Thursday
Nov082007
Total Falafel Awareness
Issandr El Amrani
FBI Mined Grocery Store Records to Find Iranian Terrorists:
Bay Area FBI agents wanting to find Iranian secret agents data-mined grocery store records in 2005 and 2006, hoping that tahini purchases would lead them to domestic terrorists, according to Congressional Quarterly's Jeff Stein. The head of the FBI's criminal investigations unit - Michael Mason - shut down the Total Falafel Awareness program, arguing it would be illegal to put someone on a terrorist watch list for simply sticking skewers into lamb, Stein reports.Really this is getting ridiculous. Is that the best lead they can come up with? I also like the idea that would-be terrorist hiding in America are somehow exclusively eating their national foods. I bet Muhammad Atta and company ate tons of Twinkies, mexican food and loved the spicy chicken wings at Hooters.
Reader Comments (6)
Thanks god I do not pay for my kebab by credit card! I know many people who would be considered terrorist by their eating habits.
Accroding to what friends tell me, who knew Atta when he was still in Germany, you probably would not have found him at Hooters. They didn't mention if he liked Mexican food though...
Talking about kebab. I was in a Halal Kebab place in Britain recently. When the meat is halal you'd expect it to be rather authentic. But to my great disappointment his offer of sauces for the kebab was limited to...
"Do you want red sauce or brown sauce?"
Ah! I hate assimilated foreigners! I mean. Sure. Sing "god save the queen" when you get up. But please please please, do not adapt to British food "culture".
and falafel isn't "Iranian"
This can't be real. Besides how it makes no sense whatoever they'd have to at the very least notice that California has the largest Iranian population outside of Iran.
That's f-ing hilarious. Thanks.
Do Iranians even eat tahini?
Foreign Policy's blog points out that the reporter in the original piece introduced the falafel bit--the original investigation was based on Middle Eastern grocery stores more broadly. The clever "Total Falafel Awareness Program" bit seems to have been introduced by a Wired reporter:
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/6925
Making it all only slightly less ludicrous, of course.
And apologies for not reading through the entire piece before posting above, but check out the HILARIOUS update on the original link: a back and forth about the truthiness factor, between Jeff Stein of Congressional Quarterly and whatshisname from Wired.
I'm more inclined to believe CQ, knowing all the ridiculous things the FBI has done in the past.