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.

Comments

Dangerous slide

[BWJones]

Flying into this country is becoming more and more of a hassle and every time that I fly outside the US, it is apparent that the DHS is completely corrupting business and pleasure travel at the expense of our freedoms and economy.

If our government seriously thinks this is a viable option, then we have truly lost and the slide towards a fascist government will be complete. Yeah, go waaaay beyond "papers please" and treat *all* of your citizens as criminals when they travel.

What I suspect will happen is that this is a trial idea floated to the media and will be explained away as saying "Oh, well.... we intended this to be used for transporting criminals" or some such nonsense like that. This idea is one of the most absurd and dangerous ideas I've heard from my government in a long time and it moves us dangerously close to a threshold that will destabilize this country.

Re:Dangerous slide

[192939495969798999]

There will never be another hijacking of a plane with americans on it. The shock/terror value was in the fact that it hadn't been done or talked about to the extent that it happened that day. Now that we all know, the terrorists lose the "shock/terror" value and must move on to some other thing. If you reveal what their plan is, it defuses 99% of the shock value, which is why i support reporting on any given terror plot, no matter how unlikely, because once it's out there, the public knows about it and the shock value is lost.

Re:Dangerous slide

[mbone]

The fear level in American culture is, as Noam Chomsky puts it, "off the scale."

The weird thing is that I don't feel afraid (and I travel frequently) and I don't know anyone who is really afraid. Where are all of these scared people ? Who are they ? More importantly, do we know that the above statement is really true, or is it just what we are told ?

Re:Dangerous slide

[coldmist]

Unfortunately, there have been quite a few acts of terrorism in the US since 9/11 that officially they didn't want to link to anything organized or racial, but shootings in a Utah mall, California campuses, another mall in the midwest, and others have happened by muslim people for no apparent reason.

Am I afraid of a lone shooter at a mall? no. I'm not afraid to fly either. But, I am afraid to go through the TSA checkpoints at the airport, and they find something like a shampoo bottle that is 1oz too big and they want to examine my bags "more thoroughly".

Am I flying as often? No, because I hate the hassle the airport has become. Not because of fear of terrorist acts while on the plane.

Re:Dangerous slide

[thermian]

I'm not completely sure why the fear level is so high in American culture, but I'd hazard to guess that it's the result of a combination of being too used to being too comfortable and too safe too much of the time

I believe it has more to do with centuries of knowing with absolute certainty that there were two stonking great oceans between you and the rest of the world. That has tended to make you feel that the rest of the world can screw itself up and you'll be fine. For quite some time that was true too.

Until 9/11 no-one had attacked American soil (as in the continent, not counting Hawaii here), aside from that poor woman who got killed by those Japanese balloon bombs in WW2.
You were, not to put to fine a point on it, as shocked about that as you were freaked by Sputnik. Sputnik had a huge affect on your culture at the time too.

Add that to the fact that generations of many families have lived and died in the same areas, seeing no-one but other Americans, and you end up with millions of people who simply don't have the experience or mental framework to deal with the problem. At least not yet.

Your politicians come from the same stock, they're no mystically different breed they're just as vulnerable to hysteria over the issue as anyone else.

I'm actually pro American, if that statement makes any sense, but to my mind this shift to extreme paranoia is troublesome. It hasn't dimmed my liking of the American people (you're mostly all just folk, like me), but the state? Oooh, not keen on those guys.

I mean, I'm a scientist, English, and I've never broken a law in my life (ok, one time I poured perfume talc over a cop, but I was eight, and he had told my mum that I'd been naughty when I hadn't been..). In spite of my law abiding nature, I can only get into the US if I allow myself to be treated like a potential criminal/mass murderer.

The result is I won't be coming back to the US for a long while. If a conference is being held there I just won't submit papers, or I'll get a colleague to present them for me. I much prefer a trip to Rome, or some other nice Conference venue.

