Mom says Patriot Act stripped son of due process

WRAL News, Raleigh NC ^ | Apr 29 2009 | WRAL News, Raleigh NC

[hiredhand]

Oxford, N.C. — Sixteen-year-old Ashton Lundeby's bedroom in his mother's Granville County home is nothing, if not patriotic. Images of American flags are everywhere – on the bed, on the floor, on the wall.

But according to the United States government, the tenth-grade home-schooler is being held on a criminal complaint that he made a bomb threat from his home on the night of Feb. 15.

[CGASMIA68]

would a had a better chance in Gitmo

[microgood]

This totally sucks. The Patriot Act needs to be repealed. Period.

[Joe Boucher]

Obamma lamma and his idiot minions are thinking of releasing a bunch of Gitmo terrorists loose in the U.S.A.?
I’d like to know what each has been up to and also what the Govt says this kid was up to.
I mean as a kid we all tried to make small bombs out of matches or whatever.

[Freedom2specul8]

marked to read later

[hiredhand]

I have an "interesting" job...part of which involves knowing what people do on networks when they think nobody is watching. There are 6000 of them, and ONE of me. So I have no opinion of whether or not this kid is guilty of what he's accused of.

However, I do have an issue of this effectively making a mockery out of due process, and the whole notion of "innocent until proven guilty". Those who opposed PATRIOT did so because of this very thing, which the authorities promised wouldn't happen. In reality, this kid is only one of many. I saw the stats a couple of months ago, and can't remember where. You can probably find them again with some creative searches on Google.

[xjcsa]

"I was terrified," Lundeby's mother said. "There were guns, and I don't allow guns around my children. I don't believe in guns."

She "doesn't believe in guns"? As in, doesn't believe they exist? I can see why she was upset then, since there were guns right there in front of her.

[MEGoody]

Shouldn’t be too difficult (for a techie) to prove that someone hacked into her son’s IP address. I would think the government would check that angle out to make sure they had the right person. Something seems a bit fishy here.

[stinkerpot65]

I read somewhere a post from someone who claimed to be a local cop, who wrote that they had webcam video of the kid calling in bomb threats while eating pizza and laughing about it.

For what it’s worth...

[hiredhand]

TWO things....

One. Either they were at church, as was the young man in question, or they weren't. It doesn't say that most of the family was, and he wasn't. Since he's still locked up, I'm going to "guess" that most of the family was away from the house, and he was there alone.

Two. It's often the case that there's not enough audit data left behind to prove the suggestion that it was an external intrusion (a "hack"). Unless the accused gets the "right" lawyer, an uninformed judge, or jury can and will convict on "fairy tales" conjured up from what Hollywood tells our brainless nation about information security.

But the kid is being denied due process, so these questions are going to be difficult to answer at best right now, much less present to the justice system.

If half of what the mom says is true, then I'm guess that they had a poorly secured WAP (Wireless Access Point). My neighbor left his unsecured and I called him to tell him and he gave me permission to "fix" it for him. Before securing it properly, I was able to do some quite advanced things that would have GREATLY aided an intruder in doing some very malicious things that would have appeared as though it originated at their residence, when in fact I was a full two doors down...which is 200 yards in this instance. Bear in mind that since I "owned" the WAP, I would have certainly cleared it's logs and disabled them completely afterwards, had I been up to no good.

I had a WAP signed out from work for home use, and over an 8 month period, I detected three unsuccessful unauthorized usage attempts. Nobody was within sight on our road and it's a very "sparse" neighborhood, so I can only suppose it was a neighbor, and was possibly in error.

The kid needs to see his lawyer...NOW.

[hiredhand]

I read somewhere a post from someone who claimed to be a local cop, who wrote that they had webcam video of the kid calling in bomb threats while eating pizza and laughing about it.

For what it’s worth...

I'm not saying that I have any particular opinion of whether he is guilty or not. I think I mentioned in a previous posting that I have a grand view in detail of a 6000 user network and know good and well what they do when they think nobody is watching. Truth be known, I'm probably biased against him. My issue is that he was denied due process.

