visit abcnews.com, and of course look for updates from the storm zone both on "america this morning" and coming up later this morning on gma. federal officials arrested a north carolina man for trying to join an al qaeda-linked group in syria. court documents claim that basit javed sheikh posted messages on facebook and communicated with an fbi informant about his interest in fighting with jihadi militants against syria's regime. he was arrested at the airport as he departed for lebanon. he faces 15 years behind bars if convicted. lawyers are meeting for a status conference. attorneys for the american civil liberties union tried to argue the boston bombing suspect was being treated unfairly in jail. a judge threw out that argument. so the aclu will not be allowed to attend today's hearing. now we turn to the troubling results of an abc news investigation. u.s. government contracts awarded to companies with alleged ties to terror groups. the very same groups that target our troops. here's abc's chief investigative correspondent brian ross.