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Tech Wars In Meat Space
Starfish writes: "Police and protesters are asking if new technologies used by both sides will turn street protests into bloodless, but also meaningless rituals. Real protest robots, phaser-like weapons, and other cool gadgets are discussed in this Village Voice article. Good heads up about the Ruckus Society's tech action camp in October."
I'm not going to look up the statistics but I'm guessing that protest-related deaths in First World countries are incredibly rare. Giuliani was certainly the first known fatality of the recent anti-capitalist/anti-globalization protests, though there have been a number of serious injuries.
What the hell are cops doing protecting the corporations against the point of view of protestors?
The police and government would counter that they are maintaining public order, not protecting corporations exclusively. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine when "public order" started justifying attacking peaceful protestors and passive resisters with pepper spray. Here in Canada we have had incredibly shameful incidents in which people locked to posts etc. have been sprayed right in the face despite being completely nonviolent.
Corporations should hire their own security.
They do. However, their rent-a-cops have no authority off their property - if they try to herd or grab you in the street you have every right to defend yourself by beating the stuffing out of them if neccessary. Companies would LIKE to be able to field troops against hostile demonstrators in public spaces, but thank Ford they don't have that ability yet.
Who's protecting the protestors?
This is the crux of the issue. Police are supposed to defend nonviolent, law-abiding citizens from violent criminal thugs. However, the issue is getting turned around so that anybody assembling to criticize the government is defined as a criminal by the police, and law enforcement then acts accordingly. A lot of people are arrested at protests, but few end up with criminal records. Why? Because they were doing nothing illegal! Their arrests are simply a scare tactic to try and reduce the number of people who protest the next time.
Freedom: "I won't!"
You're of course only highlighting the inherent contradiction in a democratic society - free speech that threatens free speech.
Well, in any case you live in a corporate republic where the flow of information is controlled by increasingly narrow interests, so you have to wonder what we're preserving in any case.
But, if the police are violent towards peaceful protesters, they'll be just as glad to air that. And once the public sees that the police are rioting, and not the protesters, they're going to start to wonder what it is that the protesters are saying that the police don't want us to know about. Then the news media start showing interviews with the protesters where they discuss what's being protested.
Of course if the non-peaceful "protesters" show up and fulfill the police's most pessimistic expectations, that makes for the kind of video that a calm explanation of the issues can't compete with in the contest for air time as it is presently conducted.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Aren't you worried that this will escalate any conflicts where the protesters will have a bigger arsenal?
Do you want to see the police resort to SWAT teams and tanks, as well as tear gas? Police in the US are supposedly supposed to use minimal force, it's like the protestors are giving no other choice but to "take out" the threat to safety. If the protestors start firing on the police, the police will have no choice but to shoot back, you can't blame them for that.
I feel that we'll see another WACO where we'll have a worse standoff thanks to the enemy having as much technology as the police.
There was a show on the discovery channel showing their new equipment to deal with situations outside.
"It is the exploitation of perceived civil liberties which extends into violence...
My civil rights are merely perceived?!
Colonel, I see you're working at a college. Do us all a favor and go audit the freshman civics courses again. You are an embarrassment to the cause you have sworn to defend.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
I am a veteran of a couple large-ish Anti-Capitalist protests (Windsor, Quebec). Let me assure you, there are certainly agent-provacateurs amoungst the crowds. The police badly need to justify their overwhelmning threats of violence. While I was marching with the Windsor-Detroit Communists (we had grown to about 800-1000 on the streets in Quebec) we were joined at the front by someone who was as obvious as could be. He reputed to be a local Communist (though our known-local-contact didnt know him) he was dressed in 'casual wear' like it was haloween and asked *alot* of odd questions with regard to our direction and intent. It was almost laughable. We later made a film and this person features prominently in it.
Now, it is also a known fact that radical movements, like the present anit-capitalist one, will become paranoid and dillusional. Those involved will cease to trust 'outsiders'. The solution to this I fear is absolute honesty, why keep secrets at all? If you are completely honest about your intent there is no need to keep secrets.
What to help ruin the present Plutocratic Picnic? Join the FIGHT! See protest.net.
That's the point. Angry rioters being brutalized, rightly or wrongly, makes for good imagery for the reporter to talk over; if the reporter does not have a good video to talk over, the item gets less play time. So if the police can put down the demonstration without obvious brutality, there is no reason for it to be covered with anything more than brief blub.
