FBI hunted terrorists by checking falafel sales in San Francisco

The FBI had to abandon a plan to use records from San Francisco grocery stores to spot terrorists; they believed that a spike in falafel sales would lead them to secret Iranian agents.

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.

Link (via JWZ)

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blogueroconnor

It sounds odd, but peaks of pizza orders near Pentagon were detected by journalist THE NIGHT BEFORE the Irak invasion to Kuwait.

http://www.pbs.org/now/news/319-transcript.html
Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

If true, this is disturbingly incompetent:

– Iranians aren’t big on falafel.

– Jews and Arabs are. (What, they’ve never seen a kosher pizza and falafel fast-food place?)

– Lots of other people eat falafel too.

– Eating falafel is not a criminal act. Finding a lot of falafel-eaters just gets you a lot of falafel-eaters.

– “Finding ethnic Iranians” is not the same thing as “finding terrorists.”

– San Francisco is undersupplied with grocery stores. Many of its citizens drive or take mass transit to do their grocery shopping. Tracking specific grocery items will not identify ethnic enclaves.

– What century are these guys living in, that they think people have to live close together to hatch plots?

– What planet are these guys living on, that they think this is the only way to spot ethnic enclaves?

– Have they considered getting in touch with a local Iranian-American organization and asking?
lummels

FWIW…

Obviously this whole idea is ridiculous, but I do need to point out an inaccuracy in the posting. If you read the original article (2nd para), it is the author, Jeff Stein, who suggests that the FBI intended to specifically look at falafel sales. “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 word “say” is key to identifying that this is the idea of the author, not the FBI.

What’s hilarious is that the author makes himself look like a racial profiler by ignorantly selecting the first commonly-known middle eastern dish he could think of to drive his point home. He probably thought the term “falafel trail” sounded catchier than a more accurate “kalam polow trail,” for instance.
davevontexas

@Stephen Lark: I am so renting that.
calanan

#13 posted by Cupcake Faerie, November 7, 2007 5:30 AM

Falafels are an insidious terrorist device that can, when consumed with appropriate malice and anti-western zeal, produces an evil and noxious poisonous gas. Just ask my wife.

That, sir, is pure threadwin!
anthropomorphictoast

Yay, profiling. Can’t wait until they start saying people who eat all-beef hotdogs are terrorists.
darrell

Oh no! This post turned me, not into a terrorist, but a murderer! I live in rural Japan and I’d KILL for a good falafel. Hear that FBI?
Marshall

I presume that the brainiacs responsible for this ridiculousness are still gainfully employed by the Federal Government and marching steadily towards their cushy pension?
agnot

Must I now go to my favorite felafel bar incognito?
Stitch

By “San Francisco” do they include my island? Because I tell you, I eat a fair amount of falafel. Maybe enough to make me a terrorist.

I also put off trips to the barber, and wear a goatee, that on my unshaven days may look like a beard. Sweet christ, I am a threat to America! Or I at least look threatening enough to divert fears about actual threats!
Stephen Lark

He Died with a Felafel in His Hand
either that or he was tortured with a cookie :-P
Kobie

I’ve traveled around a bit in Iran and I don’t recall ever seeing a single falafel. It’s really something you’re more likely to find in Arab countries.
slgalt

Did they find Bill O’Reilly?
http://www.boingboing.net/2004/10/14/bill-oreillys-allege.html
Simon Greenwood

The middle part of the story was more worrying to me: it seemed to imply that if/when hostilities break out with Iran, the FBI will be rounding up everyone of Iranian origin/ancestry in the Bay Area. Then again, if they’re just following trails of falafel crumbs it might take some time.
mahzul

Iranians don’t really eat falafel. It’s seen as rubbish foreign food^*.

There is a tiny hole-in-the-wall selling falafel on Imam Khomeini Square in downtown Tehran and the falafel there is so bad, I can only think it is part of an Iranian government programme to discredit and undermine the Arab minority in Iran. The falafel is more like scrambled egg than the clean, crisp and deliciously crunchy stuff served all the way from Bab Touma in Syria through to Edgeware Road in London.

* Not that rubbish foreign food is unpopular in Iran – pizzas, fries and burgers, all done Iranian style are very popular.
Muppet

FA-LA-FEL!
FA-LA-FEL!
FA-LA-FEL!

I propose mass falafel-eating demonstrations.

Gas’em back!
Muppet

The rest of the world is watching in disbelief at the extreme danger that middle Amerika poses for all of us. The parallels with Nazi Germany just before WW2 are alarming.

Why don’t they stop fussin and just round up all the darkskins and shoot’em , cause that’s what they really want to do…

The brainchild of top FBI counterterrorism officials
PLEASE TELL ME THIS IS A HOAX please !

The chicpkeas in falafels give smelly farts, anyway, so they could rig up some fart analyzer to pick up falafel eaters and send’em to Guantanamo to sweat it all out.

Next time you’re ordering that kebab look out for hidden cameras, you greasy , smelly Arab!

Real Americans EAT HAMBURGER

Oh boy, what happened to this world, when are we going to be relieved of these ghouls walking all over us?
Lizzle

Are they aware that falafel are also a favourite Jewish snack? (The packet of falafel mix in my cupboard at the moment is covered with Hebrew text.)

I eat a hell of a lot of falafel. The very best falafel stores I’ve been to have been at a Lebanese restaurant in London’s St John’s Wood, and at an Egyptian store in Florence. Neither place has shown any signs of chickpea-induced explosion recently (although it should be noted that too many falafel may result in intestinal upset).
Cupcake Faerie

Falafels are an insidious terrorist device that can, when consumed with appropriate malice and anti-western zeal, produces an evil and noxious poisonous gas. Just ask my wife.
bobolikebeer

Well, we seem to have found the WMDs… Weopons of Mass Digestion. I bet they have them in Iraq too.
AV

isnt it a line from American Dad script?
pupdog

Oh Noes! The kimchi is next!
Anonymous

Iranians don’t eat much felafel. It is a Lebanese food.

Tip for the FBI. If you are going to be bigots get your stereotypes right.

You might as well be looking for Germans by tracking down keilbasa sales.
Anonymous

This is why I always use a fake name and address when filling out the application for grocery store customer cards. I don’t want anyone mining through my purchasing data for any reason.
izkhandr

Maybe when they start finding pet shops being raided for its dogs, you know the north koreans are guilty of something.
Halloween Jack

Not to perpetuate another stereotype or anything, but this sounds exactly like the sort of brilliant strategy for fighting the Warren Terrah that you’d expect from guys named Phil Mudd and Willie T. Hulon.
mindysan33

You guys are all hella funny. And this so makes me want Falafel. Sooo good. And it reminds me that I knew a guy once who had a shirt that said ‘falafel house’ in arabic (like Waffle house, only for arabs… or something like that).

This makes my brain hurt. There are so many things wrong with it, I can’t even begin.

Mindy
Crash

This is the perfect opportunity for an enterprising falafel stand owner to drum up sales by presenting falafel consumption as a fashionable act of civil disobedience.