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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."
"subduing crowds"...I don't like the sound of that.
okinawa japan
You are welcome on my lawn.
As far as I remember, intrenational laws of war forbid using weapons that blind beople.
No problem there: The US has not (yet) officially declared war on itself, so using this on US citizens is perfectly fine for the time being.
"Won't someone PLEASE think of the poor epileptics! BULLSHIT!!! We're under no obligation to coddle people caught in the act of breaking the law."
Brilliant! Because we all know that everybody who's arrested is guilty, don't we? After all, it's only guilty people that get arrested, right? Innocent people never get stopped and detained, do they?
Idiot.
Why do you think courts exist? Law enforcement officers, in the heat of the action, aren't judge and jury. They don't determine if someone has broken the law or not. A court does that.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Ah yes, the universal language of violence.
Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped. Calvin Coolidge
Because crowds need to be subdued, obviously... If they ain't happy, it's the govt's obligation to find out what it's doing wrong!
It however would make for fun high speed photography images :P o pping.html
'A technology under development by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, uses pulsed light, like strobe lights in a disco, to blind and disorient without the explosive component of dazzlers and flash bangs. The researchers are also working on sophisticated goggles that use liquid crystal display (LCD) technology to darken and lighten the eyepieces as the light pulses on and off, shielding whoever is using the technology from its effects. Reportedly, they've hit a stumbling block in trying to get the LCDs to react quickly enough.'
So while sunglasses or other visual shields may help, you still have to overcome the effects of the strobe. http://www.eugeneciurana.com/musings/from_omni/sh
Yes, but "reasonable force" is a fluid term. In the UK, it apparently means shooting an unarmed guy, then when he's on the floor, step on his arms and shoot him in the head, over and over again.
A better term would, in my opinion, be "minimal force". At least that doesn't expect police men to be reasoning beings.
Regards,
--
*Art
Lieberman was quoted as saying by a DHS newsletter. "With this, they don't need to know English to comply." United States Border Patrol Agents speak spainish, language aptitude testing is part of the hiring process and spainish is part of the training.
Picture it, one crowd is protesting with a police force armed with lethal weapons, and non-lethal weapons that leave bruises, the other is protesting with a police force armed with LEDs. The first is not going to fire on a crowd except in self-defense, to do otherwise would be crazy, it would also be a bit difficult to go around and give everyone a bashing. The second is getting impatient and gets out an LED bazooka, and decides to put the brightness up a bit because it's a bright day, oh and they aren't sure if everyone had their eyes open the first time, so they fire it a few times just to be sure.
Or more likely, a middle-eastern looking youth is spotted in a library on a university campus, when asked for his student ID he says he doesn't have it, and won't leave. Someone calls security, security approaches him and tells him to leave. The youth says he won't leave, the security personnel get pissed off and pull out their handy LED weapon, and hold it a centimeter or so from his eye. They repeatedly flash him as he shouts out at them.
As for your claim that a very bright light source with a relatively high divergence from a large distance can not cause permanent damage, I think you need to look directly at the Sun a bit more.
Why would the US Government care about international law? They refuse to be bound by it.
Various geneva conventions already ban landmines and imprisoning people without trial (Guantanamo Bay) but they are still done in the name of homeland security.
Go on, mod this down but you know it's still true.
I dont read
I think the operating rule with these less-than-lethals should be "If you didn't have one of these and you would otherwise be shooting them with a gun, that's when you use these. If you would never have resorted to the gun, stick with the nightstick."
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
The difference is acceptance.
Say the homeland security is equipping itself with C4 and nerve gas to quench riots, and you get public pressure down on you, from the ACLU to the media. And if you use it in anything but the most severe cases or in any case against US citizens, step down from your office.
