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 falafel. Harmless fast food or racial profiling tool?

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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