“Do we arrest potential terrorists too early and allow them to plead to lesser charges? Or do we wait and risk an attack?”
It’s up to your prosecutors to offer a plea deal or not. There’s no reason why any terrorist should off on a plea deal if the investigation has real evidence. If you ACTUALLY meant “get convicted for intent, rather than actions”, then I think the choice is pretty obvious.
As for the risk, then a trade-off is to place the perps under surveillance so you know what they’re up to. I imagine that this is necessary to build a case anyway. Then someone has to make a judgement call.
I think the bigger risk (as shown by the outcomes) is the risk of locking away people who only look like they’re a threat, rather than actually being one. I’m pretty sure this has happened once in australia – the guy was more a loser bozo than a honest-to-goodness bad guy with means. The US has had a number of cases which border on “entrapment” – i.e, while the perps clearly said what they said and did what they did, they’d never had even considered their plans if FBI informants hadn’t talked them into it, funded them and/or made sure they had access to materials. I don’t want to challenge their imprisonment – an idiot is an idiot, in my book. But I have to wonder if it’s the best use of anyone’s time or resources to create terrorists. Surely the ones that already exist are a more serious concern.
But legally blurring the line between intent and actions is nuts. That’s not the answer. The objective is to protect the public – not win bragging points. Once you’ve got someone on a terrorist charge, you’ve got them.
