The FBI's Newest Tool — Google Images 220
lee317 writes "The FBI recently used a photograph of Spanish politician Gaspar Llamazares as an example of what Osama Bin Laden might look like today. According to Reuters, Special Agent Jason Pack said a forensic artist had been unable to find suitable features from the FBI's database of photographs and used a picture from the Internet instead. That photo turned out to be one of Llamazares, who apparently looks strikingly similar to what the FBI thinks Bin Laden would look like with a few extra years on him. 'I am stupefied the FBI has used my photo — but it could have been anyone's — to compose a picture of a terrorist. It affects my honor, my own image and also the security of all us,' Llamazares said."
Terrorists!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
We should constantly live in fear of tribal men in caves 8000 miles away at all times. It's the new American way.
Re:Terrorists!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Corrected for you.
Re:Terrorists!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
That's right kids, he's dead. The US has been fighting a fucking ghost.
Re:Terrorists!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Because we've always been at war with Eurasia?
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see now, imagine the extra work old Winston will have to do because of new technology. When the war swaps over, will he have to go and change all the posts like the one above on all the forums. that would take a while
Re:Terrorists!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
No. We are at war with Eastasia. Do keep up. Eurasia (Russia) are our allies.
Terrorists!!!-Butterfly Effect. (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not the tribal man I fear. It's the crazies who listen to him, strap a suicide belt on and go blow innocents up.
Re:Terrorists!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
This whole article is odd in light of the fact that I'm pretty sure the FBI knows that bin Laden is dead. I mean the man was once releasing more videos each week than Tupac until he started toting that kidney dialysis machine through the mountains. Then... nothing.
After all, the FBI's counter-terrorism chief, Dale Watson, also http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2135473.stm [bbc.co.uk]admitted to believing that bin laden was dead eight (8) years ago.
Wait... and didn't Afghanistan's current president, Hamid Karzai, http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/central/10/06/karzai.binladen/ [cnn.com]admit to believing the same thing 8 years ago?
Wait... and didn't Israeli Intelligence also http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2002/me_terrorism_10_16.html [worldtribune.com]admit the same thing 8 years ago?
But I guess if you can keep the myth alive, then it becomes that much easier to keep support going for spending money on the current military action in Afghanistan.
Logic 101. (Score:2, Insightful)
Eh no, he tried to confirm it (Score:3, Informative)
He claims the news is erased from the MIND, not the internet (archives). He then backs up his claim by linking to past news stories that he says conflict with this one but apparently have been forgotten.
Sadly he does make another mistake, people may assume Bin Laden is death, but they have no evidence so they keep looking until they are 100% sure.
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After all, the FBI's counter-terrorism chief, Dale Watson, also http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2135473.stm [bbc.co.uk]admitted to believing that bin laden was dead eight (8) years ago.
"Is (Bin Laden) alive or is he dead?" Mr Watson said. "I am not really sure of the answer... I personally think he is probably not with us anymore but I have no evidence to support that."
Wait... and didn't Afghanistan's current president, Hamid Karzai, http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/central/10/06/karzai.binladen/ [cnn.com]admit to believing the same thing 8 years ago?
"I would come to believe that [bin Laden] probably is dead," Karzai said on CNN's "Late Edition" on Sunday.
"But still, you never know. He might be alive. Five months ago, six months ago, I was thinking that he was alive.
Wait... and didn't Israeli Intelligence also http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2002/me_terrorism_10_16.html [worldtribune.com]admit the same thing 8 years ago?
The Israeli sources said Israel and the United States assess that Bin Laden probably died in the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan in December. They said the emergence of new messages by Bin Laden are probably fabrications, Middle East Newsline reported.
Oh, yes. The damning evidence is just piling up.
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More to the point, lets see what evidence there is that the individual is still alive and not blurry videos of, well, people who just look similar. Past patterns of behaviour would indicate the leaders amongst the various terrorist factions have quite the ego and once they have developed a taste for being on camera, they do not stop. Of course you could say it is difficult to smuggle a video camera to the location of the terrorist leaders but then, well, what kind of threat would they be, can't smuggle a c
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C'mon, man. Osama bin Laden is like... oh, Santa Claus. He's the guy who keeps on giving!