If law enforcement has video evidence, then he'll get everything he deserves for calling in a bomb threat. But the precedent is bad no matter how you view it.

[hiredhand]

Well...let's think about that one. I'm holding a Colt Series 80 .45 ACP now...and I just returned from the other room where there's an Armalite M-4 clone. They're either real or I'm hallucinating! :-)

[goldfinch]

This whole thing feels a little off kilter somehow...

Is it an example the DHS keeping an eye out for ‘right wing extremists’? I mean the kid’s room is full of flags and he is being home schooled. If you are a LLL, that certainly qualifies as extremists.

Still...I can’t shake the feeling that whole story about the kid isn’t out in the open yet...

[stinkerpot65]

I agree. He’s just a dumb kid, not an Al-Qaida terrorist. The Patriot Act was not intended for this.

[normanpubbie]

When a topic like this comes up on FR, I read the source article thoroughly several times and look for incongruities and factoids that don't seem to add up. In the first sentence in the article, the reporter notices that American flags are everywhere in the kid's bedroom -- on the wall, on the bed, even on the floor (on the floor?). The reporter didn't ask but I will -- was the bedroom overflagged the night the kid allegedly made the call?

This article immediately brought to mind the case of David Kernell. You remember him, the son of a Tennessee state legislator who hacked into Sarah Palin's email account last fall. He admitted the break-in and was charged with several felonies and is to be tried in October. I hope that no one on this thread thinks that charging Kernell with several felonies was a violation of his due process.

I would like to put in a good word for the Patriot Act, imperfect as it is. Making bomb threats and plotting to fly airplanes into buildings are terrorist acts. Congress would not have passed the Patriot Act and the President would not have signed it into law unless they believed that we needed stronger protection against terrorism.

Mom says that someone else hacked into his IP and he has been arrested without due process. Excuse me, but due process is a two-way street, Ma'am. The lad doesn't have to prove or disprove anything. In our system, the authorities have to prove that he committed the crimes he has been charged with. And unless they have evidence that he committed said crimes, they aren't going to get a conviction. And there would have been no point in bringing charges in the first place nor to maintain the charges. Remember Mike Nifong, former Durham County District Attorney?

Note that young Lundeby, who by the way is home-schooled, has been sitting in a juvenile facility since February 25.

If Ashton Lundeby is tried and acquitted, a lot of decent people will raise a heckuva stink and President Obama and AG Holder will be blamed as they should be.

[normanpubbie]

I need to correct dates in my post #15. The alleged bomb threat was made February 15, 2009 and he was arrested on March 5, 2009.

[humblegunner]

the tenth-grade home-schooler is being held on a criminal complaint that he made a bomb threat

So we are supposed to ignore this because he is homeschooled?

Slap the little terrorist into home-prison.

He can continue to cry to mommy from jail.

[microgood]

I would like to put in a good word for the Patriot Act, imperfect as it is. Making bomb threats and plotting to fly airplanes into buildings are terrorist acts. Congress would not have passed the Patriot Act and the President would not have signed it into law unless they believed that we needed stronger protection against terrorism.

Well if you think it is OK to chuck the 5th Amendment in the name of "terrorism", why not the 2nd Amendment as well? I am sure Obama and company would be glad to outlaw guns in the name of "terrorism".

As far as good intentions go, Bush and the Congress passed the Patriot Act without caring whether it was constitutional or not. Hopefully the right to due process will be restored at some point by the courts.

Now they are talking about right-wing extremists and under the Patriot Act, the government can now hold anyone they please in prison for the rest of their natural life without any trial or reason for detainment. I recommend you not attend any tea-parties while Obama is in power.

[microgood]

So we are supposed to ignore this because he is homeschooled?

No, but we are not supposed to take the word of the authorities at face value either. The FBI are pathological liars and I would not believe anything they say without a ton of corroboration. In addition, he is entitled to 5th amendment protections just like any other US citizen.

[Cboldt]

-- If Ashton Lundeby is tried and acquitted, a lot of decent people will raise a heckuva stink --

Has he been charged? I mean, is there an indictment, you know, citing the law that waws broken, and so forth? Two months in the slammer is quite a long time.