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icegreentea2 11 hours ago [-]
The system in question is basically just a directed microwave emitter. It is designed to heat up the first ~0.5mm of your skin.
It's safety is basically completely a function of the operator. Since the beam will keep depositing energy (ie heating), if the beam is held on a target, it will incur more and more heating (and potentially harm).
In proper usage, safety is ensured through the combination of operator training, selection of proper settings, and induced compliance. If you have a shitty operator, risk of over exposure increases. The nature of this device means that it's not a barrier, it's a beam.
During earlier testing, they were able to induce second degree burns on a test subject due to incorrect power and duration settings.
footy 10 hours ago [-]
for certain types of tools (and I'd certainly class weapons as this type) you have to assume that a certain number of operators will be, as you put it, "shitty". Whether it's because they're having a bad day, are genuinely incompetent, are malicious, whatever the reason---some percentage of the operators will be using your tool in a way you'd discourage for PR reasons.
Maybe I am too cynical, but I don't think the people making these tools actually care about this either, not beyond the potential for bad publicity.
ASalazarMX 8 hours ago [-]
Since the title is ambiguous, it matters to clarify that it will be deployed on the border with Mexico, which has a long history of abuse and even cold-blooded murder of non-threatening undocumented immigrants. This will be abused, it's only a matter of time.
Arainach 4 hours ago [-]
Your sentence is ambiguously phrased. Might I suggest "the border with Mexico, where US immigration officers have a long history of...."
ASalazarMX 2 hours ago [-]
Not only US immigration officers, even civilians have murdered undocumented immigrants crossing their property, not staying, crossing on their way out, and claimed self-defense because they felt their life threatened somehow.
Racism and disregard for basic human rights has a long history in that border. I'd even say it's part of a subculture. Some people leave water jugs for people crossing the desert, others are horrible people that enjoy inflicting pain on others.
Arainach 2 hours ago [-]
My point is that "the border with Mexico, which has a long history of abuse", with a particular emphasis on Mexico, makes it sound like you're stating that Mexico has a history of those things.
dgellow 8 hours ago [-]
With the current administration I expect that’s what they are wishing for
scottyah 9 hours ago [-]
There's also the escalation timeline. In a hypothetical situation where nonlethal force is being used, but there's a threat that requires more than a gentle "please don't" type of heating, I don't think we'd want it to be limited. Gentle crowd suppression is great till someone pulls out a gun or knife, and though it's debatable opinion and there are a lot of factors to consider, I think a few collateral 2nd degree burns beats switching to a rifle and opening fire into the crowd.
Zigurd 9 hours ago [-]
Take a look at the videos of police encounters posted online. The situation you're describing is highly theoretical. What actually happens is that you get pain compliance used to control talk back and disrespect of cop.
Will taking the tools of torture away from cops increase risks they face? Maybe. But have they earned our confidence that they will use these tools wisely? No, they haven't.
buellerbueller 8 hours ago [-]
Risk is part of the job profile. We keep trying to lower the risk, but do we lower the benefits accordingly? No.
hardbass 8 hours ago [-]
LEO will use it against anyone they wish to. Why do people want a group that already has special privileges to murder you scot-free to have more powers? Anyone sane would be working to equalize matters by either kicking cops down to the same laws as us or arming up to the level as cops and arguing for the same immunities to murdering cos.
javcasas 7 hours ago [-]
Let's be honest. ICE has shown us that only the "shitty" operators will be hired in. Specifically the malicious ones, we cannot leave to chance spreading misery.
nonethewiser 10 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
hilariously 10 hours ago [-]
Most people fleeing across the border have braved significantly worse, this is just another way to harm people we see as lesser for the accident of where they were born.
stvltvs 10 hours ago [-]
Every individual has their own risk tradeoff calculation. People already risk death to cross the border, so it's not clear how much this would move the needle.
9 hours ago [-]
irishcoffee 10 hours ago [-]
> People already risk death to cross the border
At what percentage would you say? 1%, 3%, 87%?
Does the country they are fleeing have no culpability? Why are they leaving?
nielsbot 9 hours ago [-]
Crossing the border illegally (for now) is a civil misdemeanor and seeking asylum is legal under US and international law.
> Does the country they are fleeing have no culpability?
The US definitely has some culpability for making other places harder to live in.
> The US definitely has some culpability for making other places harder to live in.
You didn’t answer my question. :)
nielsbot 6 hours ago [-]
I don't understand your question TBH. What would these countries do?
irishcoffee 15 minutes ago [-]
Oh. Maybe make a country people want to live in instead of flee. I didn't realize it came across as a riddle.
hilariously 10 hours ago [-]
A man runs out of a burning building.
You shoot him.