Say it's getting equipped with "harmless", non-lethal strobe lights that temporarily blinds and generally just subdues the rioter, you'll have a lot more acceptance. Should he find out that the temporary blindness turns into permanent and tries to sue, dump the media slanderers on him, with the "if he was a honest citizen and didn't riot, this would not have happened to him, he deserved it" spin.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Oh don't worry, there will be exceptions for industries, as usual. Just you, citizen, have to abide to the law.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I think you are missing the point that the laser safety regulations are busily being modified to include LED light sources. LED's, while non-coherent, can be focused sufficiently to create similar effects. It is all about how much light energy is hitting a person's retina. The effect can be created with any light source of sufficient intensity. Both a very bright focused LED and a laser can (temporarily) blind people.
What a logical and clever thought. Thanks.
There were actually two main incidents.
1) the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes
2) the lying and cover up of 1) by the british authorities (which to me is a bigger danger to everyone else in the UK).
While you can try to claim 1) to be an isolated incident, I don't think you can consider 2) to be one since there is no assurance that such lying and cover ups will not happen again, and so that makes incidents like 1) more likely.
There was no repentance, there was no real coming clean. The police continued trying to justify/defend what they did.
It's just like the CxOs of a company getting caught doing the wrong thing, then issuing a statement "Oh, we made a mistake, we're sorry, BUT actually blahblahblah", then later on your find out that blahblahblah was a lie, then they say "oh we're sorry, but actually blahblahblah2". Where blahblahblah2 is also a lie. So on and so forth.
If you do not know the truth about something, you don't make false statements publicly for nothing.
That sure does not bring to mind "isolated incident".
I do have a higher opinion of the UK police than other police forces around the world that I'm aware of, but that's not saying much nowadays. If they continue as is, they'll just be like the cops elsewhere i.e. lesser/necessary _evils_.
To those who are about to defend the other police forces (there are good cops etc etc). Don't waste time trying to convince me, go find and jail the bad cops. Clean your hands or it'll be hard to use those hands to clean other stuff.
On the other hand, All police forces everywhere are so amateurish, so untrained and ignorant that they will automatically behave in the most irresponsible and dangerous manner possible when given a non-lethal alternative weapon.
Well gee, that pretty much describes the modern history of the Taser (and before that, pepper spray), doesn't it? "It doesn't kill, so we can aim directly for the balls and fire away over and over". Completely passive student giving you lip? Zap the motherfucker. Some damned hippies refusing to clear the way for the bulldozers? Hold 'em down and apply pepper spray directly to their eyes with a q-tip. Some punk won't pull over? Blind him from the helicopter ("oops, how could we have known he'd hit that bridge truss doing a buck-ten?")
Keep in mind that the folks who decide to work as cops (not necessarily talking about detectives here) don't usually do so due to their extensive education. They look physically intimidating (most places have minimum height requirements) and generally got off on beating random people up in their youth (ie, bullies). Give these guys a weapon that doesn't automatically result in an inquiry when used, and they'll use it as often and at the highest intensity (including "improvised" higher-than-normal settings) possible.
I have a friend who talks quite a bit like you who a few years ago had the displeausre of being repeatedly tasered "for no reason".
Long story short, after about the fifth time asking for the rest of the story, "no reason" became "I had just gotten out of rehab, trashed my parents bathroom with a shower rod, kicked in their windsheild, attacked the first officer on the scene, continued to fight with other who arrived until restrained, and then began spitting at them until incapcitated".
I'm not going to say their are no dishonest people in positions of power, but at least from my personal experience (which doesn't end there, it's just the most interesting story) most officers I've had the pleasure of meeting both on and off duty are pleasent people just doing their jobs.
It's important not let your obvious bias make you forget that there are in fact people in the world worse than the police, and that's why they exist.
...a way to disband those pesky peaceful protesters.
This sig only exists because you are observing it.
Dude, seriously. Do you not understand what the original poster was saying?
They're not blinded by some eye-burning laser or something, the whole joke was that they were running across the border with their eyes closed so they couldn't be zapped by this thing.
This isn't a joke about blinding people, its not a joke about injuring people or burning their eyes out. Its a joke about a bunch of people running around committing a felony with their eyes closed.
And if you've never seen a bugs bunny cartoon with rake gags, then perhaps the entire thing from the beginning to the end went over your head.