We've killed his #2, what, 10 times by now? Granted, they were different #2s, and were probably the #1 of some Taliban group not OBL's #2, but yeah, it's been a couple times by now.
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But I guess if you can keep the myth alive, then it becomes that much easier to keep support going for spending money on the current military action in Afghanistan.
If the FBI has reason to believe he's dead and is still "keeping the myth alive", I'd guess the reason is much simpler. They're covering their own collective asses - if it turns out that he's not dead, and he pops up again, someone's going to get fired, at best. So it's better to keep going through the motions.
So many people here forget basic human nature when it comes to large organizations.
Re:Terrorists!!! (Score:5, Informative)
We should constantly live in fear of tribal men in caves 8000 miles away at all times.
Osama isn't tribal.
He's medieval.
His family made its fortune in heavy construction for the Saudi royal family. Net worth $7 billion.
Chicken feed. Prince Alwaleed alone is worth $18 billion. No Saudi whatever his merit or ambition can climb higher so long as his family rules.
Do I have to tell you how this story ends?
Neither is it psychologically insignificant that building the iconic mosque or royal palace was where the bin Ladens began.
Osama has spent his entire life on the outside looking in.
Close but no cigar.
Rich List 2009 - 7# The Bin Laden Family [arabianbusiness.com]
Re:Terrorists!!! (Score:4, Funny)
But, Señor Llamazares is a Commie (Score:2, Funny)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaspar_Llamazares [wikipedia.org]
Re:But, Señor Llamazares is a Commie (Score:5, Funny)
Indeed (Score:4, Insightful)
But, Señor Llamazares is a Commie
Fortunately for him he lives in a society where you can formulate political opinion from a variety of sources and not resort to a childish game of name calling and vague nonsensical grandstanding. In many parts of the world, you can call yourself a communist or a marxist or a socialist and then have a discussion about what that means.
Stateside, I bet many people would consider calling the police. But such is the state of our populace: hysterical cowards and uneducated drones, ready to plead fealty to whatever entity promises them the most convenience and security.
Indeed WTF? (Score:2)
But, Señor Llamazares is a Commie
Fortunately for him he lives in a society where you can formulate political opinion from a variety of sources and not resort to a childish game of name calling and vague nonsensical grandstanding. In many parts of the world, you can call yourself a communist or a marxist or a socialist and then have a discussion about what that means.
Stateside, I bet many people would consider calling the police. But such is the state of our populace: hysterical cowards and uneducated drones, ready to plead fealty to whatever entity promises them the most convenience and security.
And yet for those who clicked on a Reuters story we didn't see this calling of the police by uneducated drones, and hysterical cowards. Of course we didn't have an intellectual discussion of what it means to be communist, but then the story was basically "we goofed" and an apology.
Sounds like some of you have too many axes to grind.
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In many parts of the world, you can call yourself a communist or a marxist or a socialist and then have a discussion about what that means.
But not in the good old USA. Where McCarthy wired electrodes to our testicles and successfully conditioned our response to the term "Communist".
Its interesting to note that the basis for McCarthy's witch hunt was never emphasized: The fear that a political party could be manipulated by foreign powers to influence our political system for their benefit. Which was a valid concern at the time. But we've conditioned people to jump at the word "Commie" while the political elite maintains the ability to inject th
"hysterical cowards and uneducated drones, (Score:3, Interesting)
ready to plead fealty to whatever entity promises them the most convenience and security"
this is true of every society on this planet, and every society that ever existed, and any society that ever will exist. its the trailing end of the bell curve, what can you do? so you don't have to like the usa, but don't single out the usa for the crimes of humanity itself
i'm an american, and i can have an open rational discussion of the benefits/ failures of communism, socialism, capitalism, libertarianism, marxism,
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"Fortunately for him..."
It's not just him that benefits -- everyone benefits when political and social ideas can be discussed openly without hysteria.
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May be so, but here in Spain what you cannot call yourself without being frowned upon is "right winger". And that includes anyone that doesn't agree with socialism. Once you get branded as a right winger, conservative or economically liberal it's down the inevitable slope to being called fascist and then ostracized.
Re:Indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
Fortunately for him he lives in a society where you can formulate political opinion from a variety of sources and not resort to a childish game of name calling and vague nonsensical grandstanding.
