{"id":191347,"date":"2009-08-31T17:39:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-31T22:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/08\/31\/they-were-photographing-me-from-black-helicopters-today\/"},"modified":"2009-08-31T17:39:00","modified_gmt":"2009-08-31T22:39:00","slug":"they-were-photographing-me-from-black-helicopters-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/08\/31\/they-were-photographing-me-from-black-helicopters-today\/","title":{"rendered":"They Were Photographing Me from Black Helicopters Today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Because I was in the back yard, preparing Maghm\u016bma With Asparagus, it&#8217;s a sort of an Arab pot pie called a &#8220;covered dish&#8221; from the book <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">From Annals of the Caliphs\u2019 Kitchens<\/span>, translated by Nawal Nasrallah.  It dates from the 1400s or so.<\/p>\n<p>I was doing it in the fire-pit of my smoker, because I was checking out the recipe for &#8220;Trial by Fire&#8221;, a medieval cooking competition that is conducted under camping conditions, which means that I was preparing Arab food <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">outside<\/span>, which means that the FBI was surveilling me.<\/p>\n<p>I know what you are saying:  This guy has gone completely around the bend.  Totally paranoid.  The FBI isn&#8217;t profiling people because they eat Middle Eastern cuisine.<\/p>\n<p>You know, what you are saying right now <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">sounds<\/span> right, but unfortunately, the <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.sfweekly.com\/foodie\/2007\/11\/following_the_falafel_trail_fb.php\">FBI <span style=\"font-size:130%;\">IS<\/span> profiling people because they eat Middle Eastern cuisine<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\"><p>Hoping that spikes in falafel and tahini purchases in the Bay Area would blaze a trail to Iranian secret agents, in 2005 and 2006, the FBI mined grocery store records for Middle Eastern food sales in the South San Francisco-San Jose area. According to Congressional Quarterly, the project didn&#8217;t last long and didn&#8217;t lead to any falafel-related prosecutions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Not only is this morally wrong and unbelievably f$#@ing stupid, but it <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">actually happened<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>This is why civil rights and limits on law enforcement matter: because without these limits, law enforcement can, and <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">will<\/span> engage in the most abusive dumb-ass behavior imaginable.<\/p>\n<p>BTW, the Maghm\u016bma turned out very well, as did the crust, though next time, I&#8217;ll crack the coriander seeds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Because I was in the back yard, preparing Maghm\u016bma With Asparagus, it&#8217;s a sort of an Arab pot pie called a &#8220;covered dish&#8221; from the book From Annals of the Caliphs\u2019 Kitchens, translated by Nawal Nasrallah. It dates from the 1400s or so. I was doing it in the fire-pit of my smoker, because I &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1012,1041,986],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-law-enforcement-misconduct","category-middle-east"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191347"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}