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DHS Official Considered Shock Collars For Air Travelers
"The Washington Times is reporting that the DHS wants to replace your boarding pass with a GPS-enabled shock bracelet. Plans for the device include subduing passengers remotely as well as onboard interrogation. There's even a promotional video."
Perhaps Paul Ruwaldt (the official named in this story) has been watching "The Coneheads" a bit too much, or not actually flying enough. Expressing interest is not quite the same as ordering mass quantities, but it's scary enough.
http://www.lamperdlesslethal.com/news/upload/pg2HomelandSecurity7_06.pdf
TFS liks to a blog post which itself links to part of a letter (page two, so we don't even get to see the whole letter).
Well, WRT page 1, I used my superior hacking skills to alter the URL http://www.lamperdlesslethal.com/news/upload/pg2HomelandSecurity7_06.pdf to http://www.lamperdlesslethal.com/news/upload/pg1HomelandSecurity7_06.pdf.
I don't think it is so far fetched for the FAA to want to know about this technology. Wanting to know about it doesn't necessarily mean they intend to mandate it for general use. In fact the letter mentions what occurred to me to be some obvious legitimate applications of the technology, such as prisoner transport.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
A December 21, 2005, Federal Register has Mr. Ruwaldt's email address listed as: paul.ruwaldt@dhs.gov, or, alternately, paul.s.ruwaldt@tc.faa.gov. Maybe he needs to hear how taxpayers feel about his interest in fitting us with shock-collars while we're on business trips, or going on vacation?
Does anybody remember the Running Man movie where neck collars with explosive bolts were attached to all prisoners? If a prisoner tried to run outside the containment field, their heads were blown off. I'm not seriously suggesting this idea.
I hate to break this to you, but a 747 is not rated for aerobatics. It doesn't have the power for the kind of vertical climb you are talking about, and the wings would fall off if you tried the other stunts you suggest. There is a reason that the NASA's "Vomit Comet" was as expensive as it was -- it is not a bog standard plane, and was specially designed and reinforced to take the Gs.
Rhapsody in Numbers
Typical Private Pilot training runs $6,000-$10,000 and about 75 hours of your time.
Once you have it plane rental can run $100-300 an hour (fuel is typically included in the rental rate)
Or buy your own for $50,000 or more then tack in $6.55 a gallon for 110LL Avgas.
Expect about 15 Nautical Miles pr Gallon from something like a Cessna 172 (25 gallon fuel load, 315NM range)
You can get a plane for less but expect some big bill in the near future for required maintnance.
If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. --Red Adair
The truth is that another hijacking is unlikely to happen.
Maybe, but a recent survey (a kiosk at Smithsonian Air & Space - July 4, 08) says that out of 29,319 people, 11,300 believe that the current airport screening process should be more stringent than it is.
I'm a virgo and on Slashdot. Coincidence? Yes.
Seriously - is the USA deliberately trying to damage its economy or what?
This sort of story is just one more thing to put off visitors to the USA. I routinely fly internationally and now route my flights so they avoid the US - ever since I was photographed and fingerprinted like a common crook just to visit friends in Seattle. A co-worker of mine said "I wouldn't mind so much if everyone else treated them the same as they treat us." A Japanese friend tells me Japan has begun recording similar details of US citizens visiting Japan, including forces personnel on commercial flights and it was not well received.
A friend of mine turned down a great promotion to the US from the UK because he "Didn't want to be hassled." every time he came back into the US from business abroad, especially because he was a black Londoner. His company acquiesced and gave him a role in Europe where he has thrived.
I work for a multi-national Fortune 500 company (hence AC post) and folks dislike travel to the USA, especially the way they are treated by US officials. We have recently received company-wide advice to not travel with laptops or PDA's which may be confiscated at will for an indeterminate period - and we are a US HQ'd company! It's rather hard these days to do business on the road without this stuff! One pointer even said carry a *spare* laptop in another bag - just in case!
I overheard a conversation between an American and a German where the American chap was wondering why the German's company (which he was quite impressed with) wasn't doing business in the USA "Too hard." came the reply. "We worry about the level of litigation in America and the US is not welcoming to foreign businesspeople anymore." The American chap shrugged and (sadly) agreed.
This is just business but there must be a hit to the massive tourism industry in the USA as well. None of this can be good for US business interests.
NASA's 'Vomit Comet' is a Boeing 717/KC-135 (707 variant used by Air Force). It is indeed reinforced for cargo and aerial refueler duties. Got to catch it one time and do a turn around, back in '88, up at Fairchild AFB. Also, the 707 platform is very good. Check out the 707 prototype, doing a barrel roll over Seattle.
I drank what? -- Socrates
If a mob of 1,000,000 people march on the white house with pitchforks and tourches demanding justice, there will be justice.
No, they will be labeled a "Violent Mob", and the Anti-Riot control Sonic weapon vehicles can be deployed to drive away the protesters. Or the National Guard, Military etc.
