A couple of diabolically ingenious (or phenomenally stupid) plans have been recently reported on in the media, both plans intended to ascertain where American Muslims be hanging out (so as to keep tabs on the potential terrorists hiding among them). The first was Los Angeles’ Muslim Mapping Project. At first I assumed that the LAPD intended to map the spread of Islam in the world since the birth of Muhammad…but then I realized that the department probably doesn’t employ many history or religion PhDs. “Muslim Mapping” must mean something else. Here is an excerpt from the LAPD officer who briefed the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (headed by Joe Lieberman):

“In order to give our officers increased awareness of our local Muslim communities, the LAPD recently launched an initiative with an academic institution to conduct an extensive “community mapping” project. We are also soliciting input of local Muslim groups, so the process can be transparent and inclusive. While this project will lay out the geographic locations of the many different Muslim population groups around Los Angeles, we also intend to take a deeper look at their history, demographics, language, culture, ethnic breakdown, socio-economic status, and social interactions. It is our hope to identify communities, within the larger Muslim community, which may be susceptible to violent ideologically-based extremism and then use a full-spectrum approach guided by an intelligence-led strategy…” [Link]

“We want to know where the Pakistanis, Iranians and Chechens are so we can reach out to those communities,” LAPD Deputy Chief Michael P. Downing was quoted by CBS news as saying Thursday. [Link]

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p>This plan actually makes a lot of sense to me (and doesn’t Downing seem downright neighborly?). It would be much too difficult to move all the Muslims into ghettos with well-defined boundaries. I don’t think Homeland Security has that kind of budget (yet). Why not use GIS data and other high tech strategies to simply make a virtual map of Muslims? I mean, Google Map already has overlays for satellite imagery, traffic, and street view. It wouldn’t be hard for Google to simply add a “Muslim neighborhoods” overlay to their GoogleMaps would it?

We have learned that Muslim communities in the U.S. are mistrustful of the mainstream media. Therefore, they may turn to other sources of information for news and socialization, such as the Internet. Unfortunately, despite all of the positive aspects of the Internet, it allows those individuals and groups with ideological agendas to easily make contact with like-minded individuals and access potentially destructive information. [Link]

Holy crap. I know that Muslims read our site and socialize here with like-minded individuals through comments. Despite the fact that I like this plan I hope we aren’t getting mapped as well.

As you might have guessed, people immediately started whining about this. Here is the LA City Beat’s critical take:

We can imagine Daryl Gates got a good chuckle during one of his jogs in the Monterey Hills as he pondered the suggestion by LAPD’s terrorism expert to map neighborhoods where Muslims hang out in Los Angeles. The bad idea ranks right down there with the political spying unit that flourished under Gates and amassed files on Mayor Tom Bradley and city councilmembers, among others.

Before we revert to the dark ages of the 1980s, the mayor and police commission must embark on a high-profile campaign to ensure that Deputy Chief Michael Downing’s mapping idea, even in the vague utterings given last week to a congressional subcommittee in Washington, D.C., finds a home in the deepest recesses of the very crowded Gates’s Hall of Fame of Bad Ideas.

Set aside the constitutional and ethical objections, it would be logistically impossible to come up with any sort of comprehensive map showing where the hundreds of thousands of Muslims reside in our diverse city. They, like the rest of us, are too scattered, from San Pedro to El Sereno, from Brentwood to Boyle Heights. You can crunch Census stats and other public records and you’ll never know our religion, if any. Muslims aren’t all called Mohammed. We don’t want any undercover cars in our neighborhoods keeping an eye on our Muslim neighbor. [Link]

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p>And then the plan was cancelled. Just like that:

The Los Angeles Police Department is scrapping its controversial plan to create a map detailing the Muslim communities in the sprawling metropolitan area, bowing to the outcry among Muslims and others that the project was a thinly disguised form of racial profiling.

“We put it out there, it was rejected, it’s dead on arrival,” the police chief, William J. Bratton, said at a news conference after a meeting with Muslim residents and civil rights organizations who had criticized the plan. “It will not be going forward…” [Link]

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p>Awww. Maybe this was just an idea ahead of its time. But…that wasn’t the only “cool” idea to recently surface. The next one is just full of awesomeness:

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.

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. [Link]

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p>Growing up, my family loved falafels. My mom made them at home and we sought them out at local restaurants. I know many other Indian families that love falafels as well. Anna once took me to a great falafel joint in Adams Morgan. I for one support ANY plan that would be able to help identify the best falafel joints (by tracking their raw materials) AND keep the homeland safe as an extra bonus. Again, imagine if GoogleMaps added an overlay feature identifying the best Middle Eastern restaurants with little falafel icons. Yum. But alas, this idea too was killed:

The program, however, was short lived and was quickly “torpedoed by the head of the FBI’s criminal investigations division, Michael A. Mason, who argued that putting somebody on a terrorist [watch] list for what they ate was ridiculous — and possibly illegal…” [Link]

Tom Friedman is right. As a country we have stopped innovating and seem to scrap our brightest ideas before they are allowed to mature. Is it any wonder we are falling behind the rest of the world?