Mystery at Goose Creek update: Bombs away
Here’s the latest on those two former University of South Florida students who were just driving around aimlessly with “fireworks” in South Carolina. It appears that one of the Goose Creek Two had tons of jihadi and bomb/ammo videos on his home computers, not just the one YouTube video that’s already been revealed.
Curiouser and curiouser still (via the Tampa Tribune):
A judge has scheduled a hearing Thursday to decide whether to punish prosecutors for violating a court order in the case of two former University of South Florida students charged with illegally transporting explosives.
Attorneys for Youssef Megahed filed a motion Monday asking for sanctions based on what they said were the government’s violation of a court order detailing when the prosecution was to provide the defense with evidence it plans to use at trial.
U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday issued an order this afternoon scheduling a hearing 11 a.m. Thursday where prosecutors must show why they should not be sanctioned. In legal parlance, Merryday issued an order to show cause. Megahed and Ahmed Mohamed were arrested Aug. 4 in South Carolina after a motor vehicle stop. They have been indicted on federal charges of illegally transporting explosives. Megahed is scheduled to go to trial next week. Mohamed also faces terrorism-related charges in connection with a video authorities say he made and posted on YouTube that showed how to use a remote-controlled toy to detonate a bomb. He is scheduled to go to trial in July.
Megahed’s attorneys say in new court filings that the FBI searched computers seized from the Megahed family home and that prosecutors plan to use videos investigators found of improvised explosive devices being used against military vehicles and military rockets being launched. The audio on the videos is in Arabic, the defense filing states. Megahed’s attorneys argue that the search of the computers was illegal because it was done without a warrant.
The FBI asked Meghed to consent to his family’s home being searched, but he refused, the motion states. Then agents contacted Megahed’s parents, and they consented to the search, but were told agents were looking for explosive materials, not computers, the motion states…
…In the meantime, prosecutors filed a notice with the court of intention to use evidence it maintains shows Megahed’s motive or plan. Among that evidence is information showing the home computers had a “large amount of research into weapons, ammunition and armed combat. One of the Megahed residence computers also contained numerous video clips depicting the manufacture and use of improvised explosive devices and a video recording showing the explosion of a bridge by means of such a destructive device.”
“Those video recordings all appear to depict the uses of such weapons in the armed struggle in the Middle East against the United States and other forces.”
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If it looks like a duck….
This trial will last for ever,and they want to close Gitmo?
If these guys get in trouble for using videos demonstrating how jihadis attack American troops, what does that mean for the DNC using the same kind of stuff?
All that legal lauguage means that the prosecution is at risk in being held in contempt. Not a good sign, and unfortunately may be an indication that this case is among the latest in the feds record of screwing up terror cases.
The issue with the search is disturbing. If the search is found to be illegal or if the scope if the warrant was found to have been exceeded, none of that evidence on what they had stored on their computers will be allowed into evidence. The bottom line being, all the jury may hear is a case of two college kids being caught with “fireworks”.
Get on with it already… They are guilty as sin.
Jim,
If what you say is true. Then it doesn’t sound as if we need to close GITMO, we should be expanded it.
expanding.
Very true Jim M. and it is sad that the feds didn’t appear to get the proper nod from the parents to search the computers (or instead get a proper search warrent to search the computers without their approval).
However, even if the jury only hears about the explosives and the scoping out of a military base it is more than enough to paint an accurate picture of the terrorism intended by these two men.
At least one can hope that much.
I have complete faith in the advocate judges in our judicial system that these two will get off on this “technicality”
It is better to free a thousand known bomb wielding jihadi terrorists, than to offend the religion of prepetual outrage.
After two mistrials, wouldn’t someone figure that these guys are not dangerous. It isn’t illegal to have bomb making videos or to fantasize about being big & bad. How many fat old white guys spend weekends in the woods pretending to be Nazis?
Unfortunately, I have to agree with you GJCorby. A sad day indeed when acts like this are not punished. Yet if nothing was done, it would have been Bush’s fault because he had not been tapping their phones.
I gave up trying to find the logic a long time ago. Now I mourn Farewell, Farewell to all our Greatness.
If anyone thinks these kids were just driving around I have some koolaid you need to take a sip of!
Even before this disclosure I knew these dudes were up to something.
Come on now. These were just a couple of innocent average college students that are no different than the “fat old white guys” our idiot troll thinks is normal.
sarc/off
From what I read, there was no warrent involved. They had the parent’s permission to search the home.
It is my understanding that when you have permission your search is not limited. The defense is reaching.
War Tip: It isn’t Bush who failed to tap their phones he wanted to, it is the democratic congress, and the Supreme (I use this term lightly) Court
that decimated his ability to do so on the ground that it might offend someone if we thawarted their terrorist plans.
If anyone here really believes these two aren’t dangerous, then why not invite them to over to your house for dinner? Consider it your own personal way of acclimating them back into society…your own way of celebrating community service for a day.
Name one.
lgm said:
Which ones are you defending with your “two wrongs make a right”? Last time I checked, we imprison and execute domestic terrorists, whether they’re Caucasian, African-American, or whatever.
I’m sure you’ll volunteer to give these fine upstanding college boys a place to stay once they’re sprung. As for me, I hope they release them near some encampment of “fat old white guys pretending to be Nazis”.
Dang it, DBNinKY, you beat me to the punch with the “invite a terrorist to your house” thing.
Chuck,
If you know where the woods are that the troll claims “fat old white guys are playing Nazis”, let me know so I can cross that area off my places to visit list.
