FBI Used Facial Recognition Software To Identify Boston Bombers (SHH! Don't Tell Anyone!)

The lies and coverups started immediately after the Boston Marathon bombing of April 15^th, it seems. I have been keeping notes, but the deceptions, contradictions, and falsehoods come so fast and furious, and on a daily basis, that I haven't been able to summarize effectively with sufficient detail to prove the points. So I will put aside most of the misinformation, disinformation, and omissions for now and just focus on one glaring deception- the fact that the FBI used facial recognition software to match the photos from the bombing to databases of drivers' licenses, visa and passport and other photo banks to ID the suspects has been covered up, and the corporate propaganda system (aka “the media) has instead sought to mislead the public.

I assumed from the start, since there was immediate media chatter about how “the authorities” would be collecting surveillance video from cameras installed in the area as well as cellphone and camera pictures and videos taken by bystanders, that the FBI would seek to identify who placed the bombs by picking suspects and using facial recognition software run against photo databases to identify the culprits.

For me confirmation came from the sole media admission I'm aware of that facial recognition technology identified the bombers. On NPR, four days after the bombing on Friday, 4/19/12, 9 am EST, Tom Gjelten mentioned in passing that a picture from the marathon was matched with a driver's license photo of one of the bombers. He doesn't even say which bomber, or how it was “matched.” But there would only be one way to do it so quickly- facial recognition software.

Yet except for that, “the” media has not only kept this fact a secret, it has deliberately sought to mislead. It keeps throwing out red herrings, for example saying that surveillance footage in a store led to an ID. When you check out the details, there is nothing there; no assertion that someone recognized the bombers and came forward. We are also misled to believe that the FBI released photos of the suspects in order to ID them, when it fact this was done to aid their capture and to shake up the bombers. (Which succeeded, since they evidently panicked.)

I don't know what the Big Secret is. The FBI itself has publicly revealed its plans to expand its use of this technology. In fact, as long ago as October 2009 the AP put out a story about its use by the FBI in cahoots with the North Carolina State drivers' license photo bank. [1]

Another hidden fact: the New York City Police (NYPD) is using facial recognition technology with its system of thousands of surveillance cameras (mostly installed by businesses and corporations) that feed live time video to a CIA-veteran-run spy center at NYPD headquarters in lower Manhattan. Officially the NYPD denies using this software- it only admits to license plate reading technology. It also claims it only saves the video for 30 days- unless it's needed for an investigation.

Yet soon after the killing and capture of the Tsarnaev brothers, the NYPD announced that the brothers had visited Times Square last year- it identified them from cameras. Well, that's more than 30 days. Furthermore, millions of people pass through Times Square every year, including large numbers of tourists and commuters coming and going to work. So facial recognition software had to be used.

“The” media helpfully didn't point any of this out.

All this has relevance for political dissidents, who are the main target for this surveillance state (there are very few actual terrorists, or “terrorists,” unless you include all us dissidents, whom the FBI- and CIA and all the rest of the massive secret police state- consider to be terrorists). We are subjected to ever-increasing levels of repression. After the fall of Nixon, the level of repression waned a bit, only to resurge with a vengeance under Reagan, with significant further increases under Clinton, Bush II, and now Obama. Now, not only can they track your movements through your cellphone, which constantly broadcasts its (and your) location, or through tracking devices surreptitiously planted on your mode of transportation or even on your clothes [2], they can follow your movements via the thousands of surveillance cameras that feed into police spy centers in cities like New York, and with facial recognition software they can track your movements. (They already have your face from that mugshot they took when they arrested you, or from a surveillance shot they took when they were staking you out, or when a “tourist” on the street snapped your pic.) From this, they can learn your habits, places you habitually go, make a social network map of people you know, and know when it's safe to do a black bag job on your home to search, plant and service bugs and hidden cameras, plant drugs or explosives, etc. Currently, the publicly available information indicates that wearing sunglasses foils the face recognition technology. (Make them big and dark, or wraparound and dark.) The technology works by measuring the distance between certain points on the face. Supposedly a front shot is needed, but some companies claim to have software that works on angle shots or even profiles. But software pushers often exaggerate their products' capabilities. (Vendors to the secret police and military exaggerate a lot at times.) Also, showing teeth confounds the software. This is why when you get your photo taken for a driver's license now, if your mouth is open they tell you to close it. The Motor Vehicle Departments are adjuncts of the secret police. (Just like in any totalitarian state.)

1) Here are excerpts from that 2009 AP report, with my comments in brackets:

“In its search for fugitives, the FBI has begun using facial-recognition technology on millions of motorists, comparing driver's license photos with pictures of convicts in a high-tech analysis of chin widths and nose sizes .

