sunday editorial section of the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper.

No cause is well served by zealots or fanatics, and least of all by terrorists.

Accordingly, legitimate questions about misconduct by federal law enforcement agencies have been clouded by the tragic terrorist bombing in Oklahoma City, by the unsettling militia movement and by such diversionary tempests as that prompted by the rhetorical excesses of the National Rifle Association.

It hardly needs repeating that the criminals responsible for the bombing that killed 169 men, women and children in the Murrah Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City must be caught, tried, convicted and then punished to the maximum extent of the law.

It’s equally obvious that armed, paramilitary groups are...