Find the falafel

Once in a while I catch myself thinking, 'Why is it that there's been no terrorist attack on US soil, or even an attempt at one, since 9/11? Could it be that the intelligence community in the USA learned from that devastating attack, brushed up their act and are making real progress?'
From now on, whenever I think that, I should remember this report from CQ (Congressional Quarterly):

[T]he 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.

Not only does this story reveal what kind of bigotry and prejudice apparently passes for professionalism among the people who are the last line of defense between Al-Qaeda and the United States, it also makes clear that the Feds have no clue where to look.

And I'm not saying that because I like falafel.