New antiprotester devices

international | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis

Tuesday December 05, 2006 14:58

by Spike

Have a look at this article that would suggest that times might be getting harder for those who wish to protest....

The crowd is getting ugly. Soldiers roll up in a Hummer. Suddenly, the whole right half of your body is screaming in agony. You feel like you've been dipped in molten lava. You almost faint from shock and pain, but instead you stumble backwards -- and then start running. To your surprise, everyone else is running too. In a few seconds, the street is completely empty.

You've just been hit with a new nonlethal weapon that has been certified for use in Iraq -- even though critics argue there may be unforeseen effects.
...
The ADS shoots a beam of millimeters waves, which are longer in wavelength than x-rays but shorter than microwaves -- 94 GHz (= 3 mm wavelength) compared to 2.45 GHz (= 12 cm wavelength) in a standard microwave oven.
...
The development of a truly safe and highly effective nonlethal crowd-control system could raise enormous ethical questions about the state's use of coercive force. If a method such as ADS leads to no lasting injury or harm, authorities may find easier justifications for employing them
...
The ADS technology is ready to deploy, and the Army requested ADS-armed Strykers for Iraq last year. But the military is well aware that any adverse publicity could finish the program, and it does not want to risk distressed victims wailing about evil new weapons on CNN.

This may mean yet more rounds of testing for the ADS.
...
System 1, the operational prototype, is mounted on a Hummer and produces a beam with a 2-meter diameter. Effective range is at least 500 meters, which is further than rubber bullets, tear gas or water cannons. The ammunition supply is effectively unlimited.
...
Key technologies to enable this capability from an airborne platform -- such as a C-130 -- are being developed

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Comments (3 of 3)

stockpiling non-lethal crowd control weapons works both ways

by t'other side of the coin

Tue Dec 05, 2006 20:50

unless the States currently purchasing such cattle-prods envisage lengthy terms
of Office?

then the following regime changers can chuck it all out-no?

Could we see Enda and Pat (for instance) feeling the necessity to attack
a body of citizens from whose stagnant little pool they emanated?

or in english:- They buy it- who uses it when they are gone????????????????????????????

Raytheon again

by MichaelY - iawm

Tue Dec 05, 2006 17:38

On 22 September 2004 Raytheon was granted an FCC license to demonstrate the technology to "law enforcement, military and security organizations."[

On October 4, 2004 the DOD published the following contract information.
Communications and Power Industries (CPI), Palto Alto [sic], Calif., is being awarded a $6,377,762 costs-reimbursement, cost-plus fixed-price contract. The contractor shall design, build, test, and delivery a two to 2.5 megawatt, high efficiency, continuous wave (CW) 95 gigahertz millimeter wave source system. The contractor shall perform extensive modeling, simulation, experiments, and testing to the maximum capabilities of their facilities (which shall no less than one megawatt peak RF output) that will ascertain the final CW capabilities of the source. The contractor also shall provide input for the requirements for the government’s test stand, which will serve as a full power facility in the future. At this time, $900,000 of the funds has been obliged. This work will be complete by January 2009. Negotiations were completed September 2004. The Air Force Research Laboratory, Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, is the contracting activity (FA9451-04-C-0298).

2006 Planned deployment in Iraq of a vehicle-mounted version of the weapon named Sheriff. [citation needed]

ADS

by Richard

Tue Dec 05, 2006 17:18

ADS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System

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New antiprotester devices

Comments (3 of 3)