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Homeland Security Funds LED Light That Blinds, Disorients
katzmeow writes "Ryand Singel's Wired blog notes that Homeland security has developed an LED flashlight that uses 'powerful flashes of light to temporarily blind, disorient and incapacitate people.' The idea is to use it to incapacitate people — 'arrest them' — on airlines, borders, etc. without using traditional weapons.
The company's president Bob Lieberman says the tool is perfect for confronting 'border jumpers.'
'You don't want to hurt or kill them, just take them into custody,' says Lieberman. 'With this, they don't need to know English to comply.' The 'light saber' can even be scaled up to bazooka size for subduing crowds."
*whoosh*
This is not a new concept. I recall hearing about this class of device twenty years ago when I worked the door at a couple of bars - always wished I had one (it's a hard way to make cash to fund your education, letting people beat on your head so you can learn to make a living with self-same head). Never saw one though.
Here's a reference from 2005 to such a device, with a different name. I don't know if it is the same company, or a different development: http://www.defense-update.com/products/s/sabershot .htm
[17] Leary, T., White, C., Wood, P. R., Bhabha, W. D., and Wirth, N. Lambda calculus considered harmful. In Proceedings
"There's one wavelength that gets everybody," Lieberman said, according to the newsletter. "Vlad calls it the evil color."
And if the psychophysical effects are limited to a single or range of wavelengths, these effects are easily blocked with Dichroic Filter Sunglasses. Or better yet, Peril Sensitive Sunglasses.
The good news if the DOD is again looking for creative ways of wasting money, this obviously means they are nearly finished with the cleanup from two wars. Couple hundred billion here, couple hundred billion there and pretty soon you're talking about real money!
I'm sorry, but I have to call BS on this one. While I realize that it's oh so fashionable amongst the intelligentsia so make all sorts of wild accusations against the United States as the very incarnation of Cthulu, it just rings hollow here.
First of all, what causes people to go blind while looking at Lasers? well, let's check Wikipedia shall we? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lasers#Laser_safety
the money quote is here:
(emphasis mine)
The reason lasers can blind is due to the nature of the laser itself, being a highly coherent and concentrated beam of light, which the cornea can further concentrate to dangerous levels. LED's, while very bright, are of a highly INcoherent and diffuse nature. Now, there may be some TEMPORARY blindness caused by the overall light intensity, also known as Flash Blindness ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_blindness ) but nothing permanently damaging. Also, as someone else mentioned above, there is a range-finder on the thing designed to adjust the intensity based on the range of the target.
So what we have here is a non-lethal weapon designed to harmlessly incapacitate an individual, allowing law enforcement to take them into custody without exchanging gunfire or risking serious injury or loss of life. Frankly, that sounds like three things to me:
a) A good overall idea
b) Something the UN would really go for (why kill when you can humanely capture?)
c) NOT something that an Eeeevil entity would do, unlike the way the US is commonly characterized on
Remember, calm logical thinking is your friend, knee-jerk reactions are not.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Just for your reference: I've spent once about 2 months blindfolded after I got by a powerful search floodlight (we were sailing in canoe down the river and accidentally came too close to a military base).
Doctors said that it's a fairly common reaction on very bright light. I was lucky to recover almost completely. Not all are.
Nothing like taking a single isolated incident - which occured just weeks after four suicide bombers killed 52 and injured 700, and days after another four tried but failed to repeat the attack, and in which the officers concerned were told that they were tracking a known terrorist suspected (and later confirmed) as being part of the threat - and blowing it out of proportion.
Jean Charles de Menezes died because many things wen't wrong that shouldn't have been allowed to go wrong. And while I'm not excusing either the commanding officers that misinformed their subordinates in the field, or the officers that delivered the killing shots themselves, it's unreasonable to suggest that this single isolated incident is a typical police response.
Nor, not that it needs to be said, has anybody attempted to defend what happened with a "reasonable force" defence.
If you're going to use an example then at least use one that's typical rather than one that's unique, or at least put the example in context and provide the reader with some facts rather than sensationalism for sensationalism's sake.
Did de Menezes die as a result of a police overreaction? Yes. Was it in any way a normal reaction to a normal incident? No.
For those that would prefer some facts: Wikipedia article on Jean Charles de Menezes.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Thanks for making that general point; you saved me the trouble. As for the specific case of airplanes-as-weapons... it surprises me that, to my knowledge, the fact of real-life precedent existing in World War 2 seems to have eluded attention. Specific reference is made to the kamikaze aircraft and their naval counterpart, Kaiten manned torpedoes.
- White Knight of the Order of Mihoshi Enthusiasts
This line is always, always, always misquoted. The correct quote is:
"Mein eyes! The goggles do nothing!"
Come on, folks, give Rainier Wolfcastle a little credit...
Even considering using devices that could cause permanent blindness is evil. Sometimes the US is characterised correctly.
The Geneva convention refers also to the rights of the "prisoners of war". A prisoner of war is an uniformed soldier, captured while fighting for its country.
The freedom fighters from Iraq, or the ones from Afghanistan, or others, are not technically protected by those regulations - they are not uniformed, and they are not fighting for their country (the government recognized at the international level).
So, the Geneva convention is not perfect
Hey...this sounds like that weapon they used in that old 80's movie Looker . I always wanted one of those guns...
Susan Dey was pretty hot back in the day in that movie too!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The gunning down of a 92-year-old grandmother in a botched drug raid was also a unique case, and so were the accompanying lies attempting to justify the actions and make them seem reasonable.
Here's a map of the details of all the "unique" botched paramilitary raids in America.
The original claim stands true. "Reasonable force" is a fluid term, and far too many innocent people die from police mis-application of "reasonable force".
Under the Third Geneva Convention a fighter or belligerent in an international armed conflict who wanted lawful combatant status (and therefore prisoner of war status if captured), would have to meet certain criteria including:
(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) That of carrying arms openly;
(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war." (From Article 4)
Not saying it's right, just that it's legal
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