[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 The Patriot Act needs to be repealed.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

[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...

[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...

[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.

[normanpubbie]

I found four news stories on Google about Ashton Lundeby. Three of them seem to have been lifted wholesale from the April 29 WRAL-TV web article. The web article was quite one-sided, quoting only the mother and a local civil and criminal law attorney who basically said the same thing. We did not hear any dissenting view. Ms Lamb seemed to cherry-pick the information to write into the article. One of the things the reporter left out was information about the charges and any indictments which have been issued. One article did say that the court hearing had been pushed back. Sorry, but I have never trusted sloppy, one-sided reportage.

Ashton is being held (bond denied?) in a state juvenile facility in South Bend, IN. Why Indiana? According to the video, that is where the alleged threat(s) was/were made. If the mother is in North Carolina and the son is in Indiana 750 miles away, it's hardly surprising that she has had limited or no contact with her son since his arrest.

The video showed a shot of the search warrant (with some parts apparently redacted) which showed the Lundeby home address. The warrant was issued by a U.S. District Court judge for the Eastern District of North Carolina. A judge (possibly the same one) later issued a gag order in the case. Perhaps in addition to the gag order, the relevant legal papers have been sealed as well. But that doesn't mean that Lundeby has no due process rights. I bet it turns out that he has been arrested, charged, arraigned, and indicted on one or more federal charges.

There is a link in the WRAL-TV article to the DOJ's page on the Patriot Act. According to their description, the Act allowed the authorities to issue a search warrant in North Carolina related to crime(s) which occurred in Indiana. This step was apparently not possible before the Patriot Act was put into law.

And I'm not buying the story that the Patriot Act supersedes any part of the Consitution. Period.

[normanpubbie]

The points in your posts are all well-taken and reasonable, and I thank you for that.

One intriguing question is why the Feds have pushed back the court date. Is it because they do not presently have enough evidence against Ashton for a conviction, or are they looking at related acts? We don't know. BTW, the gag order protects the defendant as much as it does the authorities.

The mother mentioned the IP issue. Could there have been a proxy IP in the mix? We don't know.

Re legal counsel: A court hearing date has been set. This implies that someone is looking out for him, even if it is only the judge.

There is an old legal maxim which looks like it applies:

If the facts are on your side, argue the facts. If the law is on your side, argue the law. If neither, pound the table.

I figure that this case will end up like Mr. Glazebrook's, with a sentence of time served and probation, with an expungement when Ashton turns 18.

[jaydubya2]

UPDATE: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2246414/posts