Dang, that building really should have had more culpability.
jayGlow 10 hours ago [-]
I was not aware that Mexico or Canada were in a state that requires their citizens to flee.
cowlevel 5 hours ago [-]
You're circling around saying something without saying it. Spit it out.
irishcoffee 9 minutes ago [-]
18 day old account and 450+ upvotes, man that's impressive. Spit what out?
stvltvs 9 hours ago [-]
What are the chances that it's deployed at the Canadian border?
wafflemaker 9 hours ago [-]
With winter temperatures in Canada, people could actually enjoy it.
jayGlow 7 hours ago [-]
Extremely low I don't think Canada or Mexico could be considered as dangerous as a burning building.
shevy-java 9 hours ago [-]
Canada has a border issue?
jayGlow 8 hours ago [-]
Not as far as I was aware of but Canada and Mexico are the only countries that share a land border with the United States.
Vaushite 9 hours ago [-]
Then you don't know anything about Mexico, do you? The US president is saying it's a shithole. Do people flee shitholes?
jayGlow 8 hours ago [-]
Is Trump right about it being a shit hole? I figured he was just being a jackass I didn't realize Mexico was in a state where it's citizens need to flee.
jumpinjack710 10 hours ago [-]
[dead]
no-name-here 9 hours ago [-]
>> People already risk death to cross the border
> At what percentage would you say?
Why do you ask? If it was the lowest figure you mentioned, or halfway between the lowest and highest, would one of those make it better?
Is the argument that this new tech will only kill n people on top of those that already die, so whether we fry less than 1% or a far higher figure, that one of those is better?
stvltvs 10 hours ago [-]
Focusing on the specific death rate doesn't change that crossing the border is risky, and some people will take their chances with or without the heat ray. It's one more variable in the calculation.
knowing the kind of people who sign up for ICE/CBP enforcement, I have no hope that a trained or decent operator will be behind this machine.
I expect a lot of severely traumatized people from this device
ridgeguy 8 hours ago [-]
This is a high power microwave emitter whose very high frequency (33GHz, IIRC - home µwave ovens are 2.45GHz) limits its energy deposition to a thin tissue layer. It's very effective, but big and cumbersome because of the high power requirements. At these frequencies, components are tiny. If one needed less than ten Watts, this could be a box the size of a desktop PC, maybe a shoebox.
I'm fairly sure this could be (is being?) scaled down to something resembling the pain box used on Paul Atreides in Dune. An efficient "enhanced interrogation" technology is just too tempting for too many in power.
(edit: omitted word)
outworlder 9 hours ago [-]
> In proper usage, safety is ensured through the combination of operator training, selection of proper settings, and induced compliance. If you have a shitty operator, risk of over exposure increases. The nature of this device means that it's not a barrier, it's a beam.
Yeah, that's going to go well with people aiming this at whoever they think it's "less than" them.
everdrive 10 hours ago [-]
Also try not to think about contact lenses, piercings, jewelry, pacemakers, etc.
busssard 10 hours ago [-]
i wonder what would happen if i am wearing a layer of aluminum foil under my shirt...
scottyah 9 hours ago [-]
This must be a New World Order device because they can't get past my foil hat! Nice try, lizard people.
throw_away2 8 hours ago [-]
A layer of frozen burritos is probably your best defense.
bijowo1676 10 hours ago [-]
put it into microwave, aluminum will spark and will burn like the thermite
8note 3 hours ago [-]
aluminum is pretty eactive though. some bronze chainmail?
cowlevel 5 hours ago [-]
that depends on the shape and the intensity of the waves
infinite_spin 8 hours ago [-]
mom called and asked that you stop breaking the microwave
10111001 10 hours ago [-]
> The system in question is basically just a directed microwave emitter. It is designed to heat up the first ~0.5mm of your skin.
So if I can't keep my eyes closed (because of a riot situation, or friends in trouble) am I risking permanent eye damage, with no government responsibility for it, because some cop shouted something into a bullhorn that I couldn't make out ?
icegreentea2 9 hours ago [-]
Possibly yes.
The device works through line of sight, so blocking line of sight from the emitter to your open eyes (for example, by looking away and shielding with your arms) may be helpful.
Testing indicates that test subjects reached their pain threshold in ~5 seconds (typically reacting within 3). Proper application of this device in a riot situation likely involves pulsed application, at sufficient standoff range (between targets and a barrier or your riot police/troops), precisely to reduce the risk of operators feeling that they need to dwell, with the standoff range providing enough buffer to allow operators to feel like they can illuminate, wait for initial reaction, shut off, and then read the full reaction.
In your general scenario, you can replace this weapon with any other riot control tool, and get basically the same shitty situation. Once the government/police/whatever have decided that you are in a riot/mob, then you're not going to be treated as an individual, you're going to be treated as an element of a threat. This is true of dudes with shields and batons, beanbags, water cannons, tear gas, horses, whatever.
ssl-3 8 hours ago [-]
I have a thought from left field:
There's a perforated metal sheet inside the door of every consumer microwave oven that blocks microwave RF, and permits visible light to pass.
Remove it. Cut it up. Fit it into sunglass frames or goggles or whatever.
AlotOfReading 8 hours ago [-]
Higher frequencies need smaller holes to attenuate as effectively. You'd likely be better off with aluminum foil than the door.
ssl-3 7 hours ago [-]
> Higher frequencies need smaller holes to attenuate as effectively.