Heh, I wish.
Yes, it's completely true that communists (and all of them, including Stalinists) aren't inherently despised and feared here like they are in the US, and that they openly discuss their political believes without facing extremely strong opposition. In exchange, however, many people in many European countries despise neocons, strongly capitalist conservatives and libertarians (moderates and Ayn Rand-ite alikes) as "American scumbags" (or, if they are pro-military as well, "fucking Nazis"). "Free Speech? How could you *possibly* defend these racist fuckers? The government is right in censoring their hate speech!" Europe is just as extreme in many regards, it just has different "enemies" and acceptances.
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So yeas everywhere has a range from the median that you can freely t
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Where it has been tried except in tribal communities and modern days communes?
Surely you weren't tricked by the claims of oligarchies that called themselves communist? (not that it can work on the scale of a country...)
Re:Indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
not that it can work on the scale of a country...
No pure ideology works on the scale of a modern country (pop > ~1,000,000)
Pure democracy doesn't work for anything larger than Ancient Athens. Democracy still has pretty good ideas that are worth implementing in a system to govern a large populace. Communism is the same thing.
Just because the US was in a 40-year penis-waving battle with a country that claimed to be communist doesn't mean anything. Open Source certainly borrows much of its core ideology from communism. Linux, Firefox, Apache, etc all seem to be working quite well for me.
You see the same thing with Socialism. "La-la-la, health care, Obama, socialism, I can't hear you!". We've had socialist fire protection service in the US for 200 years. Everybody pays, everybody is covered, and that works much better than the alternative systems of the past.
Communist. Democratic. Socialist. Capitalist. Fascist. Republican. Anarchist.
Why worry about the labels? Take the best ideas from all of them and mix them to make a system that works.
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Communism fails because it must exterminate rights, such as that to private property, to exist. That's not a matter of "labels".
Communism also fails because it inherently facilitates the rise of Bolsheviks/Maoists, who are best suited to killing people who oppose Communism.
Re:Indeed (Score:5, Funny)
So that's why fire trucks are red.
Re:Indeed (Score:4, Insightful)
No pure ideology works on the scale of a modern country (pop > ~1,000,000)
Pure democracy doesn't work for anything larger than Ancient Athens.
I dunno, it works pretty well over here in Switzerland [wikipedia.org], population somewhere between 7 and 8 million.
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No pure ideology works on the scale of a modern country (pop > ~1,000,000)
Pure democracy doesn't work for anything larger than Ancient Athens.
I dunno, it works pretty well over here in Switzerland [wikipedia.org], population somewhere between 7 and 8 million.
Fair enough, although from my limited understanding of Switzerland their level of internal order seems to be more the natural result of the Swiss culture and collective thinking process than an example of what a 'Pure Democracy' can achieve for a country.
If you are someone who likes their trains to run on time, I'm not so sure the magic bullet lies in simply changing the country's governmental structure; the Swiss are a wonderful addition to Humanity's tapestry of life but people who prioritise the importan
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Pure democracy doesn't work for anything larger than Ancient Athens.
And Athens didn't have universal suffrage. It's easier to have time to be involved in politics when you have slaves doing the hard work.
Re:Indeed (Score:5, Informative)
Please show me a society in which no participant has any desire for power, money, or both. Capitalism isn't great, but Communism has only served those who've used it to gain power and money.
There are many small communities based off the idea of communism, and they seem to be working well enough. Here is a larger community that seems to pull off the idea pretty well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Family [wikipedia.org] My sister in law was involved with the Rainbow Family for many years and generally lived a simple life of working and providing for each other in the community. Not everything thinks of only money and power at the end of the day, just most people it seems.
Re:Indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
Where people know each other and are in a group where there is significant trust involved then Communism might be viable to a degree but the problem is that a lot of people mistakingly extend the concept to large, inhomogeneous groups that are nothing of the sort. Small groups sure, whole countries? No.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The basic idea is that human societies can function in a communal state as long as the size of the community doesn't exceed Dunbar's number [wikipedia.org], which represents the most number of people an individual can really know personally before they start stereotyping.
I've often thought that returning to communities of this size would be beneficial for humanity, except then you lose the intellectual cross-pollination that occurs in large cities when there's a huge number of people together. A simple life, working with t
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That's a bunch of people taking a vacation together, not a viable self supporting community.
