Al-Qaeda or ELF, I don't care -- a terrorist is a terrorist.

Rod Coronado is a celebrity ex-convict in the underground world of environmental and animal rights radicals who advocate burning construction sites and research labs. In 2003, just after giving a speech in San Diego in which he called fire a “cleansing force” and defended its use in strategic property destruction, a woman asked him a question.

Federal prosecutors say Mr. Coronado’s answer — a detailed description of a crude incendiary — should land him in federal prison for 20 years for violating a rarely invoked antiterrorism statute.

My only objection to the prosecution? That the statute is rarely invoked.