So let's make the holes smaller. We want to permit nanometer-wave light to pass while blocking centimeter-wave RF. I'm not seeing a particularly difficult engineering challenge here. :)
> You'd likely be better off with aluminum foil than the door.
Did you think this through at all? Running away and hiding while wearing opaque aluminum foil blinders is kind of a unilateral non-starter.
---
Anyway, we also have this: Window film. Let's look at an example.
3M Thinsulate Climate Control 75 is a self-adhesive film that blocks greater than 99% of RF from 100MHz to 4.5GHz[1], which I might suggest is pretty good for protecting the ol' eyeballs from a brief encounter with the blindness machine.
The combination of it and a single pane of window glass provides 74% visible light transmission[2]. I further suggest that this allows plenty of light with which to safely move around.
Attenuation of 95 GHz seems likely to be in the realm of 30-40dB, which is also in the realm of letting less than 1% through.
kooi 3 hours ago [-]
Wavelength = 1/f
realo 10 hours ago [-]
It is "non-lethal"!
Be happy you are just blind for the rest of your life.
Such a shitty government you have today in the USA, it boggles
the mind.
scottyah 9 hours ago [-]
They grew up watching Batman breaking people's backs and giving severe concussions, but because he didn't kill he was Good.
jauntywundrkind 9 hours ago [-]
The Business Plot people who want to tear down the United States, the rebel faction trying to destroy democracy and the nation from within has really figured out how to keep driving fear and conspiracy into our hearts (the less mind the better). They're just such amazing aggitants, able to make people so willing and ready to throw this whole nation in the wood chipper.
I wish we could identify, grapple with how bad what a terror America has become against itself. Against its history. Against in so many cases reality. There doesn't seem to be any regulating functions in red America, anything other than ever increasing war drums against democracy, against union, again the constitution, the declaration of rights, reason, kindness, and possibility. To make itself the foe of the nation has been the only thing this political faction has been able to lead by, and we are so far past the unhinging, never to come back seemingly, never to be able to have any learning moments, never to recognize a loyal opposition again, never to compromise. Just shrill shrieking bedlam and din forever.
Vaushite 9 hours ago [-]
Apparently the recent ad showing the senator breaking into the girl's toilet to check her genitals was quite effective. There just aren't many of those ads.
eth0up 6 hours ago [-]
That and many other considerations. 1. is the system adjustable beyond the advertised wavelen. 2. Is the person able bodied, ie capable of retreating. 3. Is the person even aware of the context...
This is where things are moving, however. I do not think it is good.
We should be asking these questions.
Zigurd 9 hours ago [-]
Oh goody. Let's give cops another toy before we have tamed the use of pain compliance tools already in their hands. We are breeding a class of casual torturers.
slowin 9 hours ago [-]
> It is designed to heat up the first ~0.5mm of your skin.
Oh, is that all?
> US officials had also considered deploying the system during moments of domestic unrest, including at the end of President Donald Trump’s first term when protests erupted over the murder of George Floyd, according to a former US official familiar with those discussions.
This is for "the border" (because you know we should be able to torture people there), but really this will imperial boomerang back to US citizens in the blink of an eye.
mindslight 8 hours ago [-]
The real question is why you would give a new weapon to the rioters, of course. Much of that "domestic unrest" was caused by police escalating situations (aka police riots), to both punish people for speaking out and also to use the spectacle of disorder to show how we need them.
cowlevel 5 hours ago [-]
The purpose of a system is what it does
2932o94ui 9 hours ago [-]
And that's exactly the problem. We (and users) have known for decades that you can kill someone with a rubber bullet. And they have been used to intentionally kill on many different occasions.
MengerSponge 9 hours ago [-]
Rubber bullets are supposed to be aimed at the ground, but we've seen (pun sadly intended) plenty of officers aiming at faces/eyes of protestors. This can kill, and if it doesn't kill it maims.
They're trained to not maim or kill. More training won't fix it. More money and more resources won't fix that systemic rot.
40%, after all.
danparsonson 11 hours ago [-]
...and one need only watch videos of "trained officers" hosing people with pepper spray to envision how that will turn out.
eth0up 7 hours ago [-]
A while back, I'd been researching the general topic. Health problems fog my memory, but essentially I was trying to figure out how closely the proclaimed application/purpose actually fit the actual capabilities. I found, what seemed to me, evidence that the military systems are not hard limited to the specific advertised GHz/len spectrum, but can be adjusted for lethal purposes.
Possibly the "safeguard" portion of the first patent below indicates this; which may only make sense if such devices are capable of exceeding lawful spectrums, etc. Not sure though.
The others I just threw in. I am not in the right space to vet or read them right now, so they may or may not be relevant. That said, I did once interview a soldier who told me of some off-the-record use of directed energy in Iraq/Afghanistan... describing bodies with relatively intact exteriors with internal damage not fitting of thermobaric weapons, ie vehicles also intact. Terms used were "cooked from the inside". Anecdotal, but disturbing, and certainly physically possible.
There's no way I'd trust this in the hands of anyone, especially those operating in the service of the current administration. They say they want to use it to "protect the border" but there are reports that they'd used it domestically already.
