One story. Two stories.

Look at how differently The Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press handled the news that the Obama administration last December quietly gave FBI agents more leeway to interrogate some domestic terrorism suspects. The Journal's Even Perez, who broke the story early Thursday, wrote it up this way under a headline: "Rights Are Curtailed for Terror Suspects":

New rules allow investigators to hold domestic-terror suspects longer than others without giving them a Miranda warning, significantly expanding exceptions to the instructions that have governed the handling of criminal suspects for more than four decades. The move is one of the Obama administration's most significant revisions to rules governing the investigation of terror suspects in the U.S. And it potentially opens a new political tussle over national security policy, as the administration marks another step back from pre-election criticism of unorthodox counterterror methods.

And here's how Pete Yost of the AP wrote it up under the headline: "Agents can delay Miranda warnings in some cases":

The FBI has issued new guidance to its agents in terrorism probes, emphasizing that law enforcement investigators can question suspected terrorists without immediately reading them their Miranda rights in some instances. In a statement, the Justice Department says it formalized the guidance last year as a reminder that there is a public safety exception on Miranda warnings. It allows investigators to delay telling suspects of their rights to an attorney and to remain silent when there is immediate concern for the safety of the public. The guidance outlines how to use the public safety exception when appropriate. The guidelines do not change Miranda or the public safety exception, which the Justice Department does not have the authority to alter because they flow from court decisions based on the Constitution.

Got that? Those are two very different vibes coming out of those two leads. Instead of overly parsing them, I'm going to split the difference and add a few quick points.

1. The AP was right to point out the context. Ultimately, the federal courts, and not the FBI or the DOJ (or the Congress), will decide the constitutionality of the new formula (whatever it is) for Mirandizing domestic terror suspects. My best guess is that the new rules are constitutional, or at least will be deemed so, given the Supreme Court's recent narrowing of the scope of the warning and the fact that there already is on the books a rather large "public safety" exception to the general Miranda rule.