Mike Booen , VP of Raytheon ’s advanced security and directed energy systems , has “ a visual sense ” : “ We desire to get to the point where it ’s a paw - deem gimmick . ” “ It ” is the assault intervention twist . exploitation in that direction is underway .
An tending is a pain - rescue machine that will be soon quiz on “ unruly ” inmates at the sheriff ’s detention facility in Castaic , California , where an yard bird bash give way out late August , injuring two officers . The currently 600 - pound , seven - foot equipment fires a directed beam of millimeter waves that dawn 1/64th of an inch into the tegument – about four time the heaviness of a slice of paper – where botheration receptors are located . The invisible beam reportedly cause an “ unbearable burning sensation ” that incapacitates the target but finish right away once the AID is ferment off . The “ pain shaft of light ” is being provided free of electric charge to the sheriff ’s department courtesy of a program through the National Institute of Justice ( NIJ ) . Along with Pennsylvania State University , the NIJ will be supervise the“test grammatical case . ”Presumably , if the it is successful the gimmick will be put in in other prisons .
According to Raytheon and its targeted marketplace of corrections officers , the AID causes no lasting damage . ( Taser International makes similar claim about its ware despite the growing list of deaths related to Taser exercise by law enforcement . )
The U.S. military may disagree with Raytheon ’s title .
Deployed in Iraq
In July 2005 the Department of Defenseannouncedthat “ combat-ready self-renunciation engineering ” ( ADT ) would be deployed to Iraq for crowd control by the U.S. military . Fifteen vehicle equipped to give off mm - wave electromagnetic energy would be able “ to stop , deter and turn back an get ahead adversary from comparatively retentive orbit ” without induce injury .
ADTs and AIDs are two reflection of the same applied science . What on the button does the applied science do ? Traveling at the speed of light , an emitted beam within seconds can heat the skin to 130 ° F ; at roughly 122 F the pain in the neck reflex makes hoi polloi pull away and thus disperse . They are not burned , it is claimed , because of the shallow penetration , short time straddle of the beam ( three seconds ) , and the low vigour levels engage .
Yet on November 7 , 2007,Wiredreported , “ Seven month after an airman was fire in a test of the nonlethal heat beam , the Air Force has relinquish a heavily redacted version of the mishap story … . The armed services has bow over backwards to exhibit to the public that the Active Denial System ( ADS ) … is a well - tested nonlethal weapon , and not a scary microwave oven weapon system with unnamed wellness effects … . That ’s why the Air Force Safety Center ’s decision to sanitize the report is a expectant setback . ”
Indeed , many aspects of the ADT program are classified and impossible to swan . question simply continue unanswered . An example : The design range of the weapon is 700 yards ; if victims at half that range receive three to four meter the power , would they also be unharmed ? ( Raytheon take a similar nondisclosure stand on many facial expression of the acquired immune deficiency syndrome , appealing to its want to exert industrial secrets ; for example , the product data sheet does not limit the power output . )
at long last , the military machine dropped its plans to use the ADT . In JulyWiredreported that the single system deploy to Afghanistan was recalled without being used once . An account from the military of why it abandoned the multimillion dollar machine has not been forthcoming .
ACLU on the Scene
mirthfully , a backlash against the utilisation of AIDs in the prison house system is growing , and information is becoming somewhat more approachable . TheAmerican Civil Liberties Unionhas throw more light on the Air Force incident . Apparently “ a miscalibration of the equipment ’s mightiness background … caused five airmen in its path to suffer lasting burns , including one whose injuries were so life-threatening that he was airlifted to an off - base burn handling center . ” Moreover the ACLU repoint to the lack of information on long - term core , including the hazard of cancer . The ACLU could have also pointed to a 2000 subject area conducted by a Texas Naval Health Research Center onrhesus monkeysexposed to 94 - GHz millimeter wave . Corneal damage occurred . The AIDs use 95 gigacycle per second
Because of the strange wellness risk of exposure , as well as the proven ones , Margaret Winter , associate director of the ACLU National Prison Project , has stated that the habit of AIDs is a vindicated violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibition of “ barbarous and strange punishment ” and the due - process article of the U.S. Constitution .
The potential difference for abuse of AIDs in the hand of prison guards should be apparent . Remember how many constabulary officers have misused Tasers , hire them on children , the senior , and the disabled who posed no physical threat . The prison system is alreadyunder attackfor rapes committed by prison staff , primarily by guards , who do not seem to conceive captive have civic liberties .
Click-Click-Click
Much is made of the fact that the AID “ is designed to pass off a burst of no more than three seconds with each trigger pull . ” But the automobile is also design to give off rapid and repeated bursts , much like a computer game . What stops a prison precaution from going click - suction stop - click as fast as he can get out the trigger , which is called a “ joy stick ” ? What stops the guard from AIDing a prisoner who simply disobeys or otherwise angers him ?
The argument may be engaged but the bottom line is that an experimental arm design for crowd control by the American military in Afghanistan and Iraq will now be tested in America against its own citizen . Just as torture was declared effectual when used by military interrogator , the manipulation of “ pain shaft ” by law enforcement may become de facto legal unless a constitutional challenge succeeds .
If Booen ’s vision of a handheld pain ray come to pass , it is probably only a issue of time before the gimmick involve its place beside the Taser on a police officer ’s knock . Then the streets of America would be less safe from its own police force , and the average soul may look back at Tasers as the good erstwhile days .
Republished fromThe Freeman Online
Wendy McElroy is the author of several books on anarchism and feminism . She maintains the iconoclastic websiteifeminists.netas well as an active web log atwendymcelroy.com . Her writing can also be find atThe Freeman Online .
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