Thankfully, they were talking to a law-enforcement informant.

Via the NYT Seven Are Charged With Plot to Blow Up Sears Tower - New York Times

Federal prosecutors said today that seven Miami men who wanted to blow up the Sears tower in Chicago sought help from a man they believed to be an al Qaeda representative, but who in fact was an informant.

Thankfully it sounds like these were a bunch of jihadist wannabes:

A law enforcement official in Washington said on Thursday night that though the Florida group had cased some potential targets, any plotting was at an early stage and it was not clear that the men were capable of organizing a large-scale attack.

The bulk of the indictment lists a series of meetings beginning Dec. 16th last year between one of the men, Narseal Batiste, and the purported al Qaeda representative, in which Mr. Batiste asked for aid in waging “a full ground war” against the United States, according to the indictment.

[…]

The aid he sought from al Qaeda included$50,000 in cash, firearms, vehicles, radios, binoculars, bullet-proof vests and military boots. The boots were the only items delivered, after a meeting in which Mr. Batiste provided shoe sizes, according to the indictment. Mr. Batiste was also given a digital camera used to take the pictures of federal buildings requested by the informant.