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FBI Uses Spanish MP's Photo for Osama Bin Laden Poster
A Spanish politician has said he was shocked to find out the FBI had used his photo for a digitally-altered image showing how Osama Bin Laden might look.
A photo of Bin Laden from 1998 (left) was digitally altered using elements from an image of Gaspar Llamazares (right) Gaspar Llamazares said he would no longer feel safe traveling to the US after his hair and parts of his face appeared on a most-wanted poster.
He said the use of a real person for the mocked-up image was "shameless".
The FBI admitted a forensic artist had obtained certain facial features "from a photograph he found on the internet".
The digitally-altered photos of the al-Qaeda leader, showing how he might look now, aged 52, were published on the state department's Rewards for Justice website on Friday.
Officials said they had adapted a 1998 file image to take account of a decade's worth of aging, and possible changes to facial hair.
'Unintentional and inadvertent'
Mr Llamazares, 52, the former leader of the United Left coalition in parliament, said he could not believe it when he was first told about the similarity between himself and the new photo-fit of Bin Laden.
He said he soon realized that his forehead, hair and jaw-line had been "cut and pasted" from an old campaign photograph.
"I was surprised and angered because it's the most shameless use of a real person to make up the image of a terrorist," he told a news conference.
"It's almost like out of a comedy if it didn't deal with matters as serious as Bin Laden and citizens' security."
The FBI claimed to have used "cutting edge" technology, but Mr Llamazares said it showed the "low level" of US intelligence services and could cause problems if he was wrongly identified as the Saudi.
"Bin Laden's safety is not threatened by this but mine certainly is," he said, adding that he was considering taking legal action.
Later, an FBI spokesman told the BBC that it was "aware of the similarities in hairline features of the age-progressed photograph of Osama Bin Laden, posted on the web yesterday, and that of an existing photograph of a Spanish public official".
"When producing age-progressed photographs, forensic artists typically select features from a database of stock reference photographs to create the new image."
"After a preliminary review, it appears that in this instance 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."
"The forensic artist was not aware of the identity of the individual depicted in the photograph. The similarities between the photos were unintentional and inadvertent."
19 Comments so far
Show AllOsama bin Ladin died in December 2001
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/osama_dead.html
That is more than likely the case.
But even if he is alive, the idea of combining Osama Bin Laden with this other guy is just whacky.
I thought so too. And for quite a while. As far as O.B.L. not being among the living. However,
I trust Robert Fisk. He would know. And in a recent interview in Germany, he said that he knows for sure he is definitely still among the living.
the real danger is that bin Ladin could now just walk into the Spanish parliament unchallenged!
Sr. Llamazares must look at his own photo quite often. I'm quite sure I wouldn't recognise my hair and forehead if assembled into someone else's face.
If this has happened as is alleged, here's an original idea for the operative of 'cutting edge technology' : Use a photograph of Bin Laden. Neat, eh?
If only US Agencies would just grow up and move on from wild west 'dead or alive', bounty based, 'pack of cards' based (as in Iraq) nonsense and join the real world.
I thought they used photos of the parents to "age-progress" the pictures of children, so why not use photos of BinLaden's family members to photo-shop his likeness? I'll bet Bush or Cheney still have some in their wallets...
Geez, I hope for poor Señor Llamazares' sake that the image in question doesn't accidently get programmed into all those ultra-sophisticated drones the US has been using to such great effect overseas.
If he shows his face outdoors without a ski mask or parasol, some satellite may tweak a conscientious robot-brain-- and the drone it's driving might suddenly make a hard left toward the Iberian peninsula.
· Yr Obd't Servant
The FBI clearly needs help from the tabloids.
The tabloids have sophisticated off-the-shelf morphing software programs that cost about $29.99 and which are used to generate sensationalist blats such as "Hitler found in the Rockies" and "wolf" children etc. Oops! I almost forgot Elvis.
I think there is some freeware too, if their budget does not allow the above.
wow and in what country would you rather be living in
right about now.
1 they have an active democracy
2 they have a national health care system
3 they prosecute human rights violators
4 they are doing 3 for us as we have become so corrupt
that this isn't a priority for us or will it be allowed
5 spain will be one of the countries we look at as a model
for rebuilding our own democracy.
6 their independent press don't take down posts if they
don't fall in line with web sites own personal tastes
like cd does!
I wouldn't believe the FBI if they swore they were lying. I think the fact that he is a former Left leader in Parliamemt is significant. Perhaps that was the goal after all- to stigmatize this guy, and not for some poster of ObL.
Who's the bigger idiot here? Everyone already knows the FBI and CIA agencies are complete idiots Llammares(sp) should just have ignored any similarity he thought he saw. He looks nothing like the doctored bin Laden photo. If a layperson who posted here pointed out that bin Laden family photos could have been used and age-adjusted, it's a sad day indeed when the professionals can't figure out something as elementary as that.
Except as another example - do we need more? - of rank official incompetence, this photo story is such non-news - especially by now, when the world knows what futz-ups the official agencies have been in all of the messes we're in today.
OBL's version of his religion requires that men's chin-hair be at least one fistful long.
Did the artist appear to acknowledge this very elementary fact?
Yep, non-news. Look at the eye spacing, lower jaw.
This article is another reason the progressive movement can't get traction; too many diversions, wasted energy.
OK, that does it. Who's game to create an Osama Bin Bush in Photoshop?
Watching some of the Golden Globes tonight, I had to wonder if James Cameron might be related to Paul McCartney. I would be curious to know if anybody else here at CD may have shared that thought, or might know anything about this possibility. (Slightly off-topic, I realize, but this item did trigger my recollection.)
cut-and-pasting edge.
Still traces of J. Edgar Hoover level technology. And J. Edgar Hoover thinking.
Of course they used the image of a leftist politician...
This story is just one more that demonstrates the utter fraud that is the Global War On Terror.