D’oh!

Osama bin Laden (center), FBI "aged" photos (left and right)
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

It turns out not only is the FBI good for counter-terrorism, domestic law enforcement and various other stuff. They’re also good at national comic relief.

Remember a few days ago the State Department released a photograph of what Osama bin Laden might look like today, having aged several years since we saw him last? I kind of figured they’d churned it out of some super-expensive, high-tech photo-age-o-matic device we’ve been spending homeland security dollars on.

Well, ‘fraid not.

It turns out the technician who produced the picture did so by combining bin Laden’s features with a photograph of another 52 year old guy he found using Google image search. Said FBI spokesman Ken Hoffman: “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.”

And it gets better.

It wasn’t just any random 52 year old on the web. It was a prominent left-wing Spanish politician named Gaspar Llamazares.

After the FBI’s admission the US Department of State has withdrawn the image.

Latest Editors' Blog
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: