This is too good not to share, almost as good as the FBI going after almanac carriers.

There’s some delightful logic in this. Terrorists sure like falafel, right? Therefore, if you find people that eat a lot of falafel, they’re sure to be terrorists!

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 entire article is here, and is worth reading if only for the unironic use of the word “brainchild.”