~~~~~~
under-paid karma whore
I don't understand, are you saying the protestors will be able to successfully fight the police as well as damage the corporation?
If there are some sophisticated stuff that enables the protestors to hold off the police, then the SWAT team and more heavy artillery will come in.
That's why I fear this, it may make the police desprate enough to roll out Tanks down main street USA.
Read the last line again. The protesters need to give this a human face, or it is in no way effective. Robots battling against robots has no public relations meaning beyond spectacle. Risking your life and limb for the cause is the only thing that's effective.
"Kid sacrifices life to protest WTO" is an effective headline indeed.
"Police and protest robots battle; street filled with used robot parts" is going to make people laugh, but won't create any kind of public relations victory.
I think you can see the real reason non-leathal weapons scare these protesters; if you can't say you were injured by a savage police force, but were instead temporarily immobilized to prevent you from looting, all sympathy for you vanishes.
D
Read this disclaimer from the website of one of the sources for this article
The only reason we include the following disclaimer is because our legal department says we must. DISCLAIMER: All of the officers and support personnel mentioned below are innocent of any criminal, civil, procedural, or administrative wrongdoing until proven guilty or liable in a court of law or other properly constituted tribunal. These parties are encouraged to submit rebuttals to these charges. All of the following material consists solely of the personal opinions of the author, Al Shemonia, and such opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Copwatch.com or its board, associates, affiliates, or members. This material is not currently presented as fact.
So I guess for copwatch, that whole "innocent until proven guilty" is only for them and not for the cops. Goodness forbid that they practice what they preach.
Hypocracy at its finest.
Brian EllenbergerIf protesters were to use non-lethal force against the authorities, would the authorities be permitted to step up to lethal force to "protect" themselves? I see a probability that the police might use non-lethal force as nothing but an antagonistic agent in order to cause some good old fashioned patriotic carnage...
You all whine piss and moan about police/govt abuse, and then line up and fall all over yourselves trying to give your basic rights like gun ownership back to the government.
Like the government is in some way the natural holder of your rights.
People like you with your insane notions of democracy, the rights of man, etc sicken me.
Read your damn history!
Fight to KEEP your natural rights!
Read the Constitution.
Understand that the crap you were fed in school is just that...crap.
The US is a republic, not a democracy. (well it is supposed to be but you are messing that up as fast as you can also (democracies suck worse then this as soon as the huddled masses realize that they don't HAVE to work and vote themselves 364 holidays a year and liberal social programs to support them(then you have europe, but that's another story)))
The government does not assign you rights like social security cards.
Your rights are natural, the constitution only defends them from the govt.
The government is all for taking rights away from you and if you do not secure some means of keeping your rights secure you will soon find that the press is not a big enough shield in this era of mega-mergers. (How many Media companies really need influenced to keep a story of 100 protesters getting their heads cracked under cover? How long did they manage not to mention the Levy/Condit bit? What do you think they'd do if they were offered free radio spectrum in exchange for silence?)
The press media and Bush insinuated that the protestors were criminals anyhow, so that's just plain FUD. If they take away the right for protest, either by public opinion or by making protesting physically dangerous, people will find another way to express their minds. This won't necesarry have to be peaceful actions. Look at the "animal liberation front" who blow up meat-companies, these people are against animal abuse, but no-one listened, they got fed up with the situation and started to do some bad things.
Bush has identified Iraq and Libia as the enemy states, but the terrorism he wants to fight doesn't necesarry have to come from abroad, I fear more Oklahoma's if the politicians won't listen.
Bizar technology?
I just read the comments above, and the general tone surprised me. Once upon a time, slashdot readers would have talked about the tech, not talk about how dumb protesters are.
In the past twenty years, I've watched the change as police have become more and more likely to clamp down on protests. The black bloc is a response to police violence, not the cause of it. As an original black bloc-er circa 1989, I know why we started fighting back. It was due to police being more and more likely to use force to put down democratic protests. We were defending ourselves. In Genoa, there were some pretty serious allegations that the 'black bloc' doing property damage to small businesses etc. were provocateurs. That tells me that they are getting worried about the effectiveness of the black bloc, and want to discredit the movement.
Freedom is not easy folks. You have to be willing to fight for it.
~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.
