FBI Hoped to Follow Falafel Trail to Iranian Terrorists Here

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5&docID=hsnews-000002620892


Like Hansel and Gretel hoping to follow their bread crumbs out of the forest, the FBI sifted through customer data collected by San Francisco-area grocery stores in 2005 and 2006, hoping that sales records of Middle Eastern food would lead to Iranian terrorists.

The idea was that a spike in, say, falafel sales, combined with other data, would lead to Iranian secret agents in the south San Francisco-San Jose area.

The brainchild of top FBI counterterrorism officials Phil Mudd and Willie T. Hulon, according to well-informed sources, the project didn’t last long. It was torpedoed by the head of the FBI’s criminal investigations division, Michael A. Mason, who argued that putting somebody on a terrorist list for what they ate was ridiculous — and possibly illegal.

A check of federal court records in California did not reveal any prosecutions developed from falafel trails.
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sigh

...but I said nothing, because I didn't eat falafel.

Food for thought, I guess.

:eyes:

No wonder we can't catch Osama. :eyes: