Homeland Security Commissions LED-Based Puke-Saber

E++99 writes "Homeland Security has contracted with Intelligent Optical Systems, Inc. to develop an "LED Incapacitator," a nonlethal weapon consisting of a large flashlight with a cluster of LEDs capable of emitting "super-bright pulses of light at rapidly changing wavelengths." Sounds innocuous enough... until they they shine "the evil color" at you and you start puking! A working prototype has been completed, and they will soon be putting it through its paces. Homeland Security hopes to give it to Border Patrol agents and National Guardsmen by 2010."

Comments

Other uses...

[tectomorph]

Wow, wait until the bulimics get hold of this on the black market!

The good and the bad

[Chairboy]

While non-lethal technology has the potential to be fantastic, there's a downside to be considered too.

With a gun, there's a certain level of commitment before it's used. An officer of the law must make a determination that he or she is really certain about before shooting, because hitting an innocent person is absolutely unacceptable. As a result, the tendency is to, unless there's no option, NOT shoot someone if you can hold them at bay with the THREAT of shooting. A side effect of this is that an officer given a bad order to shoot is much more likely to abstain, because once he pulls the trigger, it's all over.

As a result, innocent folks are often held at gunpoint until their identity/non-criminalness is confirmed. While traumatic and stressful, this is better than an alternative that's growing increasingly common:

Enter, the taser. Potentially a wonderful tool for stopping an attacker without permanently injuring them, doctrine has instead developed in many police and security departments to 'Zap first, ask questions later'. The 'non-injurious' aspect of the tool means that the bar is that much lower on whether or not to shoot, because "after all, if they're innocent, then it's just a bit of discomfort".

The growing number of non-lethal tools is on the surface a good, even GREAT thing. The real danger though, is a long term one. With the bar set so low, more and more people will be subject to excruciating pain, and eventually, this technology may evolve into a tool of even greater oppression of liberty than anything we have now.

Imagine if a protest can be casually broken up by making everyone vomit or crap themselves uncontrollably. If the government has the ability to casually stop groups of people from coming together or otherwise detaining them while being able to argue "it's not fatal, it's just uncomfortable", then the bar on violating our rights as citizens drops too.

So I'm interested and optimistic about the technologies, but I desperately hope that better effort is invested in making them a net positive for all of humanity and not the boot that might otherwise grind our faces into the dirt.

Re:The good and the bad

[Chris Burke]

You are correct in that non-lethal control measures are 'easier' to implement. But I think that once the decision is made to bring a situation under control, it is going to happen regardless. Maybe I just don't trust cops, but it seems like once things go bad they go the whole way. If firehoses are at hand, they bring out the firehoses. Tasers, clubs, rubber bullets, PIT maneuvers, etc etc.

Yes, that's true, and in riot-type situations that is exactly what happens.

In this particular case I'm more worried about the potential for abuse in encounters with a single suspect. While truncheons and rubber bullets leave marks, presumably this device will leave no indication that it was used other than a case of foul breath. It would be easy for a lawyer to argue that person did not beat themselves between the shoulder blades with a club, could they prove that the suspect did actually throw up, and that it wasn't a case where they vomited from anxiety (from their guilt, of course) then decided to blame the puke ray?

Basically I worry about any tool that can be used unaccountably, and yeah the lesser barrier to usage that "non-lethal"* weapons imply. Accountability means a lot -- for example it's why the police are more likely to prevent you from hitting your head as you get into the squad car rather than ensuring that you hit your head, because those kinds of bruises became easy lawsuit fodder. So now the good cops have to make sure the suspect doesn't hit their head on purpose, but that's the price that must be paid for the actions of bad cops.

* Oh yeah, and remember back when that innocent bystander to a protest in NYC was shot through her eye and killed by a rubber bullet? Remember that for a while the press was referring to the pellet guns as "less-lethal weapons"? Can we go back to using that term? Because I'd like for us to keep that in mind before some cop decides to stick this in the face of some suspect with a condition for five minutes just to teach them a lesson.

Morality of this?

[Anonymous Coward]

There has to be a real question here of morality and the rules of engagement for such a device. There seems to be a growing tide of opinion that as long as a weapon is "non-lethal", i.e. it won't kill you or leave behind long-term effects then it is magically fine to use in a very wide range of situations. Real questions have to be asked at some stage as to the *morality* of allowing widespread use of something that makes you sick/shocks you/blinds you purely on the basis that "it has no long term effects and allows us to subdue people" - so does a kick in the face, but I don't see officers doing that (unless they are caught on camera in which case the get suspended then eventually let off).

Re:from the article

[ultracool]

"There are often confrontations at border crossings with suspected illegal aliens or drug runners," Lieberman says. "You don't want to hurt or kill them, just take them into custody. With this," he smiles, "they don't need to know English to comply."

Wouldn't it be easier to just have border officials who spoke Spanish?

Re:Oh no!

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, learn to meme properly. Although it is a well-known fact that Rainier Luftwaffe Wolfcastle actually cries "The goggles do nothing" when starring his role as Radioactive Man, the precise Slashdot meme is commonly stated as "The goggles, they do nothing!". Please, report to the men at the door, where you will be asked to hand in your UID, geek card and, should that be the case, mirror goggles.

Re:Nail in the coffin

[JambisJubilee]

[...] I don't recall anytime in recent memory when something like this was used to subdue a peaceful crowd [...]

You must have an awfully short memory. How about non-lethal foam-rubber projectiles?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Los_Angeles_May_D ay_melee

Re:This will work just great...

[wordsnyc]

Aw, that's sweet.

But if the cops shot everybody, most especially the white children of Middle America, there'd be hell to pay. Better to scare the little shits off with tasers and rubber bullets and puke rays when they try to protest over tossing the quaint Geneva Conventions, that musty old Constitution, or the Magna Fuckin' Carta in the dustbin.