Cameras are a two-edged sword. On the one hand, they allow protesters to get their message to a greater audience; OTOH, they attract the "rent-a-riot" types who don't seem to care what the protest is about so long as it's an excuse to indulge in mindless violence and vandalism. The latter does nothing to help the cause of the protest. From watching the media coverage of recent "anti-globalisation" protests, the general public wouldn't have had a clue about what the protest was about - all they saw was a bunch of "anarchists" trashing the place.
Ghandi is frequently quoted in these parts as saying: "First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win." To keep this in context, it should also be noted that he also said: "Non-violence is the first article of my faith. It is the last article of my faith."
I have to disagree here. Many intelligent protesters I have known have tried the respectable routes first -- letters to politicians, etc.. They only protest as a last resort, and never violently. But then they're lumped in with the yahoos out there for a kick. Protests aren't the problem. The original problem was the problem. A protest is a response to that problem. I don't operate under the illusion that all protesters are vestal saints with virtuous causes -- but sometimes they're right anyway.
Good example -- but if globalization is so great, why isn't it improving us already? There are some very excellent web sites showing the harm of globalization to localities. But as long as the numbers benefit the corporations, no one seems to care.
Are we going to see a slow-moving bomb-squad robot heading towards the protesters with the tear-gas gun? Or Johnny 5?
/. rally for Dmitri gone awry. Next rally, bring your 'bot.
Then maybe the protestors will retaliate with home-made Battlebots! The police bot would have no defense except a radio jammer and an EMP grenade.
Seriously, do you really see cash-poor protesters using expensive bots? Not unless it's a
They often do receive such training. How many protesters do?
Yes, it is a shame that often no one - most notably most of the protesters - seems to care about the issues. Every protest I attend, it seems like the majority are there for the adrenaline rush, or publicity, or the social scene - anything but the issues.
Less snidely, the police are expected to be dispassionate regarding the issues under protest. They are not there for the issues; they are there to preserve public safety and the law. You might not like that, you might not like the laws, but there it is.
That's not what they're doing. They're not protecting points of view; they're protecting people, and laws, and sometimes property, against inappropriate expressions of a POV. As mentioned before, they are dispassionate wrt the issues, and concerned only with preventing criminal acts - including politically motivated criminal acts.
Proximately, the civil authorities. Ultimately ourselves, through our duly elected representatives. If you don't like it, elect someone else. This is a (representative) democracy, not rule of whoever shouts loudest.
Those same police. I almost wish that some corporation would be stupid enough to hire their own goons, so you could see those very same police protecting the protesters - which they most assuredly would do. What a conundrum that would create for the self-righteous cop haters.
They do, and that's why the protesters prefer to misbehave in public places. They're too cowardly to risk getting their asses kicked on private property with little or no legal recourse, so instead they subject the public to all the BS they claim is directed at the corporations.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
Would I rather be shot by a beanbag or a bullet? Not a tough choice, that one. But the rules of engagement change with non-lethal weapons and the threshold for their use is lowered by virtue of the fact that they generally don't kill -- not intentionally, anyway. It becomes much easier to pull that trigger.
I could write a dissertation here, score a five, get some cool responses and maybe some E-Mail, but I don't have the time or resources. There's a lot of information about this; check out some of it. Google, teoma, even Yahoo.
Let me note that the military's use of non-lethal weapons has historically been to disarm/disable an enemy so that lethal force could then be used, from the days of catapulting rotting carcasses into the keep to the gas attacks of WWI.
woof
No, it does not. There are plenty of pigs in the world, and there are also plenty of punks. Overall, though, the average policeman has far better training and discipline than the average rioter, and is motivated to preserve rather than undermine public safety. One might reasonably disagree with the colonel's overall views regarding correct balance between protest and public safety, but mis-paraphrasing him like that only makes you - and by extension your "side" - look dishonest.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
What percentage of the population engages in some kind of home taping?
That percentage should be alarmed by the facts of this case.
D
All you need to do to fight back is scrounge a gigawatt laser...
This quote emobides what is wrong with law enforcement in America (especially) and (I'd assume) across the world!
Basically, this quote says "Everyone participating in the protest is wrong and just an agitator - a malcontent - someone who we should lock up anyway."
That thought, combined with these new weapons - I'm scared.
"One more day before the storm
At the baracade of freedom
when our ranks begin to form...
will you take your place with me?"
