"at a hotel in Herndon, Va., Ahmed allegedly agreed to watch and photograph another hotel in Washington, D.C., and a Metrorail station in Arlington, Va., to obtain information about their security and busiest periods."

Well sure, why sit at home on the internet with Google Image Search, Traffic View, webcams etc. when you can get a chance to raid the minibar while holed up in a hotel doing "recon"? :p



Or just use this as an excuse for more Shows Of Force Farce™.

Does anyone seriously think there was a threat here? These clowns need to spend more energy on fighting crime than framing innocent kids with political views they don't agree with. Cor.

http://wtopnews.com/?nid=25&sid=2097181

And the overreaction begins..

His choice of words was quite compelling. We can only hope this guy is a Fenty appointee.

At least the Metro Board Chairman has a bit more common sense and decency:

The serious threat is that of getting harmed from a motor vehicle accident in or around DC. Riding the DC metro on the way to/from home/anywhere is a far safer course of travel.

Well yes. But in the context of this poor lads current circumstances, the real danger is FBI types coercing someone into planning what I would consider to be fairly small time / low grade criminal acts and then trying to get them locked up for the rest of their lives.

Called it in post #2...

Parents and other responsible persons for teenagers, young adults and others of such minority backgrounds should warn their charges about the ways of a government increasing playing host to the prejudiced, with an epidemic of tolerance for intolerance as long as the bigotry is directed at some particular minority demographic groups, including those into which this indicted person was born.

In such matters as this one, who are the paid undercover agents and paid "informants" (who are more than just "informants")? Often members of ethnic/religious groups that can be perceived by the subject of the investigation as a co-ethnic/co-religionist and are more than willing to cash in on the craze and are crazy in their own way (a way that is a product of selection bias when it comes to a willingness to do this "work").

When it comes to dealing with the government, a well informed citizenry is the best defense against the efforts of: (a) the overzealous "professionals" who are -- at the expense of the citizenry -- living high on the hog (thanks to government troughs providing feed and kool-aid); and (b) others whoring on behalf of pimps employed by the government. Have no doubt that this arrested father's co-religionists were involved in such (b) behavior.