Re:Dangerous slide

[ultranova]

I also think that Flight 93 was shot down,

That's right, keep the conspiracy flying.

What conspiracy ? Given a choice between shooting down a plane and killing everyone onboard or letting some lunatic ram it into a building, killing everyone onboard anyway and lots of people besides them, which would you choose ? Cold-hearted, perhaps, but also the path of least corpses.

BTW. Is the edit box in this section supposed to be postal stamp -sized ?

Re:Dangerous slide

[Heather D]

Way back in the late 70's (or early 80's maybe, I forget) I and several of my friends set up a couple of Dobsonian telescopes in my grandmother's backyard. A half-hour or so later a police car pulls up and two cops get out and come around to the back to ask whats up?

They'd gotten calls that "Suspicious looking people" were setting up "mortars" aimed at the city.

Yes it really happened.

It turns out one of out neighbors had issues with my grandfather and was trying to use the cops as his private thugs. He came out pointing with the classic waving finger prattling on about hippies and pipe bombs and such.

There are a lot of unstable people out there and we are currently dealing with two political parties who both seem convinced that more govt. power is needed. It is now useful for govt. to use these people to shoehorn it's new policies into place.

Re:Dangerous slide

[Bombula]

American culture doesn't have this level of fear.

I wasn't clear enough in my original post, and I didn't give the context for the Chomsky quote. Policy and culture are two different things. Yes, it may be true that the government response to terror is not commensurate with the actual level of fear that Americans feel. But the actual level of fear Americans feel is vastly higher than that felt by people of any other culture. That is what Chomsky was talking about, and if you've ever spent any appreciable amount of time immersed in foreign cultures it is as plainly true as the sky is blue. Again, I don't know exactly why it is so - but it is, indeed, so. This is not meant to be an offense or a sleight or an insult; it is simply a fact.

A good example was the American reaction to 9/11. If planes had destroyed Big Ben or the Eifel Tower or any other European monument, the people of those countries would not have reacted by canceling their travel plans (you'll note that airlines in America got clobbered by a lack of people flying after 9/11 - an insane response) or stopped going to the supermarket or avoided crowded public places. The IRA bombed London for 25 years, and no one stopped riding the tube. Even when Islamic terrorists bombed the tube, no one stopped riding it.

Other examples abound.

Re:Dangerous slide

[servognome]

I am more than concerned that we may have to resort to violently removing our government for the crimes they have committed against us and the failure to do their sworn duty.

Why? These politicians keep getting reelected. A revolution would be needed to fix the system. The system is working fine, the people are getting the government they want.

Democracy is two wolves and lamb voting on what's for lunch.

I prefer to think of democracy as two sheep and a wolf voting on what's for lunch. So you end up with the prisoners dilemma. As long as the sheep stick together they are fine, but the slightest bit of fear will turn the sheep against each other, and the decision becomes the wolf's.

Re:Dangerous slide

[fugue]

That's not armour. That's a weapon. Ok, maybe both.

Actually, the research on small dicks is largely in place. SUVs and pickups are highly correlated with low self-esteem. Not sure why penis size and self-esteem are correlated, but they certainly are, and so while it's not certain that SUV/Pickup drivers tend to have substandard penises, it's rather likely.

Re:Dangerous slide

[baboo_jackal]

do we know that the above statement is really true, or is it just what we are told ?

I think you already have the answer - GP cites the opinion of Noam Chomsky as his evidence. So, we're all scared because Noam said so.

Where are all of these scared people ?

Living inside Noam Chomsky's rich imagination, apparently.

Re:Dangerous slide

[n dot l]

It turns out one of out neighbors had issues with my grandfather and was trying to use the cops as his private thugs.

My parents used to have exactly the same sort of neighbors. They told the city we'd redone the inside of our house in marble (or something like that) to get us reassessed for taxes three years before that was due (joke's on them, even with the home improvements we did do our taxes went down). They called the city to see if our big dog was licensed. They called the cops to write tickets when we parked so much as an inch too close to the curb (usually nothing happened). The list goes on...