Some defense of would be terrorists but what else do we expect from the left?
Yet this is the way our liberal brethren want to treat all terrorism. As a law enforcement issue. Can you imagine getting a search warrant for a mud hut in Kabul? It may sound far fetched now, but give it time.
I don’t know. When does your group usually meet in the woods?
Yeah I understand that GJCorby but in the twisted (il)logic of the left, Bush is somehow responsible for the atrocities of 9-11 because he somehow or another knew it was going to happen and some people believe that he conspired with the Israelis to make it happen. With their (il)logic, the dems failing to renew a matter of national security will be secondary to blaming Bush.
Just watch out though, because Bin Laden promised that the Jihadi terrorists would do it again if we did not submit to their will even though they never did it in the first place because it was a conspiracy between Bush and the Israelis so clearly anything else that may or may not happen can only be the fault of Bush.
Or at least that seems to be their illustrious conclusion as I have seen it … though I may be wrong since I am not fully capable of understanding their (il)logic in the first place.
1) We are at war with radical Muslims.
2)Two Muslims were found close by a Military Installation with explosive devices.
Can anybody say National Security? Can anybody say “No Warrant Need Apply” in cases where there is a very possible if not blatant threat to our National Security? One of the very few actual powers of the federal government is to protect and defend the sovereignty of our nation.
How everything else got so twisted, I will never know. Unfortunately it is a very long, dark and slippery slope we are going down and the end does not seem to be anywhere in sight.
And I am becoming verbose again so I am going to go get more coffee now.
Isn’t it fun?
We have the court system we deserve because action was not taken 20-30- 40- 50 years ago by the good guys.
l. Action- form our own legal groups to counter the ACLU - CAIR et.al.
2. Vote for honorable people.
Not the lesser of two evils.
WarTIp: Sorry for the misinterpertation.
I find that society as a whole is often blind to the writing on the wall, no matter how large and bright the font is.
Political correctness will be the death of this nation, especilaay now that we are at war.
… and acts like a terrorist, then it’s probably a muslim … with “fireworks” strapped to his body!
I’ll assume their Democrat superdelegate status has been suspended pending the outcome of the hearing.
Thanks for following this, Michelle.
What is the problem here? … doesn’t every student at USF in Tampa Bay - St. Pete drive hundreds of miles north to South Carolina to set off their fireworks in the vicinity of a US Naval Base that is involved in our military nuclear program in the month of August? … You know … a month late for Independence Day fireworks? … Must be that Muslim Calendar discrepancy with ours …
Gimme a Break … How about some common sense as to the credibility of their “story” … Jeez … so tired of these clowns getting off on “technicalities” …
//sarc off//
It’s nice to see lgm doesn’t let facts get in the way of his argument.
1.They have not gone on trial yet, so there hasn’t been two mistrials.
2.they were in posession of bomb materials which is illegal
As far as the search and warrant issue goes, there may be a way to still admit evidence from a warrantless search if the FBI can show that the discovery of the computers was incidental to a search with a warrant, and that the computers needed to be seized to prevent tampering with possible evidence.
Or, as an alternative, if the FBI only told the parents that they were looking for “bomb-making materials,” an expansive definition of such “materials” could include instructions, photographs, videos and diagrams for the making of explosive devices.
Since not all of the facts of the search in question are available, it’s impossible to be sure which way the court will decide on the defense motion. But I’d hesitate before just accepting the defense attorneys’ version of things…
Bill Mack said:
That is correct….the defense is reaching a lot on this one. If the authorities have the parents permission to search the home…then whatever they find in the home is fair game….period.
Hardly matters though…..we have a State Department hell bent on importing more Saudi “students” to our universities no matter what the risk is. It’s kinda like drug dealers on the streets…..take some off to jail….there’s more than enough to take their place in line.
Yikes, my Alma Mater in the news again and not for a good reason.
I agree with those of you who believe the OIC of the Keyboard Warrior Brigade should invite these two upstanding young men into his home.
A seagull wrote:
Ask your boyfriends when they get back from Fire Island.
alaskangrizzly- Trolls meet under bridges or on blogs, not in the woods…
True, thanks for the clarification. I made the assumption a troll could survive in the woods.
Well I remember in the Blues Brothers the Nazis were not really all that fat and did not meet in the woods. I distinctly remember there being a bridge.
So Nazis must be the ancestors to the modern day liberal troll.
lgm-Liberal Gonad-challenged Muslim? AND he lives in New York? Teaches math, so he says? Hmmm! What’s the Muslim word for “troll?”
This is great! Advocating for terrorists (YES, THEY ARE TERRORISTS!) Why am I not surprised? Our token troll will take an opposite position, no matter who or what. Anarchy anyone?
Why do I think lgm is one of those book-smart people who turns out to be dysfunctional in the real world?
Consent to a search and found computer information on how to blow up stuff.
If CPS of Texas can take all your children away with a prank phone call, I bet a consent to search the moon god worshipers house will be good enough.
Yea, I wrote moon god worshiper!
If fat old white guys want to play nazis in the woods, that’s fine with me. Play all they want. But, if they get caught carrying bomb material with the intent of blowing something up, that’s a whole different story.
Isn’t it….curious….that this self-described public-school math teacher lgm is able to take time out at any hour of the workday to post mindless trash on this site?
But I forgot — he must belong to a union, and therefore is held to no standards forbidding private activities while he’s supposed to be working.