Slashdot Mirror
The Little Bomb-Detecting Device That Couldn't
theodp writes "Widely deployed in Iraq and promoted by military leaders, BusinessWeek reports the ADE 651 bomb-detecting device had one little problem: it wouldn't detect explosives (earlier Slashdot story). 'The ADE 651,' reports Adam Higginbotham, 'was modeled on a novelty trinket conceived decades before by a former used-car salesman from South Carolina, which was purported to detect golf balls. It wasn't even good at that.' One thing the ADE 651 did excel at, however, was making money — estimates suggest that the authorities in Baghdad bought more than 6,000 useless bomb detectors, at a cost of at least $38 million. Even though ADE 651 manufacturer James McCormick was found guilty of three counts of fraud and sentenced to 10 years in prison in May, the ADE 651 is still being used at thousands of checkpoints across Baghdad. Elsewhere, authorities have never stopped believing in the detectors. Why? According to Sandia Labs' Dale Murray, the ideomotor effect is so persuasive that for anyone who wants or needs to believe in it, even conclusive scientific evidence undermining the technology it exploits has little power."
Nice to know that the people we hand guns to, whom we pay to protect our freedom with their very lives, are so fucking stupid that they can "detain" people based on the results of a fake fucking bomb test kit.
I wonder if the men that are rotting away in a secret prison find it as humorous as you did? No wonder so many american soldiers are putting their guns in their own mouths, probably trying to get more oxygen flowing to their underutilized brains.
I'd really like you to put your name on this post so we can have a discussion.
THL phish sticks