Considering the non-tolerance of public protest and the "promise" of non-lethality, I could imagine this becoming a regular tool in population control if things don't change.
pull_my_finger 10 hours ago [-]
> If you have a shitty operator, risk of over exposure increases.
Good thing border control isn't full of rejects and nonhackers from the military and real law enforcement \s
srean 9 hours ago [-]
> If you have a shitty operator
Well, we are talking about US border patrol folks. Trust me, they are the nicest guys around /s.
hoppyhoppy2 7 hours ago [-]
Microwaving people at the border stimulates the US defense manufacturing sector and ensures the livelihoods of microwave weapon operators. It could even prop up hospitals in rural border areas where the microwaved migrants get checked out.
Microwaving people is clearly a net good for society, and once domestic non-border use is approved we'll be able to build America back even more quickly.
javcasas 7 hours ago [-]
There is a broken window fallacy somewhere around there, but I cannot find it right now.
skoll43 7 hours ago [-]
I, for one, welcome the methods of our robot overlods
causesothere 11 hours ago [-]
This is a weapon that will be deployed primarily against their own citizens.
samudrijan 10 hours ago [-]
The “border” extends 100 miles in-land from the actual border and encompasses 2/3 of the US population. DHS needs to be dismantled stat.
10111001 10 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
kec 10 hours ago [-]
DHS was founded in 2003, as was ICE. The country got along for 227 years without these organizations, they aren't some bedrock thing from time immemorial.
Recognizing that the current structure and mode of operation of these organizations is problematic and leading to bad outcomes also doesn't mean flipping to fully open borders with zero law enforcement as some imply every time this is brought up.
10111001 7 hours ago [-]
> DHS was founded in 2003, as was ICE. The country got along for 227 years without these organizations, they aren't some bedrock thing from time immemorial.
The creation DHS was a reorganization of existing government functions. ICE existed before 2003: one bit was part of INS and another bit was part of the Customs Service.
Patrolling the border and immigration law enforcement have been going on since before any of us were born.
kec 7 hours ago [-]
This is not entirely true, CBP still exists independent of ICE. Immigration enforcement within the interior, especially in the fashion we’ve seen recently, is a relatively new phenomena.
mcmcmc 10 hours ago [-]
> DHS was founded in 2003, as was ICE. The country got along for 227 years without these organizations
Almost like something happened shortly before then that caused a seismic shift in our national security posture…
kec 8 hours ago [-]
The fact that 9/11 happened does not imply that DHS and ICE as currently structured and operating are necessary. At most it implies _some_ change might have been necessary, but not definitely _this_ change. It certainly doesn't mean we can never look for reform.
mcmcmc 7 hours ago [-]
> The fact that 9/11 happened does not imply that DHS and ICE as currently structured and operating are necessary.
Never said that it does. I’m not in favor of the domestic surveillance dragnet or Trump’s usage of ICE as shock troops and bodysnatchers. Reform is absolutely needed; eliminating the functions of DHS and ICE entirely is foolhardy. The lies and propaganda painting all immigrants as violent radicals don’t change the reality that there is a subset of evil people intent on doing harm.
The biggest false flag of all time, which led directly to the fascist policies we're talking about and the death of millions of innocent people in the Middle East? I wonder who benefited from that huh?
mcmcmc 9 hours ago [-]
Either you don’t know what a false flag is or you are way off the conspiracy deep end. Terrorism has always existed, modern society has just made it easier to kill en masse. America’s misadventures in the Middle East definitely instigated the conflict and the attacks but it’s factually incorrect to imply 9/11 was orchestrated by the US
grandpajoey 8 hours ago [-]
I couldn't disagree more. This has been the modus operandi of Zionists since the invasion of Palestine.
You sound nuts. I’m not denying the existence of false flags. There is zero evidence to support a false flag theory for 9/11. The intelligence failures were a result of organizational inefficiency and incompetence, not malice.
Given the intense scrutiny of the event you’d think there’d be some evidence if it was actually a false flag, no? It’s pure fantasy. Frankly it’s more likely the 9/11 conspiracy theories are planted by Russian operatives to sow dissent.
grandpajoey 6 hours ago [-]
There's actually a ton of evidence to support 9/11 being a false flag. Dancing Israelis, arrested Israelis (did you know we deported hundreds of them immediately after 9/11 for spying?), everything having to do with Larry Silverstein and Howard Lutnick, George Bush meeting with Osama Bin Laden's brother on 9/10... and of course Israel being the only party that benefited from 9/11.
All of this is easy to verify and well documented. I'll add that Netanyahu/mossad regularly brag about psyops and false flags. Netanyahu was just on 60 Minutes talking about how they can plant false evidence on your phone roughly a month ago.
Did you know that Larry Silverstein was good friends with Netanyahu and talked to him every week before 9/11? Don't take my word for it, Haaretz did a now deleted article on him: https://archive.ph/R1Yzw
causesothere 10 hours ago [-]
DHS is brand new, has caused horror and terror, and soaked up tons of funding that could go to literally anything else.
It doesn't need to exist. Keep the customs checks, keep the border crossing folks. Keep port inspections. Run ourselves like a normal country and like we did for hundreds of years.
