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Millimeter-Wave Weapon Certified For Use In Iraq
jdray writes "Wired has a story on the certification of the Active Denial System for use in Iraq. The ADS is a millimeter-wave weapon that uses a reportedly non-lethal energy beam to inflict short-term pain on its targets, encouraging them to leave an area. Experimenters call this the 'Goodbye effect.' I can see using this in a wartime situation, but how long before we see these things mounted to the top of S.W.A.T. vans for domestic crowd control? And, is that a bad idea?" From the article: The ADS shoots a beam of millimeters waves, which are longer in wavelength than x-rays but shorter than microwaves — 94 GHz (= 3 mm wavelength) compared to 2.45 GHz (= 12 cm wavelength) in a standard microwave oven... while subjects may feel like they have sustained serious burns, the documents claim effects are not long-lasting. At most, 'some volunteers who tolerate the heat may experience prolonged redness or even small blisters'... There has been no independent checking of the military's claims." Wired use Freedom of Information Act requests to obtain documents on the military's testing program.
Time to don the triple layered Tin foil suit with extra ball protection.
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The army will have to think harder when civilians start running at them with faraday cages around them.
Additional questions
Would a metal plate reflect the radiation back at them?
How many minutes does it take to cook a human?
Does this device go "ding" when its done?
liqbase
Sounds like the Neronic Whip that Isaac Asmiov described in his Foundation series. Now whether or not its a Good Idea(TM), that is a tough call. Likely it depends on whther you're on the trigger end or muzzle end, so to speak.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
"At most, 'some...may experience prolonged redness or even small blisters'"
They slept with Susie too???! That tramp!
That's sooo Osama bin Laden.
They do nothing!!
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The problem is that the people who were tested were told ahead of time to remove glasses, contact lenses, and any metal that could generate "hot spots". I really doubt they're going to extend the same courtesy to dissidents in a war zone. They're also assuming that the average grunt in the field is going to properly operate the equipment.
In every war the army mentions non-lethal weapons in the press to give the population the feeling that they try not to kill so many people.
How about if you're in a tightly-packed crowd with no hope of moving and some kindly riot cop decides to focus this beam on you for a minute or two? Bear in mind unlike tear gas and batons there is no tangible evidence this is being used except at the source and receiver. Makes dealing out pain anonymously much easier.
Because they have never mislead us before.
GENERATION 27: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
I'm all for nonlethal weapons when the other choice is killing people en masse. But in the current Iraq situation, all I can see in a device that causes pain without killing is a lot of hurt people wanting payback big time. Something like this could be perverted into a horrible torture device. To ever use something like this against a civilian population would be dubious at best. Doesn't the world hate the U.S. enough already?
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
While this weapon certainly could be more human for crowd dispersal than some curently available (Tear gas that can cause death in athmatics, rubber-coated steel bullets [you didn't think they were just rubber, did you?] which can kill, being hit with sticks, ect.), there's the follow-up possibility of other places to consider. After the interrogation techniques seen at Abu Ghraib and Guantanama Bay, the ability to make someone feel like they're on fire, say while blindfolded, might be too juicy a plum not to be picking.
I see nothing wrong with five meals a day
Sounds like a good idea in principle, but someone, sooner or later, is bound to abuse it. Who will be responsible for determining when it can/can not be used? For a soldier to kill someone with a gun, they have to have a damn good reason to do it. To use something that inflicts pain with no long term effects? Very high danger of abuse.
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I'm not saying I like the idea of this thing, I don't, but you're confusing nuclear radiation with mm wave RF. Light is radition, too.
I am not a crackpot.
I hate to break this to you, but angry mobs aren't just going to forget what caused them to air their grievances after being dispersed. In fact, denying them the ability to do so usually means the next step is violent civil resistance.
Angry mobs are often the result of an underlying social problem, but the fact of the matter is that mob mentality is dangerous even when the individuals aren't all that violent. Breaking up angry mobs can save a lot of lives and property because people just don't think straight when they're in one.
I read the internet for the articles.
The catch is, at what point does one group become a "rampaging Mob" and does preparation for "crowd control" feed into that.
In recent years there has been an ever increasing milarization of domestic police forces in the U.S. More and more money has gone to swat teams with armoured everything and less and less to programs like Community Policing which actually make people safe. This has produced two intertwining problems:
1) Police have grown ever more violent with a greater tendency to respond with swat teams, and for politicans to call out the swat teams, and
2) Protestors and other groups have found themselves more and more marginalized which lends itself to violent responses.
Take the WTO protests as a test case. In Seattle and Florida the cities and states began by surrounding buildings with chain link, calling out heavily armoursed cops and evn changing the laws in the downtown areas so that protesters were banned "for their own protection." The resulting air of tension led to exteme overreactions on the part of the police. In the case of Seattle legal nonviolent marchers were tear-gassed and in Florida a legally sanctioned non-violent parade was broken up by police firing bean-bag guns which are "non-lethal but painful".
This in turn has led to some groups seriously talking about and preparing for violence. If they feel that protesting bad policy will get you gassed, shot (it still is being shot whether the armarment kills or not) and jailed for your trouble why not throw some molotovs?
There was a study some time ago done by a New York-based criminology professor. In it he looked at the effects of militarizing (i.e. via swat weapons and training) police forces. His conclusion was that it was bad, very bad, and he was one of the people who taught swat teams.
You see military training is about dealing with "the enemy". And training to use weapons like tear gas to "take out dangerous crowds" actually increases the odds that you will resort to it. And increasingly training for these weapons requires a demonization of the enemy. The psychological separation between you the "good guys" and the enemy, protestors, anarchists, etc. "the bad guys" makes it easier to actually resort to force against them, and more likely that said resort will be taken. After all, they are "bad" and you are "good".
As a result the heavier use of military style training actually increases the level of violence due to this cycle of overreaction.
You may say that I am oversimplifying things but anyone who has actually gone outside and protested anything, even with no violence and legal permits can attest that things have changed. I have seen people menaced by dogs while obeying the law, seen armoured assault vehicles purchased for local police forces, I've even had undercover cops infiltrate (very poorly) anti-war groups just to keep an eye on what the grandmas were planning. When you scale this up and see film of a 40 year old woman cowering behind her cardboard sign as a line of swat police shoot, non-lethat but painful, guns at her for being where she had a legal right to be, and you arrive to protest outside the whitehouse (with legal permits and no violence) and see lines of cops with assault rifles waiting, and have some rent-a-cop demand to know what you are writing because he sees you as the "enemy" you begin to realize that "non-lethal" techniques still stifle speech and that the idea that you can have non-violent swat teams is a complete insult to the intelligence.
The cycle of violence isn't just domestic. It occurrs in our society and futher blurs the line to the point where there is little ot no distinction beteen 'the enemy' abroad and 'the enemy' at home. Either way it is someone with a gun pointed at them by someone in a uniform. The fact that that gun is "painful but not lethal" doesn't mean anything. And the more money we spend on arming people whose job it is to protect us, and the more we train them to see themselves as good and "the enemy" as b
Here is a companion article from Wired with some of the documents: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72236-0.htm l?tw=rss.index
I am not a crackpot.
Instead it induces a panic response. There is a difference. I'm not saying waterboarding is right, only that it isn't torture.
Torture, (n) 1 a : anguish of body or mind
That word you keep abusing, I do not think it means what you would like it to mean.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Otherwise, we have 3k+ dead soldiers who died for nothing at all.
We do.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
If a protest is lawful and you have the permits,...
Is it just me or is something horribly wrong with this sentence?
There is a war going on for your mind.
-b.
Here's an idea, actually go to a peace demonstration. I'm a Quaker. I go to peace marches, vigils, rallies, you name it. I've yet to see angry peace protestors (which is one of the primary forms of protest these days). People are also realistic in that they don't believe they will achieve their goal - world peace - today. Your whole argument shows a basic lack of familiarity with demonstrations and what they are intended to accomplish (awareness in the larger population). You should actually go to a protest and talk with people. It will be probably a very interesting experience. I can say it was for me (I had never protested anything prior to the last three years).
I will also say that the first time I went to a peace demonstration I looked down two city blocks full of police in riot gear on either side of the street. If you don't think that's about intimination and repression as much as about public safety, you've never stood in the middle of that street with the knowledge that they are they because of you. I'd also say it is very empowering to march right through that the police. It at least makes you feel like you have a voice and you are using it. When's the last time you felt that as a citizen? For that reason alone it is worth it.
Historically?
History is full of permitted protests.
But what is your alternative? Obviously, an anything goes, first come first serve approach to competing claims on the public space isn't going to work. There needs to be some kind of oversight, and some kind of arbitration. You can't just co-opt a public space for a protest, without regard to how you may be disrupting the lives of your fellow citizens.
And who else is going to provide oversight and arbitration of the use of public spaces, except you and I, as fellow citizens, via our constitutioanlly-defined elected and appointed agents?
Did you have some better idea for managing competing claims on public spaces, except through the same democratic system we use to manage all of our competing claims with our fellow citizens?
But I get your point. If you're having trouble protesting the protest permit process, there are really only two options available to you: Mahatma Ghandi or Che Guevara.
I recommend protesting anyway, publically, non-violently, a la Ghandi. When the world sees your moral superiority and the mistreatment you are receiving at the hands of your government, perhaps your government will be shamed into recognizing your rights. It worked for Ghandi, it could work for you.
If it doesn't work for you, though, there's always the last resort: violent revolution. Good luck with that, but better to die fighting for freedom than live peacefully as a slave, right? Besides, you might win anyway.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
1) if someone is trapped in a crowd and is exposed, they may not have the option of turning away, and are likely to be in pain but will keep their eyes open. If you suddenly start burning and are in panic in a crowd, are you going to close your eyes and keep them closed while trying to escape from an unknown source of RF radiation? Most of the public wouldn't.
2) Would you be willing to stare into an open running microwave oven for ANY length of time? Do you know how much damage can be done to tissues in even 250 ms of applied energy? Depends on the field intensity of course.
3) "Tests on monkeys showed that corneal damage heals within 24 hours, the reports claim." This is a lie. Corneal damage of this sort does not heal in 24 hours. Try scratching your eye with a sharp object and seeing how long it takes for even that simple damage to heal, much less cells damaged by being cooked briefly by high-power RF. Go read ophthalmic medical journals. I have. Go research cataracts then come back and rebut me.
4) I didn't say the damage to pregnant women came from being burned. However, pregnant women being burned by this weapon will have great induced stress. Tell me how easy or difficult it is to trigger a miscarriage. Go ahead.
5) "Or when the field intensity ends up with strong lobes they never planned on, because of metal in the urban environment accidently causing concentration."
Yes, I'm sure that they, with their 10 years and $40 million, never thought of that; it's remarkable that you, with a few minutes, $0, and no experience whatsoever with the weapon, could so easily spot such a flaw.
They DID think of that, and in their tests asked volunteers to remove metal-framed glasses to prevent accidental refraction and focusing of the RF to a higher beam intensity around the eyes. I'm sorry to see you believe everything you're spoonfed by the military's PR guys. Of course, governments never lie, so let's all just take everything they say without questioning it. As I said, my background includes RF and microwaves, and yes, I do spot BS without needing the backing of $40 million to do it.