Via a Google search, a link entitled "Megalomania's Method of Making HMTD" notes the chemical's "extreme sensitivity to heat, shock, and friction" and describes it as "a poor choice for the lesser skilled home chemist…HMTD does not store well, so deal with it immediately." This video claims to demonstrate the chemical's volatility.

UPDATE: A new report says that Gliedman and Greene are not terrorists, "just privileged kids with drug habits."

I wonder how much time in the slammer the rich white kids with drug habits -- not to mention the explosive chemicals and illegal sawed-off shotgun -- will serve?
====================================

Police have arrested a pregnant graduate of an elite Manhattan prep school and her Harvard-educated boyfriend Sunday after allegedly finding an explosive powder and a sawed-off shotgun in their Greenwich Village apartment. Morgan Gliedman, 27, daughter of a prominent New York City physician who attended the Dalton School, and Aaron Greene, 31, are charged with felony possession of an explosive with intent to use, and felony criminal possession of a weapon. The criminal complaint also claims that a "collection of pages" entitled "The Terrorist Encyclopedia" was found in the apartment.

NYPD went to 9th Street Saturday to question Morgan Gliedman about alleged credit card theft when they found a plastic container with seven grams of a white chemical powder called HMTD; a chemical that the New York Post says is so powerful, "cops evacuated several nearby buildings."

Besides the powder, the apartment also contained a flare launcher, a modified twelve gauge Mossberg 500 shotgun, ammo, and nine high-capacity rifle magazines, sources told the Post. Cops also allegedly uncovered papers about creating homemade booby traps, improvising submachine guns, and several handwritten notebooks containing chemical formulas.

The Gothamist reports:

Residents were roused by the police at around 7:30 a.m. on Saturday and relocated while police executed a search warrant. Gliedman, who is pregnant, is also charged with four counts of felony grand larceny for credit card theft that police say occurred in February of this year, and a warrant squad was making the arrest when they noticed "a white powdery substance" in a plastic container in the living room.
...
Investigators say that substance is Hexamethylene Triperoxide Diamine (HMTD), which was one of the components in the explosives to be used by Ahmed Ressam, the "millennium bomber" who planned to bomb LAX on New Year's Eve in 1999. HMTD was also likely to be used in the foiled bombings of transatlantic flights in 2005. Sergeant Michael DiMarfio of the NYPD's bomb squad tested the powder, and the results yielded a positive for HMTD, according to the complaint.
...
Greene was arraigned on Sunday afternoon, and is being held without bail until his next hearing on January 4. Gliedman had yet to be arraigned as of Sunday night. According to court records Gliedman was charged with marijuana possession in February, but had taken an Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal [ACD], and her next scheduled court appearance for those charges is on January 10.

According to Gliedman's Facebook page, she attended The Dalton School, NYU's Gallatin School, and received an MFA in creative writing at the Art Institute of Chicago. The Post reports that Greene "attended Harvard as an undergraduate and did his graduate work at the university’s Kennedy School of Government" and has "five prior run-ins with the police, with the charges including, assault, and weapons possession."

On Monday afternoon, Morgan Gliedman's arraignment was postponed when she was taken to a hospital and reported to be in labor.

Morgan Gliedman (Facebook)