Buy a falafel, become a terror suspect?

Buy a falafel, become a terror suspect? At least, that's what the FBI was considering.

The FBI examined customer data collected by San Francisco-area grocery stores 2005/06, hoping that sales of Middle Eastern grocery items and food might lead them to Iranian terrorists.

According to sources, the the program was the brainchild of top FBI counter-terrorism officials Phil Mudd and Willie Hulon. The idea was to combine a perceived spike in sales with other data to target possible agents.

The program was derailed when some bright person (actually, the head of the FBI's criminal investigations division, Michael A. Mason) noted that placing someone on a terrorism watch list because of their diet could be illegal.

On the other hand, when has that stopped the Bush Administration before?