You know, the only difference between this and what went on in the USSR is that the authorities (generally) don't do really nasty things on mere suspicion like the KGB did. Apart from that, people are the same everywhere, and it scares the shit out of me that all sorts of government agencies are getting more power and less oversight. That's just begging for trouble...

Re:Dangerous slide

[Nimey]

And there's the quislings, ordinary people who agree with the government robbing our liberties, who are convinced that doing this Makes The World Safe For Americans, who won't hear arguments to the contrary.

The quislings are just as dangerous as the bastards actually taking power.

Re:Dangerous slide

[Eli Gottlieb]

Except that the Israelis respond in a completely different way. Rather than throwing (mostly useless) rules and bureaucracy at the problem of suicide bombings, they built a security fence and relied on the human intelligence (including ethnic, religious, and psychological profiling skills) of professionally-trained security officers (not sure what the ratio of private firms to IDF soldiers is) to distinguish a threat from an innocent but unusual person.

They also rely on a populous that all did their own time in IDF -- a populous trained to treat threats of violence as very real and react by fighting rather than cooing to the government for protection.

And by and large, it works for them.

Re:Dangerous slide

[SanguineV]

The weird thing is that I don't feel afraid (and I travel frequently) and I don't know anyone who is really afraid. Where are all of these scared people ? Who are they ? More importantly, do we know that the above statement is really true, or is it just what we are told ?

As an Australian who has travelled to the USA on a couple of occasions the impression I had was that there is a very strong culture of fear. This was typified by:
- Being told I would be carjacked if I want to Orlando Florida.
- Being warned not to talk to black people in Florida.
- Being told to avoid Texas if driving a car with Oklahoma plates.
- Being questioned by the police for walking (most people drove, walking was considered suspiscous activity). Also I was told not to move or make any sudden movements while they radioed for backup and contacted Australian police to verify my driver's licence!
- "News" that repeated over and over how terrorists were coming to get US citizens.
- "News" that warned people they were going to be attacked by killer bees (or wasps).
- "News" reports that always seemed to talk about the latest murderer on the loose and to be careful.
- Being told never to be more than one minute run from a bunker.
- Normal TV ads seemed to be "X can kill you! Buy product Y!" (Where X can be the air in your house, milk, being alive...)
...

Basically, everything appeared to be built around instilling fear in the population and using that fear for government policy, advertising, avoiding talking to people who were "different".

Re:Dangerous slide

[JWSmythe]

Flight 93 was shot down. Read about it here:

    http://freeinternetpress.com/story.php?sid=1737

    Based on the information available, he had to make a tough decision. Regardless if the whole 9/11 scenario was a choreographed work of fiction, that F-16 pilot had a tough decision to make, and he did what was right, again by the information available.

    If it was a choreographed scenario, that plane was to crash into another building, not fall into a field in pieces.

  No one in the government will ever admit to it though.

How much is a pilot license?

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't force you to do any of that bullshit if you're flying your own plane, right?

What it actually says...

[Madball]

If you RTFA... Note in part of the scanned letter: ...We see the potential uses to include prisoner transportation, detainee control, and the military security forces might have some interest. In addition, it is conceivable to envision a use to improve air security, on passenger planes.

Points to consider:

--Getting a quote on something costs nothing (see the "taxpayer's dollars" comment in TFA).

--Paying to have something developed further is SOP for government agencies--90% of it never goes anywhere

--Implicit in the above quote is that the most likely uses are in prisoner situations (I, for one, have no problem with this use case)

--Having it on paying air passengers is "conceivable"--> this is the sticking point for most of the ./ discussion. It is outrageous, insane, and fascist. It is not, however, close to reality (yet).

Re:What it actually says...

[hoppo]

If you RTFA...

C'mon, this is Slashdot.

