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

[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

[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

[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

[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: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.

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??