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Indeed. Last year I talked for a while with a friend from the Forest Service in Pinedale, NV. It was sometime in late June, and he was telling me how horrible these gatherings are. He said in short, that they came in in VW busses and set up camp in the forest, without proper sanitation, garbage collection, etc. He said they were mostly drugged up constantly, many were naked, and they came into town and got into fights with the locals, shoplifted, and did such things as urinate on produce (so the shop owners
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It looks like you have heard something about Marx' works, but not much and all of it pretty distorted. Never heard of the dictatorship of the proletariat? This is how the transitional state was called by the communists themselves. The rest of your assumptions is equally distorted.
You also refuse to see that the modern society - with all its workers rights, 40 hour week and so on - was allowed because of the fear of communist revolution. Because in the 19th century working conditions really sucked and the so
Re:Indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
The same can be said for capitalism. Indeed, all economic systems inherently favor those who exploit flaws in the system to gain power and money or goods. Even the barter system. Short of having so much abundance that everyone's needs are fully met, there will always be people who are willing to abuse the system for personal gain. It's not even clear that this would go away even with such abundance.
Power attracts the corrupt and the corruptible. All economic systems require someone to have power to maintain order the system, whether it's the judges in a tribal barter system, the leaders of Russia's communist party, the heads of corporations, etc. Therefore, abuse of any economic system is guaranteed, given sufficient time.
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Re:Indeed (Score:4, Insightful)
On this topic, my favorite saying goes like this: "In Capitalism, Man takes advantage of Man. In Communism, it is the other way around."
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In communist Russia the government controls the corporations.
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Look at Russia. They went from a monarchy where the ruling class lived in luxury while the peasants lived as peasants. Then they moved to communism where the ruling class changed, but now they also controlled every aspect of society 'for the good of the people' while the workers lived as peasants. Then they changed to democracy. Wohoo. Now the ruling class was still living in luxury, the common citizens were still living in the same general conditions.
The problem comes when the ruling class in whatever form
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Therefore, abuse of any economic system is guaranteed, given sufficient time.
Indeed, which is why inherently limited systems like social democratic or liberal democratic are vastly superior to either communism or capitalism. The only people who claim otherwise are the corrupt or the ignorant.
I used to be one of the ignorant, of the capitalist variety, so I have some sympathy for the species, but anyone who reaches the age of thirty or forty and has not become either a social or liberal democrat (I'm a lib
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The problem is that political parties that use the labels "social democrats" or "liberal democrats" may or may not have anything to do with the descriptions you just gave.
I completely agree that extreme, black-and-white policies such as pure capitalism or total communism are folly. But, to give one example, the Liberal Democrats here in the UK are waaaaaay more socialist than your description of "liberal democrat" would suggest. This country under Labour has become a textbook example of the fundamental tens
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Are you serious?! Those communities I mentioned were essentially large families; literally - vast majority of members were related to smaller or larger degree. It was a natural state for our species for quite some time.
That it worked is only natural (evolutionary pressure); what I am skeptical of is of course whether or not similar things can work on larger scale (depends on the society of course, some countries pull off "rotten socialism" quite well or have thriving local communities, which has aspects of
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They certainly are one of the most powerful counties. They really took off when they embraced capitalism. Back when they tried collective farming & such under Mao during the cultural revolution (you know, REAL communism) millions starved.
What they have now is totalitarian capitalism. Worst of both worlds.
Re:Indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, that wasn't the only reason. Add trade embargoes, cold war, foreign intervention and so on - every time a communist country emerges suddenly half of the world tries to destroy its political and economical base.
Re:Indeed! But its true - leadership is everything (Score:3, Interesting)
Ben Franklin said any government is fine if it is well administered. He is correct.
All governments fall to despotism eventually as history has shown to be the case; Franklin basically stated this at the end of the constitutional convention.
No, not exact quotes, I can think beyond those; having found them before. If you want it the source quotes go find them like I did (well, I didn't have internet back then...)