Shit is just reactionary nonsense after 9-11.
VCFundedGenYer 10 hours ago [-]
You don't seem to be grasping the severity of the situation if all you care about is "what do you want as a replacement?"
gessha 10 hours ago [-]
Re 2: There’s so many gov agencies with overlapping responsibilities that I’m actually surprised you ask this. You can totally close a number of them and still have a functioning government on paper. Reality might turn out different.
As per your second question, I have no answer. Dems are so dysfunctional it’s beyond parody.
abdusco 6 hours ago [-]
Hurr durr Iran killing their own citizens
gosub100 7 hours ago [-]
I saw something recently about stun cuffs or something like that. Basically an electric torture device, being commissioned for US prisons. It might have even been a chair. This stuff has to stop.
nonethewiser 10 hours ago [-]
At the border?
barbazoo 9 hours ago [-]
At the next protest against the government.
encoderer 9 hours ago [-]
The tin foil hatters get the last laugh
scottyah 9 hours ago [-]
Have you seen tin foil in a microwave? I think they'll be the first to stop laughing :(
Vaushite 9 hours ago [-]
If you make sure it's smooth without gaps it will reflect the waves like a mirror.
profdevloper 7 hours ago [-]
Let's hope so -- so tired of seeing cities burn to the ground
causesothere 5 hours ago [-]
I remember Portland. Sadly it burnt to the ground. No one lives there now, because there are no buildings.
Wait, I'm hearing reports. Reports that literally no city has been burnt to the ground due to protests? None at all? And this HN account is just out of touch?
causesothere 9 hours ago [-]
My sweet summer child. You know how LRADs are deployed against US civilians? You know how chemical munitions are deployed against US civilians? (Specifically munitions that are considered illegal to deploy in war, but are apparently acceptable to deploy by police?) How flashbang grenades launched from handheld launchers are deployed against US civilians? How about the military personnel carriers and MRAPs?
You think those didn't start as restricted to some theater of war?
Go read up on the 1033 program. Or the DHS Grant Program, the Justice Assistance Grant program, or the 1122 program.
8note 3 hours ago [-]
> Specifically munitions that are considered illegal to deploy in war, but are apparently acceptable to deploy by police?
the reasoning for this is less exciting that you'd like. its illegal in war because war is anarchy, and ypu cant tell what chemical weapons an opponent is using, and so proportional response is the worst variation you can think of.
when theyre used by the cops, you know exactly what they are using, and there isnt a chemical weapon escalation worry
thunderfork 10 hours ago [-]
Today, the border; tomorrow, hand-me-downs to every cop shop in the country
hypfer 8 hours ago [-]
This is exactly the kind of weapon system one would want if they were to deal with climate change in the most inhumane way possible.
Just ignoring climate change, then building a secure perimeter to keep away anyone fleeing from the consequences of it.
The "best" part of energy weapons like that is that they just need energy. Meaning that no one has to constantly restock ammunition. They can even run off renewables.
Making the whole thing scalable. Fully automated energy weapon sentry guns on the border to the global south.
This is going to be the future, isn't it? Jesus Christ.
8note 3 hours ago [-]
The US has a lot of places that will be heavily affected by climate change, and climate refugees will be travelling within and between states, just as much as across country borders
gosub100 7 hours ago [-]
Easily repelled with knit wire though
lnsru 7 hours ago [-]
Don’t worry. Every third turret will shoot also non lethal rubber bullets to deal with knit wire holders.
skoll43 9 hours ago [-]
Brother, so the ai bots will literally microwave us, what a time to be alive
First the border, I don't see why they would stop there with the tech
allthetime 9 hours ago [-]
The Gaza Testing Ground comes to the USA. Large scale protest and revolt will continue to become a less attractive option for frustrated Americans.
jpmattia 10 hours ago [-]
And suddenly, there was a market for body-sized Bragg reflectors in the microwave region.
igleria 10 hours ago [-]
Surely the border patrol will not use it to torture a trespasser?
helios_invictus 9 hours ago [-]
It's my understanding that this tool is for crowd control and area denial. While I can understand how this may useful along the border in fantasy, it appears to be literal atomic flyswatter to unreal problem.
b3ing 8 hours ago [-]
Problem is these evangelicals don’t see others as people, just wait for them to define what Christianity is
Undulating-Appa 9 hours ago [-]
How would this affect wildlife? could it potentially affect the ecosystem if there is a large deployment?
dmix 9 hours ago [-]
It only goes a half mile out at max range, it's not that far. So basically whatever is immediately in front of the truck.
ck2 9 hours ago [-]
just a hop step and jump to being used on (completely legal) protestors
there are already several recorded incidents of LRADs being used on crowds which do permanent damage but invisible so very handy for authoritarian governments
> The heat ray, officially known as the Active Denial System, is a nonlethal weapon that shoots an invisible beam of electromagnetic waves that can reach a little more than half a mile away, according to the US military.
Stun gun and electro shocks are also advertised as non-lethal. But the name is wrong; it should be called less-lethal at best.