“The project in North Carolina has already helped nab at least one suspect. Agents are eager to look for more criminals and possibly to expand the effort nationwide. But privacy advocates worry that the method allows authorities to track people who have done nothing wrong. [Like political dissidents.]

"'Everybody's participating, essentially, in a virtual lineup by getting a driver's license,' said Christopher Calabrese, an attorney who focuses on privacy issues at the American Civil Liberties Union.

“Earlier this year, investigators learned that a double-homicide suspect named Rodolfo Corrales had moved to North Carolina. The FBI took a 1991 booking photo from California and compared it with 30 million photos stored by the motor vehicle agency in Raleigh.

“In seconds, the search returned dozens of drivers who resembled Corrales, and an FBI analyst reviewed a gallery of images before zeroing in on a man who called himself Jose Solis.

“Now states have quality photo machines and rules that prohibit drivers from smiling during the snapshot to improve the accuracy of computer comparisons. [Emphasis added.]

“North Carolina's lab scans an image and, within 10 seconds, compares the likeness with other photos based on an algorithm of factors such as the width of a chin or the structure of cheekbones. The search returns several hundred photos ranked by the similarities.”

But ah, someday, someone's going to be falsely convicted of being a “terrorist.” Check out this part of the article:

“The system is not always right. Investigators used one DMV photo of an Associated Press reporter to search for a second DMV photo, but the system first returned dozens of other people, including a North Carolina terrorism suspect who had some similar facial features.

“The images from the reporter and terror suspect scored a likeness of 72 percent, below the mid-80s that officials consider a solid hit.” 

 

You might not be so lucky! And we know how credulous jurors are when it comes to swallowing “forensic science” and “expert testimony.” For example, bite marks have been used to fraudulenly convict people of murder, based on “expert testimony” claiming “matches” between bite marks in human flesh and someone's teeth. A preposterous assertion just based on common sense, you'd think. But not to ignorant jurors. So what if they say your face “matches” a picture of a “terrorist”? They already use falsified fingerprint evidence to frame up innocent people. (Cases where the state itself admitted this has happened have occurred in at least California and New York.)

2) Not at all farfetched. Planting tracking devices inside the heel of your shoe, for example, during a black bag job on your home, is easy for them. In fact, some reactionary wrote a book years ago (I forget the names of the hack and the title) giddily sharing the story of how during the Vietnam war a transmitter was hidden in a button of a shirt of a Vietcong “suspect,” with thread that doubles as antenna wire, which was used to track and kill him. Neat! was the attitude of this loathsome propagandist. Anyway, imagine how far technology has progressed since then.Hitachi announced in February 2007 the development of an RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) chip that is so tiny it can fit between the ridges of your fingerprint. RFID chips emit a unique numerical code. So embedding it to any object, a piece of paper, whatever, can be used to trace the source of an object. (RFID transmitters are currently attached to products for inventory control and tracking.)

The tiny Hitachi chips are narrower than a human hair- so tiny that Hitachi calls them “dust.” [See “Hitachi develops RFID powder” at pinktentacle.com]

                               

                                                               Left photo shows a hair and the new police state “dust.”

In the words of Defense Review: “NSA, CIA and FBI personnel must all be licking their chops over the intelligence and surveillance applications that such a small micro RFID chip makes possible. Got someone or something you want to track? Just toss some 'Powder'/'Dust' chips onto them/it and track them/it at your leisure. How would they know?” [“Hitachi'Powder'/'Dust' µ-Chip Ultra-Small Micro RFID Chip with EmbeddedAntenna for Military and (Clandestine) Intelligence/SurveillanceApplications: U.S. Military, Law Enforcement and IntelligenceAgencies Licking their Chops?”]

And no doubt you've heard the news, on Wired magazine's website, about the giant new NSA spy center in Utah to collect and store every phone call, text message, email, fax, and whatever else they can grab, in the world, including in the U.S. Don't worry, they have supercomputers that can search it all for keywords, for people, names, places, even voices using voice print recognition technology. (This isn't even new. Ford Rowan wrote a book way back in the 1970s, Technospies, describing how the NSA back then used voice prints to hunt for people making phone calls. So using a payphone will enable them to locate you. You have to alter your voice print, with a dental retainer, or stuff some tissue or something in the roof of your mouth. Merely disguising your voice by imitating Bugs Bunny or Donald Duck or an Englishman does not do the trick.) And contrary to their lies, they are sweeping up ALL domestic communications, as they started doing right after 9/11/01, as we know from NSA whistleblowers, who were then targeted for persecution by the Obama regime, including FBI terror raids on their homes and indictments under the “Espionage” Act, the World War I repressive legislation Woodrow Wilson got Congress to pass to repress opposition to U.S. involvement in that war. (Funny how they never repeal any of their repressive legislation. Guess they figure it might come in handy someday. As indeed it does! Oh, and that “temporary” Patriot Act? They just keep renewing it.)