--Having it on paying air passengers is "conceivable"--> this is the sticking point for most of the ./ discussion. It is outrageous, insane, and fascist. It is not, however, close to reality (yet).

Were that the only possible application of the device in an air passenger context, then one could interpret the statement made in the letter ("In addition, it is conceivable to envision a use to improve air security, on passenger planes") to mean putting shock collars on passengers. However, that is highly unlikely what the DHS official means, especially considering the rest of his response focuses on the detention and transportation of bad guys. It's much more likely that DHS is interested in using such a device to detain ne'er-do-wells on a plane or in an airport.

Think about it... outfitting every air passenger is just not feasible, neither from a cost perspective nor from a PR perspective. The tinfoil hat crowd will insist otherwise, but I don't believe the notion of collaring passengers was even entertained by anyone at the agency.

Re:On a practical note. . .

[mbone]

you're an airline pilot. A terrorist organization just used Semtex to destroy your reinforced door.

Well, at that point, you are probably dead, given where the blast would go. But the thing to note here is that

Pilots don't need weapons

They have the plane ! They are belted in and have Oxygen masks. They can

      - depressurize the cabin
      - turn the plane upside down
      - cause sufficient acceleration to incapacitate the passengers
      - put the plane in a vertical climb, so everyone falls to the rear
      - etc., etc.

Don't think pilots haven't thought about this. I know several, and they were all confident, after 9/11, of being able to control any hijackers that the passengers couldn't.

Re:I don't know which is funnier:

[rs232]

"The fact that someone is actually attempting to pass this off as a real news story, or the fact that some people here on /. are accepting it as a real news story"

Isn't this the same politically conservative Washington Times that's owned by the Moonies?

Re:Nothing to see here, move along

[NeutronCowboy]

You're right - most of the applications mentioned in that letter are for security applications by law enforcement or military.

However, there's still the matter of one little sentence:
"In addition, it is conceivable to envision a use to improve air security, on passenger planes."

I'm sorry, but anybody who envisions that this is conceivable has no fucking clue what it is that they're trying to protect anyone from. I realize that this is the beginning of an invitation to participate in a bidding process, and that the application to passenger security is a side blurb. However, applying this to passenger security should have never, ever even come up. Especially not when the paragraph talked about the bracelet as a restraint tool.

Sometimes, I'd rather smack an idea into oblivion before it has even had time to take root, rather than just wait for someone else to realize how much of a mistake this is.

Your Agonizer, Komrade!!

[Reziac]

This technology is well-understood and widely available -- the canine shock collar first came into use in the 1950s. Today's models are highly refined, capable of variable shocks from "barely a tingle" to "FRY". (Note: as a professional dog trainer, this falls into my area of expertise.)

Setting aside the "Your agonizer, Komrade!" aspects for the moment... how much will this cost us in tax dollars? How many passengers are in the air at any one time, at a wild-assed guess about 50,000?? The most basic canine unit costs about $200, but that one won't be sufficiently reliable or securable for airline use, nor does it have enough range for a large terminal, so let's upgrade to the $700 unit (which has a range of up to one mile under ideal conditions). That's $35 million just to purchase the units.

[And the average lifespan, in daily use, is about 3 to 5 years, then it's off to The Collar Clinic, which charges about 30% of the value of the collar for repairs.]

As to hackability -- this has been a problem since way back; one of the design challenges was ensuring that the transmitter from one collar didn't make another go off by mistake. And there are only so many radio frequencies available, and that too is old tech.

If I were bent on causing chaos on a plane, I wouldn't even get on board myself. I'd hide a scanning transmitter in the luggage, which would start transmitting "FRY" across the spectrum at random intervals. Passengers would never know who was going to get shocked next, or when the next shock was coming. Wouldn't that do wonders for air travel! (Encrypted signal required, you say? Okay, I'll just set my trigger to hit the electronics AFTER the decryption point.)