Zigurd 9 hours ago [-]
They are torture implements, sold to enthusiastic torturers, by people morally depraved enough to be in that business.
scottyah 9 hours ago [-]
Maybe, but do you have a better solution?
Zigurd 9 hours ago [-]
The problem is the overuse of torture devices against people who are unarmed and nonviolent. Torture devices are too convenient in contexts where speedy compliance is sufficient reason to inflict pain, absent a genuine threat. What problem were you thinking needs a solution?
scottyah 7 hours ago [-]
Oh in that case, just give the people whatever they want. I assumed the discussion was about the scenarios this tool was designed for, aka not "unarmed and nonviolent" people.
The problem I think needs a solution is a group of mostly good people being riled up with the well-studied herd mentality, laced with people doing bad things. You want to be able to stop the few bad people (without killing, obviously) with minimal disturbance to the good people, but at any time you cannot know who is good or bad (i.e. you can't enter the crowd to target specific people), and at any point the good people can turn and become malicious actors, contrary to how they'd behave in most circumstances.
Zigurd 6 hours ago [-]
Look at some videos of police encounters.The way they actually get used is as convenient torture devices.
scottyah 4 hours ago [-]
Okay, but how would you design a system that could address the scenario above without being used as a "convenient torture device"? You don't get to change human nature on either side.
8note 3 hours ago [-]
the better option is to stop arming gangs in central and south america, and accept that certain governments will have sovereignty and democracy outside of being a US vassal state.
the secondary better option is to move away from colonial ambitions where those same vassal states exist to give the US their resources, and must be controlled to doing so, into having their own economic prosperity.
half of this strategy has worked well with mexico already, such that a lot of the southern border immigration isnt mexicans anymore, after nafta destroyed the mexican farm industry and moved the corn to iowa
Vaushite 8 hours ago [-]
Don't torture people?
footy 11 hours ago [-]
what the actual fuck.
edit: okay, first reaction, obviously not contributing to any conversation. This is barbaric and if I paid US taxes I'd be writing my government.
sigspec 9 hours ago [-]
I write them constantly. I've tried calling, emailing, faxing, snail mail. I've only ever received a handful of generic form letter responses.
The lobby is louder.
Vaushite 8 hours ago [-]
The average congressman payoff is only about $10k. Anyone got that to spare?
alphawhisky 8 hours ago [-]
I've got something much more persuasive than $10k.
hardbass 8 hours ago [-]
If it is writing and organizing to have the same rights as cops to shoot them without consequence, then yes. Otherwise it is of no use. Why do people accept being second class citizens where one group has the right to murder them without consequence?
cdrnsf 9 hours ago [-]
This administration only accepts adulation, not criticism.
monkpit 9 hours ago [-]
If that worked, we wouldn’t have been in this situation in the first place.
LatteLazy 8 hours ago [-]
People really need to start reading Fahrenheit 451…
blooalien 22 minutes ago [-]
> People really need to start reading Fahrenheit 451…
That and "1984" were required reading when I was in grade-school, supposedly as a warning against the worst possible future outcomes (not as instruction manuals for our "leaders" to follow).
rolph 8 hours ago [-]
not far away until we have the microwave helmet.
9 hours ago [-]
stuaxo 10 hours ago [-]
Sadistic
mrguyorama 8 hours ago [-]
This thing has actually been around for 20 years now, right?
"Future weapons" on the Discovery Channel showed it off back in 2007ish.
It's been in development hell that long because it just sucks in a million ways. Water cannons and other tools just do it's job better, and for less contract dollars.
And that's ignoring anything around microwaving your own citizens being fucked.
metalman 9 hours ago [-]
the actual problem is that the 'pentagon' has zero authority to grant some jumped upp 3 letter agency the go ahead to test what is basicly an electronic flame thrower on civilian refugees, you know ,scared, hungry, tired, women carrying infants with absolutly no idea what is happening to them, and this by an organisation with a solid record of publicly executing american citizens and walking away saying 'fucking bitch'
put the pieces on one page and it looks full on gestapo high tech kill squad times.
ionetan 9 hours ago [-]
I read DHH, and started wondering if he is ok :D
Computer0 5 hours ago [-]
I think the nazi's used gas
10 hours ago [-]
alphawhisky 9 hours ago [-]
Wasn't there a relatively high-profile case of a journalist dying of "nothing" after whistleblowing recently? I only remember that a directed energy weapon was one of the proposed methods of their assasination.
gus_massa 9 hours ago [-]
It's not magic, this will make burn marks before it can kill someone.
alphawhisky 8 hours ago [-]
Sonic weapons can cause damage to tissue without being visible on the skin. It's science, not magic.
It's safety is basically completely a function of the operator. Since the beam will keep depositing energy (ie heating), if the beam is held on a target, it will incur more and more heating (and potentially harm).
In proper usage, safety is ensured through the combination of operator training, selection of proper settings, and induced compliance. If you have a shitty operator, risk of over exposure increases. The nature of this device means that it's not a barrier, it's a beam.
During earlier testing, they were able to induce second degree burns on a test subject due to incorrect power and duration settings.