--------
Grandparent is spot on. Americans don't know jack - its like brave new world; we need a te
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In point of fact, democracy has also failed everywhere it has been tried. As has every other political system so far. Nothing lasts forever, and sometimes you just have to clear the boards and start over, hopefully having learned something from previous efforts. ;-)
Re:Indeed (Score:5, Informative)
Our populace has many kinds of idiots, including those that think the only reason communism has failed everywhere it's been tried is because the right people weren't in charge.
If you look at many communist states they grew spectacularly despite many abuses in the system. Russia under communism for instance grew from a pre-industrial backwater that got beat down by the Japanese to a world superpower that pushed back the german war machine. Cuba grew from a defacto US plantation colony into an independent state with an infant mortality rate lower than that of the US [wikipedia.org]. China became the workshop of the world under communism and the biggest US creditor holding USD 740 billion in U.S. debt. All 3 of these grew from dirt poor to states with good healthcare and education surpassing others in their region. To say they have "failed" is simplistic at best.
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"China became the workshop of the world under communism..."
No, they became workshop to the world when they embraced capitalism. When they tried collective farming & such during the cultural revolution millions starved. Pretty much the same happened in Russia. In all 3 countries you have incredible amounts of poverty, shortages of goods, etc.. I recall my neighbor's sister visiting from East Germany back in the early 80's. I took her a decade just to get permission to make the trip. She literally cri
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Regarding China I can recommend this TED presentation [ted.com] which shows quite nicely the change in priorities between the "communist" and "state capitalist" periods in China around the 03:50 mark. The fact there is starvation in the midst of a revolution or civil war should come as a surprise to no one and really doesn't say much about the actors in those events.
I'm not saying there were no institutional problems, such as forcing collectivization on farmers who historically are fiercely individualist and the whol
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.... and if it hadn't been for communism, these countries would have somehow been bypassed by the 20th century and remained in the same state?
This sort of fallacy is commonly employed by apologists of these murderers. I grew up in Ceausescu's Romania, and from time to time I would hear some old idiot saying "look what the communists built -- now we have paved roads in the village, in 1946 we didn't have them". Well, those roads were built in spite of communism, not because of it. The correct comparison is w
The Monkeysphere (Score:2)
And what about capatalism? (Score:3, Insightful)
The free market, how does it stand with the US economy in tatters, the banks going on as if nothing has happened, 10% unemployment, a national debt that can never be paid off.
What is most amazing about your kind is that you never can admit that your system has been failing rather badly as well. Americans are like the british, still proud of their empire, long after it crumbled. Nero playing emperor while Rome burns.
Blame google not FBI (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Blame google not FBI (Score:5, Funny)
Osama Bin Laden now [wordpress.com]
Re:Blame google not FBI (Score:5, Funny)
Of course, the irony in that statement is that now the top link for osama bin laden now HAS a picture of the Spanish politician. [google.com]
Me BAD (Score:2)
So what did they search for? (Score:2)
Biometrics (Score:2)
Sounds like a fucking great combination with biometric data. How are they coming along with facial recognition?
Amateur hour yet again. (Score:2, Redundant)
First the CIA jails and interrogates people when it is no part of their charter to do so and they have no training at it, producing an unmitigated diplomatic disaster for the USA and no valuable information. Now the FBI assembles "wanted" photos using Google images.
Where does the incompetence in the American security apparatus end?
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Seriously, doesn't OBL have 50 half brothers or something? Some of them must be older than him.
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Then again, making that mistake in middle school isn't likely to get someone deeply inconvenienced, embarrassed, or, y'know, shot. Maybe we should hold the security services to a higher standard if they are to be granted powers that the common citizen does not have?
Then again, these are the same security services who IIRC managed to put a US senator and a world-renowned peace campaigner, among others, on "terrorist" watch lists. I guess expecting any exercise of common sense was just wishful thinking.
Sue the FBI (Score:5, Funny)
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Does the FBI own the rights to the image they're showing around? Aren't they violating copyright? Can't they be sued for millions in made up damages?
Nope, in the US you can use the image of a public figure for many purposes-- he's fair game. Of course, he might win a case of defamation if he could show generally that members of any significant group he's in actually *believed* he were Osama based on the picture.
His only recourse will be diplomatic.
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That is as long as the image is taken by FBI or FBI cleared rights to that particular image.
