lets break it down:<p>1) Posts views on twitter that are controversial to say the least, e.g., 'Al Qaeda was "getting too moderate,"'<p>-- Not illegal, but will definitely put you on the Gov radar, it's probably at this point he had some surveillance on him (through web or otherwise)<p>2) On two consecutive days in March, a Port Authority police officer saw Mr. Saleh walking on the George Washington Bridge and looking around.<p>-- Circumstantial at best<p>3) evidence that he was "translating ISIL propaganda into English."<p>-- Not illegal that i know of, though they don't specify if he's not a native speaker. If he could read it already in Arabic why is it a big deal that he's translating it?<p>4) receiving laboratory training in electrical circuitry at his college<p>-- he's a student..."honing skills that the complaint called 'useful in the construction of an explosive device.'" Conjecture and profiling<p>5) conducted extensive online searches for materials for an explosive device, the complaint says, including Crock-Pots, beads, propane, vacuum cleaners, lamps and watches. A watch was the only one of those materials that the complaint says he bought.<p>-- In my embedded systems class in undergrad we made a 'movie-prop bomb', had a countdown timer, monitored wires, display, etc. Fun project, i'm sure a lot of my searches during that time got me on a few lists.<p>6) walk into a spy store in Queens that sells microphone detectors and hidden cameras, though he left without any bags. He later searched online for disguises, including beards and wigs.<p>-- as the article states he was being followed by agents, i'm sure that's enough to make anyone paranoid<p>7) conversation between a confidential informant and Mr. Saleh in May, during which Mr. Saleh said, “Well I’m in N.Y. and trying to do an op,”<p>-- this is probably the most damning piece of evidence, but it relies pretty heavily on the quality of the informant<p>8) agents saw Mr. Saleh and two unnamed co-conspirators try to elude a surveillance car in their green Jeep Cherokee by speeding through a parking lot with their lights off and pulling over. Later, around 4 a.m., near the Whitestone Expressway in Queens, Mr. Saleh and one of the co-conspirators got out of the Jeep and ran toward the surveillance car<p>-- he was being followed and got scared, could have been running toward it in an effort to confront whoever it was to tell them he'd had enough<p>I'm not saying there isn't a case here, but a lot of it seems shaky, a few pieces got him on their radar and after that, well, if you search hard enough you'll usually find what you're looking for