I think this Washington Post article on the Federal government’s inability to secure convictions in its “terrorism” cases misses the mark. The problem, as I see it, isn’t the “early prosecution” strategy taken by the FBI/DOJ, but calling them “terrorism” cases in the first place.  For example, one of the guys recently escaped conviction in Miami had:
confided [to his grocer] that he wanted to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago, which would then fall into a nearby prison, freeing Muslim prisoners who would become the core of his Moorish army. With them, he would establish his own country.
Certifiable lunatic? Probably. Real live terrorist? Hardly. Over and over again, we get fantastic announcements about big busts of scary terrorist plots. And then we later find out it was a bunch of incompetent idiots who couldn’t shoplift, nevermind pull off an actual act of terrorism.