They used it in another picture as well! (Score:3, Insightful)
Something must be quite wrong when a forensic artist uses google images to find suitable features.
But it is even more worrying that they used Llamazare's features for another picture!
They took the Spanish PM's eyes and hair again for an image of a _different_ wanted terrorist:
http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2010/01/16/internacional/1263662696.html
http://www.rewardsforjustice.net/index.cfm?page=atiyah_abd&language=english
One wonders about the reliability of such wanted pictures, when it seems they serial produce them, cutting and pasting from the same image...
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One wonders about the reliability of such wanted pictures, when it seems they serial produce them, cutting and pasting from the same image...
... unless they were looking for very general-looking features, that display a recognizable trait. They don't need to be precise to be reliable. Consider how we can recognize caricatures of celebrities from very stylized cartoon drawings.
But that makes it even more disturbing that they'd use a real and recognizable person, without his knowledge. It's not that his features matched exactly what they want, it's that they feel he has some generally useful features that can be used in a variety of composites.
Next stop- no fly list (Score:3, Insightful)
How long till Gaspar Llamazares ends up on the no fly lst because of this?
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Not too long now. Hell, Ted Kennedy's still on the list.
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Hell, Ted Kennedy's still on the list.
And he's dead to boot!!
coincidence? (Score:5, Funny)
You know I've never seen Bin Laden and this Gaspar Llamazares fellow in the same place at the same time. Just saying...
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I've never seen George Walker Bush and Barack Obama in the same place at the same time. I've seen video purported to show as much, but we all know what they can do with that these days.
I guess you missed the obama inauguration then http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/44_01_21/4425_17677757.jpg [boston.com]
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Your wish is my command:
Here's a photo and an article of http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34893608/ns/world_news-haiti_earthquake/ [msn.com] entitled "Obama enlists Bush, Clinton to help on Haiti" that depicts George Walker Bush and Barack Obama in the same place at the same time. I think it's safe to say that this is a real photo.
"Special agent"... (Score:2)
Baseless arguments (Score:3, Funny)
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I knew it all along (Score:3, Funny)
Gray (Score:3, Interesting)
Has anyone else noticed the trend for news sites to make their text whiter and whiter, while maintaining a pure white background? I'm not a web designer, but as a user, this is getting really annoying.
Oh, and strangely enough, the title of the article is actually the same exact color as the main text: #666666.
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FBI must be legally blind (Score:4, Funny)
That guy doesn't represent what bin Laden would look like now. You can tell because:
Are you him? (Score:2)
Then congratulations! YOU can be our next international terrorist! But, don't count yourself out just because you look like a white American. If you've ever visited one of the countries on our list and especially if you happened to be photographed while wearing the local fashions (we really like turbans), then you c
Wow (Score:2)
This reminds me of... (Score:2)
It used to be a great conversation topic, something like "oh yeah, and I'm one of the top ten wanted of the PGR" "naw, you're joking" "you don't beleive me? google it yourself" "oh shit, you really are".
Just a cut and paste job? (Score:2)
First of all, I don't think Gaspar has much to worry about. The primary facial features of bin Laden appear to have been pasted over his photo. Other then the hair, they don't loo alike at all.
What does bother me is that; it takes quite a bit more than cut and paste (and throwing some gray into the hair) to properly 'age' a photograph. Changes to the nose, ears, winkles, creases, and bags under the eyes all have to be calculated and incorporated into the new photo. Was that actually done? Or did someone ju
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Re:Wait, what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wait, what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ignorance and stupidity aren't exclusive American traits.
When it takes the form of McCarthyism, it invariably is.
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Because he's the individual in question.
Slashdot requires you to wait longer between hitting 'reply' and submitting a comment.
It's been 17 seconds since you hit 'reply'. Chances are, you type faster than 1 WPM.
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And he hasn't been near Pakistan for years....
Re:Fashion (Score:4, Interesting)
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I have a feeling that he's in the US
I actually saw a guy three or four years ago in a rest stop somewhere near Albany NY who looked amazingly like Osama, dressed in long robe and turban and everything. He was washing his sandalled feet in the bathroom sink.
Admittedly I suck at facial recognition, and in my memory he is quite a bit younger, but the resemblance was sufficiently uncanny to make me wonder sometimes if your speculation isn't actually on the mark...