Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
I thought that air travel was punishment enough already!
Kevin Smith on Prince
Life imitates "Mirror, Mirror." Swell.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
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). The video link tells us simply that a company called Lamperd Less Lethal would love to sell these devices to a government agency. There is absolutely no evidence presented that would justify the claim that "the DHS wants to replace your boarding pass with a GPS-enabled shock bracelet". Why did this fake story even get posted?
Caveat Utilitor
Timothy, wtf? Why is this in idle, where almost no one is going to bother looking at it (since many, many people avoid idle like the plague)? This needs to be seen by everyone, not just a few.
Also, it's NOT funny. DON'T LAUGH! This is scary, not funny.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Living in the DC area, and seeing the Washington Times (owned by the unification church) in action, I don't consider it a reputable paper and would want some independent confirmation of this.
I require that this proposal be expanded to full body suits. I don't trust that a simple bracelet or collar can deliver the level of shock necessary to fight the terrorists.
I'd also like to see waterboarding apparatus installed in the bathrooms. Speed is of the essence, and taking the time to divert the plane to Gitmo for proper torture could be the few precious hours the terrorists need to steal our liberty.
Put a piece of tin foil across the electrodes so it won't shock me? Or rewire so it won't shock me? But I mean can air travel really get anymore degrading?
http://www.lamperdlesslethal.com/news/upload/pg2HomelandSecurity7_06.pdf
Hahaha, man.. The Onion has the best articles!
Hahaha... wait, wtf?!
%#$$%#@!!!
This system would help terrorists control all of the passengers on the aircraft. All the terrorist would have to do is take over the system and activate all of the wrist bands of the passengers to incapacitate them. After that resistance is futile.
I don't care about the shock collars, but for the love of god don't run the system on windows.
...why not just show them Slashdot's new interface?
That is just it... I can load just about anything I want into my private plane and fly anywhere in the US without having to go through security, without having to provide biometric ID, without having to take my shoes off, without having to wear shock collars, etc...etc...etc...
That is why this whole thing is security theatre.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
you're an airline pilot. A terrorist organization just used Semtex to destroy your reinforced door. I know my gut reaction is to look at a list of passengers and type in an id number to shock a specific individual.
As much as I don't like Tasers, it makes more sense to have a Taser gun than Taser wristbands. Those wristbands have to either be activated individually by number - not happening in an attack - or all at once - pissing everyone off.
For those that want to get outraged, this is an area where big business (airlines) can be your friends. The airlines won't allow this. Anything that makes flying more of a pain reduces their profits - even things like the new security fees on airline tickets reduce their profits. They aren't going to pay more money (I'm guessing at least $15-a-bracelet for the materials, location tag, and shock element considering that a Taser costs hundreds of dollars) to piss off customers.
So, this won't happen.
As long as I can zap the screaming kid kicking the back of my seat. Or the obnoxious drunk who won't shut up. I can see it now. It would be like the Simpsons at the family counseling office all zapping each other. Very entertaining.
What?
The major benefit is when they get attached to politicians, these bracelets would provide a form of instant feedback for their popularity. Maybe theirs could be fitted with an extra heavy shock capability to let them know when it's time to step down.
Democracy and freedom! wouldn't ya' just love it?
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
I will dissolve the DHS
How will the Emperor maintain control without the bureaucracy?
Please don't take off your shock bracelets before hijacking the plane. Thanks, Delta
Why does this remind me to the prison scenes in the beginning of Running Man? As another poster already pointed out, since 9/11 high-jacking a plane will no longer work as passengers know that they are doomed and that their only chance is to fight back from the beginning. Also listening to the video I don't understand how the terrorists are able to get explosives on board, but can't manage to get the bracelet off...
Complain about the 8 hour tarmac delay? zzzzzt
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).
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?
To authoritarian people, the very idea that the masses have freedom is a scary.
Whether true or not, this story shows a very real reaction some people have to idea that they can't control other people. Freedom is, amongst other things, is also based on a "trust." At some point, a free people will rebel against an increasingly oppressive government. I think we are seeing the U.S. government racing to reach a state of control and surveillance BEFORE people start to rebel en mass.
The race is to get to a point where there is no way the people can rebel without losing their jobs, savings, houses, lives, etc. This is why students and kids protest, because they don't have a life's work of savings to lose.
The irony is that the corrupt powers that be had better fix the economy pretty damn quickly, as people with a lot to lose are easier to control that people who have lost everything. Once we have a major depression, the ideologies of abortion, gun control, "family values," become second to jobs.
If a mob of 1,000,000 people march on the white house with pitchforks and tourches demanding justice, there will be justice.
As long as it's the shocks are cell-phone activated!
What I suspect will happen is that this is a trial idea floated to the media and will be explained away as saying
These kinds of proposals aren't random; by making ridiculous suggestions like this, they move the boundaries of what is acceptable. Compared to shock collars, some of the other things they come up with will seem tame now.
What I don't understand is why people go for this bullshit. Why is it the government's responsibility to make air travel safe? Who cares? I've been flying for nearly 40 years, and the same risks we have today existed all that time and were just as obvious. And except for the fact that in 2001, the air planes plowed in a big building in Manhattan, 9/11 seems not much different from any of the numerous other plane hijackings.
People should just not vote for any president or representative supporting such measures.
"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?
davecb5620@gmail.com
Someone must've found the movies Battle Royale 1 & 2 . Shock collers that blow up?
There's no Freedom like UFP-dom
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
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??
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Until the terrorists figure out that you can circumvent it with a small strip of aluminum foil.
I found the problem with your post.
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
"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
I live in the southeast.
The region is packed full of these "scared people".
The flags on display here remind me very much of the prevalence of the swastika in nazi germany, and people here think bush is the next best thing since apple pie.
Interestingly and predicatbly enough, a large number of these people are also creationist, and in the past couple years a so called "psychic" on a nearby road bulldozed her tar paper shack and built a 6000 square foot mc-mansion because her business has taken off so much.
This region is where things like kinoki foot pads get shipped to by the train-full.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I'll pick freedom over safety. Any day.
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
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.
None. Now. if you had asked how many people are willing to let the gov't snoop into their neighbors lives and bedrooms, then lots.
Je ne parle pas francais.
is that so mad? I remembe catching a train out of london that day, and being a bit nervous about the whole 'being in a packed capital city that jet airliners fly over every minute' until I got home (out of London)
It's easy to forget the uncertainty of that day. The first plane was an accident, the second and some heavy shit was going down. By the time I saw footage of the pentagon covered in smoke and rubble, I was on the phone wanting to speak to my family. Once a military icon like the pentagon is on fire, its not too many steps to see a nuke being lobbed at Afghanistan in response, and it all going haywire from then on.
Thank fuck it didn't go that way, but I don't blame anyone for feeling jittery on the day.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
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
The difference is that in the private business, you probably get rewarded for inventing something that can cut costs.
When you're working with the government, you get punished (i.e. get less money) if you manage to save some.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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?
Why not just shoot people on sight as they arrive?