Riot Control Ray-Gun for Use in Iraq

team99parody writes "An 'Active Denial System' weapon that 'fires a 95GHz microwave beam at rioters to cause heating and intolerable pain in less than five seconds' is scheduled for service in Iraq in 2006 according to CNET and the print version of New Scientist. It was recently tested on people playing the part of rioters at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico where they asked the subjects to remove glass and contact lenses to protect their eyes. Hopefully real rioters will get the same courtesy. Police and the Marines are working on portable versions. Sandia Labs also has a nice writeup on this system with pictures of smaller versions of the weapon."

Comments

"non" lethal?

[Anonymous Coward]

• Interesting that they focus on the non-lethal aspect. I'd suspect the military would also be interested on whether you could turn up the power a bit, and you have a lethal ray gun that can hit lots of people at once.
• Wonder if the volunteers of which the article speaks were found in a similar way that earlier human radiation 'volunteers' were found.
• Wonder if making people feel like they're being burned alive counts as torture?

Re:Talked about earlier...

[Rei]

No, they'd rather people not shoot protesting crowds. If the crowds are using lethal force or threatening the position of our troops, our troops will use lethal force back with or without our magic ray gun.

Seriously, from a practical standpoint, what will happen the first time we fire this thing into. say, one of al-Sadr's regular 10k+ angry-mob protests? Everyone with glasses risks going blind; everyone with metal on them gets burns. Everyone with a pacemaker risks getting their heart stopped. It'd be almost a guaranteed new Sadrist revolt, plus easily increasing other Shia and widespread Sunni insurgency recruiting, while not killing any insurgents. Of course, the effects don't apply just to the crowd; beams keep on going.

But lets take this further than the obvious anger that the US using some sci-fi style technology on a country that has no ability to resist it would inspire. Everyone who gets cancer within a few months of such a usage within half a dozen blocks of the site will blame it on the US's new "pain-ray". Everyone who miscarries? The same. Everyone who gets a headache, who has a heart attach, who comes down with a nasty disease... it'll all get blamed on the device.

Strategically, this is an awful decision.

they've used this in Miami

[pirateshot]

I have anti-globalization activist friends who were in Miami in 2003 protesting the FTAA meeting going on at the time. They tell me that the cops (other than having their own embedded journalists, getting extremely favorable corporate media coverage, beating people senseless and blinding some people with pepperspray) used some sort of microwave weapon on them and it made them throw up. For more info on that protest, check out a movie called the Miami Model http://www.ftaaimc.org/miamimodel.

Re:they've used this in Miami

[basic0]

I'd never heard of this "microwave weapon" until now, but you may be referring to the "Long Ranged Acoustic Device" which has been in use by police and military for years now. Apparently, with the right sound frequency, it's able to cause nausea and disorientation within seconds. More info can be found here

Re:Coming to America

[JudicatorX]

Because shotguns permanently maim and/or kill

Because shotguns can't be used by one or two people against tens of thousands.

Because shotguns aren't (usually) used to deny large crowds their fundamental right to assemble in peaceful process.

Because shotguns weren't developed for crowd 'control'.

Because before George "Fucking Haliburton" Walker Bush there were no "Free Speech Zones", and hence no "No-free-speech zones".