--- "One Day More" from Les Miserables
quis custodiet ipsos custodes - Juvenal
If there's no blood, or more importantly interesting video, then who's going to be interested in reporting it. Maybe I'm just feeling cynical tonight, but I'm starting to think that Net protests may well be ineffectual simply because they aren't interesting enough to watch on TV. The general public needs something to get their attention like entertainment. A bunch of people typing e-mails or sending letters doesn't sound like an interesting story. People getting beat up by cops on video, or run over by a tank...now that's interesting.
Thinking about it a little more...some video is better than none. For instance, is anyone producing any video on the Sklyarov case? Not something especially entertaining, but wouldn't people be interested in an interview with his family. Crying about how their loved one has been taken away from them, they have no idea if/when they'll see him again. That's a tear-jerker right there...someone will be interested in that. The irony of a Russian being unjustly held prisoner by the USA (at least to US citizens) will appeal to another subset of people. If people get beat up protesting his captivity that will appeal to an even larger group of people (especially if it's on video.)
Net protests aren't going to go over well unless there's something at least as interesting as the hampster dance web site to the general public. In the US at least, freedom from tyranny, freedom of speech, and the pursuit of happiness are all things that we've always been taught that we have in Social Studies/Civics/US History classes. Reading about it online is going to be about as interesting as your average high school history class. (Not that history isn't interesting, but most people I know could give a shit about history. They're more concerned about tomorrow and more often the present.) The rights we have as Americans are guaranteed by our constitution, correct? Why should we worry about crap like that when we can hear about drama (Elian Gonzales), violence (OJ Simpson), or sex (Clinton) on the news.
I think getting some video of the key players in the Sklyarov case is important. Even if it's not on the news, there are aspects of the story that will appeal to people, especially if it comes with some video with tears and/or violence. If it's interesting enough it will spread around the Net as quickly as the original South Park epsiode.
agree with the gist of your post, and teaching cops conflict resolution might be helpful. The real problem is that protests are viewed as a problem and no one gives a damn about what's being protested.
Protests *are* the problem. Like acts of terrorism (which if you think about it, are really just protests taken to their logical extreme), they do nothing to promote their cause. When I read a report of a terrorist act or a protest my respect for the cause the protesters were supposedly promoting goes down.
Consider the case of globalization -- one one side you have essentially all the economists in the world saying that it will be a wonderful thing, and their arguments are backed up by mathematical models, and the other hand you have protesters who can't seem to even shout a coherent sentence about the evils of corporate imperialism. Perhaps the economists' mathematical models are wrong, but protests are useless for discovering that.
So long as the events are covered by media and the message can be understood from that coverage protests will not be meaningless rituals.
Protesters won't.
Why? Because the cops can afford it, and the protesters usually can't.
And if real people have to hit the streets on either side, then the other side has an advantage.
End result: protests will become even less effective and more meaningless than they are now, because the police will have a lot less incentive to keep the violence down. They'll be able to use violence at will.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
The people who have access to the President and Congress have the most power in a Democracy. By a quite remarkable coincidence, those are the people with the most money.
There is a kernel of truth to what Berlusconi said. Democracy simply means that the people rule. By buying the products we want, from the countries we want them from, we are ruling; we are getting what we want. So I can have a German car. I can have a Taiwanese laptop computer. I can have American software. All these countries are the best at those things. I would not want an American car or Taiwanese software. Thanks to globalization, I can get the best of what's available from all countries, and I think that's just super.
The results of our Democracy in the traditional sense include a whole ton of badly run services. Many of these I don't want; many of them I will never use, but I'm still paying for them. And even if I never have kids and therefore don't use our schools, I am surely effected by their generally abysmal quality.
I've read a number of "Green" magazines, and they seem to imply a society where trade is heavily regulated and where we all regress to picking weeds and harvesting tomatoes to eke out a bare existance. No Apple PowerBook G4/500 for me; it's created out of materials harmful to the earth! No electricity, we can't stand smoky power plants! And, surely no car, I'd be considered evil to even suggest it!
I don't know about you, but I frankly don't want to live in that kind of world. If you agree, I think you should take a hard look at what you're supporting, because that's its logical end.
And if you claim this is not what you're after, then what is it you actually want? I've read a lot of this stuff, and I still don't have a clue as to what the positive goals of your movement are, unless they are to destroy technological society entirely.
