Slashdot Mirror
Terrifying Anti-Riot Vehicle Created To Quash Any Urban Disturbance (boingboing.net)
"Are you an urban police force thinking about how to control your fellow humans?" jokes Cory Doctorow. "Look no farther! Your pals at Bozena have an all-new RIOT system, a crowd-control killdozer for all your protest-suppressing needs!" He's one of several web commentators marveling at the marketing copy for a Slovakian company's new anti-riot machinery, also spotted by Slashdot reader drunkdrone. Some quotes from the BOZENA RIOT SYSTEM site about the device's features:
- Easy attachable bulldozer blade.
- The [6,600 pound] shield comes equipped with launching ports designed for use of guns or other rubber projectiles launchers.
- The trailer is capable of displacing the water/foam or its mixtures (available additives: pepper or painting substances) under the high pressure into the distance of several dozen meters.
- Communication with rioters through the loudspeakers.
- Designed to control riots in streets and urbanized areas...intended predominantly for the special military and police units responsible for the CROWD CONTROL during the violent political/social demonstrations, against football hooligans, etc.
I wondered when a one of our companies went into EOD machinery construction, but a look at the web page told me that it's Slovak not Slovenian :) We seem to do explosive ordnance clearing through fundraising and "manual labor" - http://www.itf-fund.si/.
As if living in a police state wasn't enough... From the picture and video tabs:
"You need to upgrade your Macromedia Flash Player! Get Macromedia Flash"
It's not like a lot of protesters riot.
But ... well, let's put it that way: Rioters give the authorities a good excuse to end a protest. Draw your own conclusions.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There's a good chance that this machine's software/interfaces will have....inadequate security. Someone, somewhere, will achieve control over it, and then when it turns on the thin blue line behind it, ostensibly waiting to "clean up" the now-subdued rioters, there will be some outrage from the police department/s who bought it, some swift spin from the manufacturer, and the units will either 1. be withdrawn, or 2. given a firmware upgrade, in which case, see above.
At the very least, someone will be able to jam its communication, rendering it unresponsive.
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
I don't see anywhere to scoop up rioters to take to the factory. Soylent Green won't make itself!
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
http://imgur.com/ibA8119
It's basically a baby-blue enclosed forklift with a pump system, a water trailer, and a shield on the front. So terrifying.
Technology like this isnt helping riot control. its dangerous brinkmanship. Once you start deploying autonomous anti-personnel devices like MRAPS's and BOZENA, youve made citzens aware that not only do you not care about the current reason theyre rioting but you're willing to herd them like cattle instead of take the time to listen.
Treat people like expendable trash and theyll fight you in ways you wouldnt expect. in Texas it meant after a slew of police shootings of unarmed black men, a black man took up a sniper position and began executing police from a rooftop with a high power rifle. if your only answer to systemic inequality is to deploy a 6600 pound shield, you'll soon find how resilient it is to firearms that are many, many times more powerful than what you would normally be faced with in a riot situation.
Good people go to bed earlier.
All the better for Soylent Green processing.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
And the movie version, Soylent Green.
The police wants to escalate to that level, Then the Unrest will also.
Cops with full battle armor are a danger to society, it means the ones that think they need to defend themselves from the police will up their game to a 308 high power hunting rifle that will rip through Military armor like butter, or start using Armor piercing 5.56/7.62 home made rounds.
Want to keep a crowd calm, you don't freaking roll in like storm troopers hell bent on extermination.
In he countries it's built in, RPG's are not hard to come by, hell even a home made IED would take that thing out.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If we are going to get dragged into Shadowrun, can we at least get the cool stuff like elves and magic to go with it?
Just looking at this, if someone falls in front of it, it'll run them over. That may fly in Slovakia but in the U.S. it would get the police department sued within an inch of their existence.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Sure, but SOP for a peaceful protest becomes: send in a couple guys to do violent shit in the middle of the crowd, call it a riot, and bring out the killdozer. Freedom of assembly absolutely is a right in many counties.