This is an
interesting and at the same time disturbing story that was reported by Democracy Now on
Thursday:
FBI Monitored Sales At Middle Eastern
Grocery Stores
Congressional Quarterly is reporting that 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 secret agents. The idea was that a spike in, say, falafel sales,
combined with other data, would lead to Iranian agents in the region. The
program was the brainchild of top FBI counterterrorism officials Phil Mudd and
Willie Hulon. The datamining operation was eventually stopped after FBI
officials determined it was possibly illegal to place someone on a terrorist
list because of what they ate.
Here is a longer report by
Congressional Quarterly
Politics:
FBI Hoped to Follow Falafel Trail to Iranian
Terrorists Here
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.
... Payvand News - 11/09/07 ...
