It seems to me that there is not enough information in this article to really make a judgement call, and quite a few assumptions being made regarding the validity of his claim. It is interesting how badly respect for national security and intelligence agencies, and the FBI has deteriorated in recent years. The FBI have always been patsies of one kind or another, but few people I know really believed they were not acting in anyone's best interest or that they were stupid or ignorant of facts and due process. But now we take a single page article from yahoo with little facts beyond the claims of the student that he is being profiled as pure fact and that the FBI is automatically the villain. The fact is we do not know what the FBI knows or has discovered about this person and their affiliations.
I am not necessarily defending the FBI's actions. I think that something like this needs to go through due process and they need to obtain a warrant, but here is a quote from the article about the legal ambiguity in this case:
I think we are often too quick to rush to condemn agencies like the FBI in their actions as long as we can get a smidgen of allegation that they are going after "obviously innocent people". Remember that the terrorists who pulled off the world trade center attacks were not viewed as anything other than "innocent people" while they planned, trained for, and carried out their crimes.
We need the checks and balances that our government is designed for, and if this and other issues like this are deemed illegal or unconstitutional then there needs to be a price paid. We also need a healthy skepticism among the general populace. But I think also we need a vote of confidence that our federal agencies are actually doing their best to protect us from another attack and actually have the best interest of the people in mind. And I think everyone, even federal agencies, needs the benefit of the doubt until the facts are known and the decisions are made in the courts.