You Americans may have the right to unseat an unwanted government via a second revolution, but the Government also has the right and duty to preserve the peace and can use any means required to stop a violent protest can't it?. I have never understood that dichotomy personally speaking
To me it looks like the US is sliding slowly down the path to fascism of a sort, all in the name of supporting corporate profits and the continuation of the current government. Its kind of frightening to watch actually, but I hope it all turns out well :P
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
There are no "plans for the device" on the part of DHS. The idea for outfitting passengers has originated from the company trying to sell them, Lamperd FTS. Why? Because selling tens of millions of these bad boys is a lot more exciting to the business than selling a few thousand.
By reading the response from the DHS (http://www.lamperdlesslethal.com/news/upload/pg1HomelandSecurity7_06.pdf) you'll see exactly what they think of the idea. DHS asks for a written proposal, and outlines the areas of interest for them, which are almost solely around prisoner detention and transport. The official also finds it "conceivable to envision a use to improve air security, on passenger planes," but the tone of the letter effectively takes Lamperd's pie in the sky multi-billion dollar contract off the table. Lamperd sends DHS a brochure with their cockamamie idea, DHS responds saying "we can see how you got there. Now here's how *we* would use it, so send us a proposal that focuses on our needs."
That's it. End of story. Yet some kook at the Washington Times puts two and two together and gets ZOMG THE BUSHNAZIS WANT TO PUT SHOCK COLLARS ON US!!!11!!!!ONE!!1!!
Nope, not enough power to do loopings, but a barrel roll has been demonstrated. Rumor is that it's actually been demonstrated on serial number 2, the first demo 747 that wasn't a static mock-up.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
Just to be a programmer, here: Just because the vote occurs on the second Tuesday of November doesn't necessarily mean that the second Wednesday of the month is the next day. (For instance, if Nov. 1st is a Wednesday.)
Hello little man. I will destroy you!
1) The airlines won't foot the bill for the equipment, the additional personnel to issue / remove these bands, or the training involved. 2) As mentioned before the only way this could actually be used in a real attack situation is if all collars were activated en masse. There won't be enough time to figure out which passenger is the one emerging through the smoke to attack the cockpit. 3) We can't even figure out a way to allow ipods and bluetooth deviced to be used on the plane without "messing with navigation equipment" so how are we going to get a few hundred wireless receivers and a transmitter working? 4) How many days would it take for somebody to steal one of these, reverse-engineer it, and post instructions for pm the Internet for disabling the device? 5) How many script kiddies will use those instructions to spoof the signal and set off peoples' wrist bands at random? 6) How much will the first lawsuit be for somebody whose pace maker was messed up by the electric shock from their wrist band? Or the first kid that suffers real injury because they use a one-size-fits-all shock that has to be strong enough to take down that 300 pound guy snoring next to you in coach. The idea may be interesting to think about, but is no more feasible than the eternal myth about congress passing a law to tax emails.
If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. -- Daniel Webster
read anything more than the summary?
Like this comment from a spokesperson from the Department of Homeland Securitys Science & Technology Directorate:
"The hypothetical use of the bracelet would have been for transporting already apprehended prisoners and detainees at prisons and border patrol facilities, and DHS was looking to see if there were potential air travel applications for apprehended suspects."?
It looks like the answer is no.
Like the video shows - what stops him (or her) from just cutting the bracelet off?
Also - when the airline crew stand up to subdue the passenger - how do they selectively do this and not shock anyone around him or her? I've seen pilot's carry plane tickets as well - are they wearing these?
I am pretty damn sure that screaming something about Allah and then trying to take over a plan is going to be a good solid way to be torn limb from limb for a couple of decades. The only way I could possibly conceive of hijacking a plan in the US now would be actually be the plane's pilot from the beginning. Even if you could overcome the passengers by having enough men armed with guns to kill the majority of able bodied people before they tear you limb from limb, that still won't save you from the fact that US pilots are now taught to do very unpleasant things if some asshole tries to break into the reinforced doors or starts shooting a gun (the only conceivable way of subduing an airplane full of people).
Even if you had half a dozen men with guns they slipped by security, the pilot is going to have you sitting on the ceiling the second he hears a gun go off. If he wants to be a real dick, he can also see how long you can go without oxygen by depressurizing the airplane, all the while tossing you from one end of the airplane to the other.
Can planes be blown up? Sure. Can they be used as cruise missiles? Sure, but it isn't going to happen on a commercial airliner any time soon. If it happens again, it will be because someone smuggled themselves aboard a FedEx plane and shot the pilots before they knew what was happening.
Those may not have been accurate, but just try and find one of them today.
Maybe that is because there were never any such reports. The flight path of Flight 93 was over PA, not MD. It made a turn near Cleveland, OH on its way to Washington, D.C. after it was hijacked and did not make it as far as MD (where Camp David is located) when the crash occurred. Or perhaps you thought it went from Cleveland to MD and then turned around again to go back because their real target was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and they'd missed their exit the first time?
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