Maybe I am too cynical, but I don't think the people making these tools actually care about this either, not beyond the potential for bad publicity.
Racism and disregard for basic human rights has a long history in that border. I'd even say it's part of a subculture. Some people leave water jugs for people crossing the desert, others are horrible people that enjoy inflicting pain on others.
Will taking the tools of torture away from cops increase risks they face? Maybe. But have they earned our confidence that they will use these tools wisely? No, they haven't.
At what percentage would you say? 1%, 3%, 87%?
Does the country they are fleeing have no culpability? Why are they leaving?
> Does the country they are fleeing have no culpability?
The US definitely has some culpability for making other places harder to live in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
> Why are they leaving?
They're not doing it just for funsies.
You didn’t answer my question. :)
> At what percentage would you say?
Why do you ask? If it was the lowest figure you mentioned, or halfway between the lowest and highest, would one of those make it better?
Is the argument that this new tech will only kill n people on top of those that already die, so whether we fry less than 1% or a far higher figure, that one of those is better?
Wikipedia is available if specific mortality rates matter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migrant_deaths_along_the_Mexic...
I expect a lot of severely traumatized people from this device
I'm fairly sure this could be (is being?) scaled down to something resembling the pain box used on Paul Atreides in Dune. An efficient "enhanced interrogation" technology is just too tempting for too many in power.
(edit: omitted word)
Yeah, that's going to go well with people aiming this at whoever they think it's "less than" them.
So what happens when it's shot at someone's eyes?
The device works through line of sight, so blocking line of sight from the emitter to your open eyes (for example, by looking away and shielding with your arms) may be helpful.
Testing indicates that test subjects reached their pain threshold in ~5 seconds (typically reacting within 3). Proper application of this device in a riot situation likely involves pulsed application, at sufficient standoff range (between targets and a barrier or your riot police/troops), precisely to reduce the risk of operators feeling that they need to dwell, with the standoff range providing enough buffer to allow operators to feel like they can illuminate, wait for initial reaction, shut off, and then read the full reaction.
In your general scenario, you can replace this weapon with any other riot control tool, and get basically the same shitty situation. Once the government/police/whatever have decided that you are in a riot/mob, then you're not going to be treated as an individual, you're going to be treated as an element of a threat. This is true of dudes with shields and batons, beanbags, water cannons, tear gas, horses, whatever.
There's a perforated metal sheet inside the door of every consumer microwave oven that blocks microwave RF, and permits visible light to pass.
Remove it. Cut it up. Fit it into sunglass frames or goggles or whatever.
So let's make the holes smaller. We want to permit nanometer-wave light to pass while blocking centimeter-wave RF. I'm not seeing a particularly difficult engineering challenge here. :)
> You'd likely be better off with aluminum foil than the door.
Did you think this through at all? Running away and hiding while wearing opaque aluminum foil blinders is kind of a unilateral non-starter.
---
Anyway, we also have this: Window film. Let's look at an example.
3M Thinsulate Climate Control 75 is a self-adhesive film that blocks greater than 99% of RF from 100MHz to 4.5GHz[1], which I might suggest is pretty good for protecting the ol' eyeballs from a brief encounter with the blindness machine.
The combination of it and a single pane of window glass provides 74% visible light transmission[2]. I further suggest that this allows plenty of light with which to safely move around.
[1]: https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/1704860O/electromagnetic...
[2]: https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/1435912O/product-bulleti...
Please be constructive instead of dismissive.
Attenuation of 95 GHz seems likely to be in the realm of 30-40dB, which is also in the realm of letting less than 1% through.
Be happy you are just blind for the rest of your life.
Such a shitty government you have today in the USA, it boggles the mind.
I wish we could identify, grapple with how bad what a terror America has become against itself. Against its history. Against in so many cases reality. There doesn't seem to be any regulating functions in red America, anything other than ever increasing war drums against democracy, against union, again the constitution, the declaration of rights, reason, kindness, and possibility. To make itself the foe of the nation has been the only thing this political faction has been able to lead by, and we are so far past the unhinging, never to come back seemingly, never to be able to have any learning moments, never to recognize a loyal opposition again, never to compromise. Just shrill shrieking bedlam and din forever.
This is where things are moving, however. I do not think it is good.
We should be asking these questions.
Oh, is that all?
> US officials had also considered deploying the system during moments of domestic unrest, including at the end of President Donald Trump’s first term when protests erupted over the murder of George Floyd, according to a former US official familiar with those discussions.
This is for "the border" (because you know we should be able to torture people there), but really this will imperial boomerang back to US citizens in the blink of an eye.
They're trained to not maim or kill. More training won't fix it. More money and more resources won't fix that systemic rot.
40%, after all.
Possibly the "safeguard" portion of the first patent below indicates this; which may only make sense if such devices are capable of exceeding lawful spectrums, etc. Not sure though.
The others I just threw in. I am not in the right space to vet or read them right now, so they may or may not be relevant. That said, I did once interview a soldier who told me of some off-the-record use of directed energy in Iraq/Afghanistan... describing bodies with relatively intact exteriors with internal damage not fitting of thermobaric weapons, ie vehicles also intact. Terms used were "cooked from the inside". Anecdotal, but disturbing, and certainly physically possible.
