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Have a look at this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8463657.stm

I'll state here that there is no offence intended towards anyone from the USA.

I'm just wondering how the 'supposedly' most well informed tendril of America can make such a stupid mistake?!

The FBI is run by people, all of which are capible of making mistakes.

Would it make you feel better if you didn't know who's hair that was?

Methinks that it´s because some of his proposed laws struck terror in the heart of the Spaniards

M.

Um a lazy photoshopper used a pic from the internet.

this is news why?

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Um a lazy photoshopper used a pic from the internet.

this is news why?

Umm, because it comes from one of the most high-powered security services on the face of the Earth?

Seriously. Is this what our intelligence comes down to? A badly photo-shopped picture of a Spanish MP being passed off as public-enemy number one? Why? Is it supposed to make us feel safer? Or are we just supposed to laugh at Americans?

Lolocaustic soda.

sA

I read that story yesterday as well, whilst its no defence of the FBI (i dont doubt they are capable of mind numbing stupidty as well) i have to say that the Brits have nothing to laugh about. In my ten years of service i came to the conclusion that our intelligence services are as jaw dropingly spank as anything the Americans can throw out there.

The yanks get the most gak because they do the most work. In Afgahnistan 9 out of every 10 bombs dropped by "coalition" (USA/UK lets be honest) aircraft are American. The American airforce saved my life 10 times over, and then i return home and in the pub everyone is laughing at the Americans and slagging them off for blowing us up. When you drop 1500+ bombs in a six month period, a few are going to land off target.

Sure the FBI are dogshit. But the offices of MI6 are no doubt a clusterfeth as well. How many "secret" documents have they left in Taxis the last few years!?

That's friggin' hilarious. Mattyrm has a good point in that the US in no way has a monopoly on stupid "intelligence" operatives though.

Who knew that the advanced aging software they used was actually google image search and photoshop?

mattyrm wrote:I read that story yesterday as well, whilst its no defence of the FBI (i dont doubt they are capable of mind numbing stupidty as well) i have to say that the Brits have nothing to laugh about. In my ten years of service i came to the conclusion that our intelligence services are as jaw dropingly spank as anything the Americans can throw out there.

The yanks get the most gak because they do the most work. In Afgahnistan 9 out of every 10 bombs dropped by "coalition" (USA/UK lets be honest) aircraft are American. The American airforce saved my life 10 times over, and then i return home and in the pub everyone is laughing at the Americans and slagging them off for blowing us up. When you drop 1500+ bombs in a six month period, a few are going to land off target.

Sure the FBI are dogshit. But the offices of MI6 are no doubt a clusterfeth as well. How many "secret" documents have they left in Taxis the last few years!?

Firstly the picture above actually made me laugh. I feel bad for the politician but dammit, thats funny!

And Im actually shocked at hearing a non American defend us for once.
But ya, the FBI has done some real doozys in the past

J.Black wrote:Have a look at this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8463657.stm

I'll state here that there is no offence intended towards anyone from the USA.

I'm just wondering how the 'supposedly' most well informed tendril of America can make such a stupid mistake?!

This is not an issue, the only mistake was releasing part of the source palette. The FBI collaged the images together, they didn't take a photo of someone who looks like they think Bin Laden looks like and say 'he looks like this man'.

Gaspar Llamazares is using this issue to cause a stir and get sympathy votes, yes its not his fault, but its not his likeness. Only an imbecile would mistake him for Bin Laden.

Point is projection of a human face over time requires samples of other faces. Had my face been used as one of the samples for a wanted poster I would not be bothered in the slightest, after its not my face. Its my hair colour or the shape of my eyebrows or lines in my face where my forehead looks like a five year older version of a wanted suspect who looked like I did five years ago in regards one one isolated facial feature or another.

To point out further, its just a palette like any other. The palette for age progressive photography is as large a database of human photos as can be mustered and a copy of a photo editing tool. It would be similar to complaining that there is a connection between kiddie porn images and gallery images here on Dakka because they both use .jpg colour palette and formatting.