These devices are generally safe, as they are designed to be painful yet harmless. But someone with a weak heart or epilepsy could be in big trouble -- on FRY the shock is similar to a weedburner-type electric fence; it'll put you right on your ass. Even on "tickle", what happens to someone wearing a pacemaker??

Bye bye USA

[CountBrass]

I've pretty much stop travelling to the US. If my company asks I refuse and I've not holidayed in the US for a while.

My wife and I flew to California for a holiday the February after 9/11 and deliberately went around wearing the stars and stripes (her a lapel badge, me a rugby shirt) to show our unity.

So what's stopped us returning to the US since? The ludicrous controls that have been introduced since that trip. These cuffs would put the seal on it: under no circumstances would I ever board a flight where I was required to wear one of these.

Re:Using up the Budget

[Phrogman]

I spent a few years in the Canadian Military, and we have the same mindset up here. Every year my unit was allocated $X for purchasing rounds for the range. During the first Gulf War, my unit was deployed to the Middle East (and I sadly didn't get to go). When our range qualification time came up, they had us (about 20 out of 250 or so troops) drive out to the range, and then fire off enough rounds to account for the entire unit qualifying - even though they were deployed to a *war* - because otherwise next year's budget would have excluded the money for the rounds required on the range.

At the same time they had an initiative that offered a reward for suggestions that helped the military save money. The obvious submission garnered no response of course

They are your average uneducated citizens

[Anonymous Coward]

Such as my mother. When 9/11 occurred she picked me up from school (in Florida) and was looking up in the sky thinking planes were raining down around America, afraid they would strike the bridge we were crossing, etc.

FedEx Flight 705

[jamrock]

Pilots don't need weapons They have the plane !

What are they going to do, hit the hijackers over the head with the aircraft? Firstly, only combat aircrew wear oxygen masks at all times; commercial aircrew only don them during emergencies (and under certain other conditions required by regulations). Any hijackers who manage to breach the flight deck would view with suspicion the flight crew grabbing for their masks. The first option might have some hope of succeeding if the flight crew had ample warning of a hijacking in progress, but the only way to depressurize the cabin quickly enough to incapacitate the hijackers would be to open a window. Not a good idea, especially at cruising altitudes. As for aerobatic maneuvers...boy oh boy. Can you say "structural failure"?. Commercial aircraft are not designed for the stresses of aerobatics, and may well become uncontrollable in unusual attitudes, such as inverted flight or vertical climbs. Besides which, no airliner has the excess thrust available to climb vertically. Just watch a heavily-laden 747 laboring off the runway and you'll realize this.

However....in all fairness to your suggestion, I should mention the bizarre case of FedEx Flight 705 in 1994, during which a soon-to-be-terminated deranged FedEx pilot who was hitching a ride on a FedEx DC-10, attacked the crew minutes after takeoff with a speargun and hammers which he had brought aboard. His intention was to kill the crew and use the aircraft in a kamikaze attack on FedEx headquarters. The captain and flight engineer were able to subdue him after a long and bloody struggle, during which the co-pilot, despite suffering severe head trauma from a hammer attack, threw him off balance with violent maneuvers. All three crew members and the attacker were critically injured during the struggle, and none of the flight crew were able to regain flight status because of the severity of their wounds. They never flew commercially again, and were damned lucky to survive at all. And this was against just one individual. Imagine what would have happened if they had been fighting two or three, armed with blades instead of spearguns and hammers. Violent maneuvers were a desperate last resort, and shouldn't be considered as a strategy. I don't know which pilots told you that they're "confident" of managing hijackers that the passengers couldn't, but they'd be well advised to acquaint themselves with the horrific ordeal that the crew of FedEx 705 suffered before they say any such thing.

Preventing access to the flight deck in the first place is much more effective and realistic than attempting to overcome one or more armed intruders, while maintaining control of the aircraft. As for arming the flight crew...well, even El Al, all of whose pilots are trained, active military personnel, thinks that armed flight crew is a very bad idea.