The FBI has announced they will be launching a system in 2014 that will allow law enforcement to use facial recognition to track and follow citizens.
The computer-based system will automatically identify a person based on a digital image or video source that is matched to a massive database.
The process had been a work of fiction on TV shows like CSI and other police procedurals but now such a system will be used in real life. The facial recognition program is part of a $1 billion Next Generation Identification System being created by the FBI.
The system will also include iris scans, DNA analysis and voice identification.
The FBI says the new system will allow them to reduce terrorist and criminal activity by expanding criminal history information services.
The FBI is reporting that several dozen suspected terrorist bombmakers have been allowed to enter the United States under the guise of being war refugees.
The FBI discovered two al-Qaeda terrorists living in Bowling Green, Kentucky in 2009 and the men admitting being part of a group that made improvised explosive devices (IEDs) targeting American troops.
The discovery of the terrorists led the FBI to back through every piece of evidence collected in Iraq connected to IEDs. The specialists looked at over 100,000 IEDs collected in war zones to find fingerprints that could be used to check against databases of refugees.
An ABC news investigation had discovered the two terrorists had slipped through the U.S. refugee screening system even though they had been detained during the war by Iraqi authorities for terrorist related activities.
State and federal officials rushed to say that despite the FBI’s “dozen of counter-terrorism investigations like [Bowling Green]” that most of the refugees from Iraq are peaceful, law abiding residents.
An accused al-Qaeda terrorist Abu Anas al-Liby has been brought to New York to face charges.
Al-Liby, whose real name is Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, was questioned on a Navy ship while being transported to New York. He is facing charges connected to bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Over 220 people were killed in the two terrorist attacks.
Al-Liby has been on the FBI’s Most Wanted List for over a decade and had a $5 million bounty on his head.
U.S. prosecutors have evidence stretching back decades of al-Liby’s work conducting surveillance of terrorist targets and planning attacks on Western targets in Africa.
Al-Liby was captured by U.S. special forces in a raid inside Libya on October 5th.
U.S. intelligence groups and Special Forces carried out raids Saturday that landed one of the world’s most wanted terrorists.
American troops with FBI and CIA assistance arrested Abu Anas al-Liby on a street in Tripoli, Libya. Al-Liby had been indicted in 2000 for his part in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. There was a $5 million bounty on al-Liby; intelligence groups had been searching for the al-Qaeda leader for 15 years.
Libya’s government denied knowledge of the operation and citizens were very upset that a foreign military conducted an operation on their soil.
In Somalia, a Navy SEAL team exchanged gunfire at the home of a major leader of the al-Shabab terrorist group. The raid was in response to the al-Qaeda related terrorist group’s raid on a Nairobi shopping mall that killed more than 60 people.
Unfortunately, the SEAL team had to withdraw from the fight before confirming the senior leader of al-Shabab was killed in the assault.
A web company that is accused of helping child abusers share files on a hidden part of the internet has been compromised by malware.
The sites were using the service provider Freedom Hosting and had code attached to their pages that could be used by law enforcement to reveal the people visiting the pages. Continue reading →
The FBI is vowing a worldwide investigation into the Boston bombing but admitted that they have no suspects in the attack.
“At this time there are no claims of responsibility,” FBI officials said in a press conference Tuesday. “The range of suspects and motives remains wide open.” Continue reading →
Tens of thousands of computers in America will lose their internet connection ability on Monday when the FBI turns off special web servers aimed at keeping the infected computers from losing access.
The FBI worked with international groups to break an organization of international hackers who secretly infected millions of computers and used them as servers to send information and steal information from the host computers. The information was used in identify theft scams and other cyber crimes. Continue reading →
US Intelligence officials have reported the stopping of a new “underwear bomb” plot by Al Qaeda’s Yemeni operatives similar to the failed 2009 Christmas Day plot.
The FBI is studying the bomb, allegedly an upgraded version of the underwear bomb used in 2009, after being seized in an unnamed middle eastern country. The plot was broken up in the early stages between the making of the bomb and before the public was put at any risk. Continue reading →