D
I'll reply here too that I didn't think before I posted. I have a specific question though about this bit: I usually consider myself pretty skilled at narrowing down net searches to find what I'm looking for, but haven't had good luck with that one. When you say "look up the statistics," where would one go to examine those?
Yeah, that's what got me mad and then I rambled off my mindless post. My wife didn't even know it had happened and she saw the video when I was watching it, and it set her off too. I have too much probably of an anti-authoritarian vein in me to start with, and seeing that video infuriates me every time. I must admit though I've seen as many videos showing the grace under pressure some cops seem to have as I have videos showing the opposite.
Yeah, and when the hired thugs go to far, the corporations that ordered them to perform a certain act hang them out to rot on their own. That pisses me off too.
And another thing that bothers me is that what some corporations and the government do are never considered violent and non-law-abiding because the damage takes longer to show up. I'd love to see some civil suits against corporate abuse take the tone of criminal suits instead. But I doubt it will happen.
On the other hand, had there not been violence the general public would have been fed pre-digested propganda how the G8 countries are going to make the World into so much better a place. I doubt they would even have shown the peaceful demonstrations.
Not that I accept the violence, though.
Set phasers for 'fascism'.
You're using her as bait, Master!
You're right, of course. When I think of protesters, I think of peaceful sit-ins and sign-carriers. But that really hasn't been the pattern lately. I'd just watched the pepper-spray video again where the cops are torturing sitters, and then I posted here. I forgot the think-first-then-post natural order.
You're right again. The handful I've attended were because I cared very deeply about what was happening... but was frequently surrounded by people shouting things like "Fuck the assholes up! Death to the Man!" when we were there protesting excessive violence by police.
Everything you've said is correct and true, and I should have stopped to think before I posted. There are a few things that get me riled to the point of slack bloodflow to the brain, and cruelty is one of them. Thanks for responding intelligently to my mindless rambling.
I agree with the gist of your post, and teaching cops conflict resolution might be helpful. The real problem is that protests are viewed as a problem and no one gives a damn about what's being protested. Sometimes the protesters are right, and when one or more of them get hurt, the focus falls on that, and never on the message the protesters were pushing.
Cops are scared of being injured or killed on the job, and there's no doubt a bunch of protesters seem like a threat. I'd personally like to see someone show the number of protestors killed by cops vs. the number of cops killed by protestors. I can't blame the cops for being scared. But the bottom line is, the cops shouldn't be there.
A lot of protests lately have been over corporate actions. What the hell are cops doing protecting the corporations against the point of view of protestors? The cops are following orders -- but who the hell is giving the order? Are corporations paying for protection? If so, where's the protection that goes along with our normal tax dollar payments? Who's protecting the protestors?
Corporations should hire their own security.
I know it's an ugly ramble, but I can spare the karma at the moment, so there it is.
The article reads like a summary of all of the non-lethal crowd control ideas that have been endlessly bandied around during the last couple of decades.
Crowd control techniques that are conspicuously absent from real use.
The problem is that things like lasers and sonic weapons and electrified water guns are more expensive and/or more difficult to keep non-lethal than good old-fashioned tear gas and pepper spray and firehoses.
Lasers blind people. Sonic weapons turn their bowels to jelly, harm internal organs, or both. Electrified water guns have nasty effects on anyone with a pacemaker or just a weak heart. And so forth.
With increased cost and increased number of lawsuits, I don't see why any riot-control force would use them.
How long does it take to immobilize someone? The effect occurs within a few milliseconds.
This will come in great when I need to get in the front of the line for the next Star Wars movie. No more camping outside the theatre - JUST STUN THE CROWD!
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
You're a professional, but you have to rely on "free" hosting? Business must not be very good.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
What would they be doing if they weren't weaving that rug?
Almost certainly something much worse.
You have to bear that in mind, too.
I'll bet you could make the same statements about Japan fifty-odd years ago when World War II was ending and there was little hope or demand for anything Japanese.
Now they make half our cars, and have a thriving, rich industrial society.
The point is that societies can climb out of the gutter, and the way to do it is generally through trade with richer nations. Yes, it's tough and painful. But it does work.
Sealing nations off from trade creates situations where the sealed-off drive a brand new car identical in every way to a 1950s Morris Minor. And, I might add, with all the environmental damage this implies; 1950s cars were notably devoid of decent fuel efficiency or emission controls.
I'm not saying a world with trade is perfect; heck, no world is. But I am saying it's a lot better than the alternatives.
D