1. https://patents.google.com/patent/US7921588B2/en
2. https://patents.google.com/patent/US20220082358A1/en
3. https://patents.google.com/patent/US7784390B1/en
4. https://www.patentbear.com/patents/US7490538B2
Considering the non-tolerance of public protest and the "promise" of non-lethality, I could imagine this becoming a regular tool in population control if things don't change.
Good thing border control isn't full of rejects and nonhackers from the military and real law enforcement \s
Well, we are talking about US border patrol folks. Trust me, they are the nicest guys around /s.
Microwaving people is clearly a net good for society, and once domestic non-border use is approved we'll be able to build America back even more quickly.
Recognizing that the current structure and mode of operation of these organizations is problematic and leading to bad outcomes also doesn't mean flipping to fully open borders with zero law enforcement as some imply every time this is brought up.
The creation DHS was a reorganization of existing government functions. ICE existed before 2003: one bit was part of INS and another bit was part of the Customs Service.
Patrolling the border and immigration law enforcement have been going on since before any of us were born.
Almost like something happened shortly before then that caused a seismic shift in our national security posture…
Never said that it does. I’m not in favor of the domestic surveillance dragnet or Trump’s usage of ICE as shock troops and bodysnatchers. Reform is absolutely needed; eliminating the functions of DHS and ICE entirely is foolhardy. The lies and propaganda painting all immigrants as violent radicals don’t change the reality that there is a subset of evil people intent on doing harm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_Affair
And if you want a US non-Zionist false flag (that literally started the Vietnam war):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident
Given the intense scrutiny of the event you’d think there’d be some evidence if it was actually a false flag, no? It’s pure fantasy. Frankly it’s more likely the 9/11 conspiracy theories are planted by Russian operatives to sow dissent.
All of this is easy to verify and well documented. I'll add that Netanyahu/mossad regularly brag about psyops and false flags. Netanyahu was just on 60 Minutes talking about how they can plant false evidence on your phone roughly a month ago.
Did you know that Larry Silverstein was good friends with Netanyahu and talked to him every week before 9/11? Don't take my word for it, Haaretz did a now deleted article on him: https://archive.ph/R1Yzw
It doesn't need to exist. Keep the customs checks, keep the border crossing folks. Keep port inspections. Run ourselves like a normal country and like we did for hundreds of years.
Shit is just reactionary nonsense after 9-11.
As per your second question, I have no answer. Dems are so dysfunctional it’s beyond parody.
Wait, I'm hearing reports. Reports that literally no city has been burnt to the ground due to protests? None at all? And this HN account is just out of touch?
You think those didn't start as restricted to some theater of war?
Go read up on the 1033 program. Or the DHS Grant Program, the Justice Assistance Grant program, or the 1122 program.
the reasoning for this is less exciting that you'd like. its illegal in war because war is anarchy, and ypu cant tell what chemical weapons an opponent is using, and so proportional response is the worst variation you can think of.
when theyre used by the cops, you know exactly what they are using, and there isnt a chemical weapon escalation worry
Just ignoring climate change, then building a secure perimeter to keep away anyone fleeing from the consequences of it.
The "best" part of energy weapons like that is that they just need energy. Meaning that no one has to constantly restock ammunition. They can even run off renewables.
Making the whole thing scalable. Fully automated energy weapon sentry guns on the border to the global south.
This is going to be the future, isn't it? Jesus Christ.
First the border, I don't see why they would stop there with the tech
there are already several recorded incidents of LRADs being used on crowds which do permanent damage but invisible so very handy for authoritarian governments
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmK-KZOiT-c
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-range_acoustic_device
Stun gun and electro shocks are also advertised as non-lethal. But the name is wrong; it should be called less-lethal at best.
The problem I think needs a solution is a group of mostly good people being riled up with the well-studied herd mentality, laced with people doing bad things. You want to be able to stop the few bad people (without killing, obviously) with minimal disturbance to the good people, but at any time you cannot know who is good or bad (i.e. you can't enter the crowd to target specific people), and at any point the good people can turn and become malicious actors, contrary to how they'd behave in most circumstances.
the secondary better option is to move away from colonial ambitions where those same vassal states exist to give the US their resources, and must be controlled to doing so, into having their own economic prosperity.
half of this strategy has worked well with mexico already, such that a lot of the southern border immigration isnt mexicans anymore, after nafta destroyed the mexican farm industry and moved the corn to iowa
edit: okay, first reaction, obviously not contributing to any conversation. This is barbaric and if I paid US taxes I'd be writing my government.
The lobby is louder.
That and "1984" were required reading when I was in grade-school, supposedly as a warning against the worst possible future outcomes (not as instruction manuals for our "leaders" to follow).
"Future weapons" on the Discovery Channel showed it off back in 2007ish.
It's been in development hell that long because it just sucks in a million ways. Water cannons and other tools just do it's job better, and for less contract dollars.
And that's ignoring anything around microwaving your own citizens being fucked.