The number of criminal prosecutions brought for terrorism-related crimes was down last year, according to a report covered in Monday's Washington Post.

In 2002, federal prosecutors filed charges against 355 defendants in international terrorism cases, the study said. By last year, that number had dropped to 46, fewer than in 2001. Just 19 such cases have been prosecuted so far this year, the study said.

  I think it's hard to know what to make of the raw numbers, at least as reported in the Post. Without knowing the details of all the cases, including the classified details, you can spin the numbers however you want. If prosecutions go up, the government is either being appropriately aggressive (good) or is being too aggressive and is labeling everything terrorism even if it's not related to terrorism (bad). If the numbers go down, the government is either being particularly careful (good) or else the lack of prosecutions reveals that the terrorist threat is mostly smoke and mirrors (bad).

  UPDATE: The report that forms the basis of the Post story is available here. I haven't had a chance to look at it carefully yet, but it seems to have a lot of good data not presented in the Post story.