Now we know: The State Department can get tough when it wants to, if only against fellow Americans.

National Review writer Joel Mowbray had the temerity at Friday's press briefing to question State spokesman Richard Boucher about "Visa Express," a program that has made it easier for Saudi Arabian citizens to enter the U.S. without interviews. Mr. Boucher had denied that the U.S. ambassador to Riyadh wanted to terminate Visa Express, even though a classified cable had clearly said otherwise. Mr. Mowbray called the spokesman on his spin, and when the reporter went to leave the building he was detained and questioned by security officers for about 30 minutes.

State's line is that Mr. Mowbray was detained because he'd quoted from classified material, as if that's any justification. It's no crime to report such news, only to leak it, and the cable's contents were reported in both National Review and the Washington Post. Mr. Mowbray's reporting has embarrassed State, and its officers were clearly engaging in intimidation to dig up the source. It's the kind of thing they do in, well, Riyadh.

Mr. Boucher also continues to humiliate himself by defending Visa Express. Never mind the ambassador's cable, and Colin Powell's sacking last week of Mary Ryan, the career diplomat in charge of consular affairs. The firing was a clear effort to placate Congress, which is angry about Visa Express and had threatened to yank State's visa authority.

The Boucher response here is of a piece with State's refusal to press Saudi Arabia on the plight of American women held in that country against their will. State's instinct is always to attack Americans who raise questions, instead of pressuring the Saudis on behalf of U.S. interests. All the women need to leave under Saudi law is the permission of their husbands or fathers, which surely the House of Saud can arrange, if the State Department ever bothered to ask. But apparently it's too busy harassing American journalists.