Orlanth wrote:
Gaspar Llamazares is using this issue to cause a stir and get sympathy votes, yes its not his fault, but its not his likeness. Only an imbecile would mistake him for Bin Laden.

Well according to some news the TSA is full with imbeciles

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/nyregion/14watchlist.html?sudsredirect=true

Not that Mr Llamazares is going to fly to the USA anytime soon after blaming them for all the world evils for years but...

On a more serious note, this is what pisses me off of the entire so called war against terror issue; no liquids on board, no hand luggage, full body scans, no blankets, secret no fly lists... while the real effort, what should "win" the war, the intelligence work is being done in a half assed way by all the parties involved.

M.

One thing to remember about intelligence services is that they are nothing more than bureaucracies. The vast majority of people working in them do not possess genius level intellects, and are not necessarily committed to their jobs.

And when they fail, they are more interested in covering their asses than in solving the failures in the system.

M.

Yes. Just like any other person, in any other industry.

Why would you ever allow yourself to suffer for a mistake? Honor doesn't put food in your mouth.

FBI+money=whatever it takes(no offence if you work for the FBI)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

dogma wrote:One thing to remember about intelligence services is that they are nothing more than bureaucracies. The vast majority of people working in them do not possess genius level intellects, and are not necessarily committed to their jobs.

YES!!!!!

Why has the FBI made a mistake, because from what the news story put out its just that one guy looks like a young, shaves osama bin laden, would it be alright for the FBI to use a photo of someone not in polotics. They went with the best fit and as it turns out its an (aged and altered) Gaspar Llamazares. I would rather they do this then allow a mass murderer to slip through borders. The FBI, the CIA, MI5, MI6 and most others get things wrong but this time they did it right.

The problem for this look a like is that unlike most look a likes he can't make any money off of it

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6991299.ece

...a member of Spain’s Communist party and a critic of the US “war on terror”. It turned out Llamazares’s grey hair, jaw line and forehead had been simply cut and pasted from an old campaign photograph by an FBI technician...

...“The forensic artist was unable to find suitable features among the reference photographs and obtained those features, in part, from a photograph he found on the internet.”...

...“It’s almost like out of a comedy, if it didn’t deal with matters as serious as Bin Laden and citizens’ security.”...

Now I am no lawyer, but...

Seriously, the FBI screwed up majorly, and as they have retracted the photo officially, it is pretty clear that they know that they made a mistake.

“The forensic artist was unable to find suitable features among the reference photographs and obtained those features, in part, from a photograph he found on the internet.”

Instead of using official reference photos, they used Google. It really makes me wonder how they went about conceptualizing this photo.

"Hey, how does this one look? Do you like his hair?"

"Hmm... perhaps I do. It really suits his face don't you think?"

"Yeah, I suppose it does, I just like this guys hairstyle."

It is about time they put some politicians in their most wanted list. Though they don't need to alter the faces...

Well... an innocent man got his head blown off by our Secret Intelligence Service on the tube, because a surveillance officer nipped out for a quick wee-wee, so...

Albatross wrote:Well... an innocent man got his head blown off by our Secret Intelligence Service on the tube, because a surveillance officer nipped out for a quick wee-wee, so...

+1

You can find stupid people anywhere on the planet (I come across hundreds every day), fortunately not all of them have access to guns.

Orlanth wrote:Only an imbecile would mistake him for Bin Laden.

Which wouldn't be a problem if there were no imbeciles working in the armed forces, airport security, etc. But we all know there are people dumb enough in the world to blow someone's head off because his hair looks like Bin Laden's.

The 'dodgy dossier' which helped launch the Iraq War was cribbed off the internet.

Damn. This was started in an attempt to Troll. It is now heading dangerously close to a serious argument about international security agencies.

Please Lock!

Troll fail :,(