Homeland Security Commissions LED-Based Puke-Saber 378
E++99 writes "Homeland Security has contracted with Intelligent Optical Systems, Inc. to develop an "LED Incapacitator," a nonlethal weapon consisting of a large flashlight with a cluster of LEDs capable of emitting "super-bright pulses of light at rapidly changing wavelengths." Sounds innocuous enough... until they they shine "the evil color" at you and you start puking! A working prototype has been completed, and they will soon be putting it through its paces. Homeland Security hopes to give it to Border Patrol agents and National Guardsmen by 2010."
Other uses... (Score:5, Insightful)
Legal liability? (Score:4, Insightful)
-Someone gets this device used on them. They have damage from stomach acid in their esophagus. They sue.
-They use this on someone who is sick (from another cause). They puke up blood/get sicker/die.
-(This is BS, but lawyers will sue for anything these days) "Psychological trauma" caused by the device.
Is it a reasonable expectation that the device may be used on you if you go to airport/border?
Nail in the coffin (Score:2, Insightful)
The good and the bad (Score:5, Insightful)
With a gun, there's a certain level of commitment before it's used. An officer of the law must make a determination that he or she is really certain about before shooting, because hitting an innocent person is absolutely unacceptable. As a result, the tendency is to, unless there's no option, NOT shoot someone if you can hold them at bay with the THREAT of shooting. A side effect of this is that an officer given a bad order to shoot is much more likely to abstain, because once he pulls the trigger, it's all over.
As a result, innocent folks are often held at gunpoint until their identity/non-criminalness is confirmed. While traumatic and stressful, this is better than an alternative that's growing increasingly common:
Enter, the taser. Potentially a wonderful tool for stopping an attacker without permanently injuring them, doctrine has instead developed in many police and security departments to 'Zap first, ask questions later'. The 'non-injurious' aspect of the tool means that the bar is that much lower on whether or not to shoot, because "after all, if they're innocent, then it's just a bit of discomfort".
The growing number of non-lethal tools is on the surface a good, even GREAT thing. The real danger though, is a long term one. With the bar set so low, more and more people will be subject to excruciating pain, and eventually, this technology may evolve into a tool of even greater oppression of liberty than anything we have now.
Imagine if a protest can be casually broken up by making everyone vomit or crap themselves uncontrollably. If the government has the ability to casually stop groups of people from coming together or otherwise detaining them while being able to argue "it's not fatal, it's just uncomfortable", then the bar on violating our rights as citizens drops too.
So I'm interested and optimistic about the technologies, but I desperately hope that better effort is invested in making them a net positive for all of humanity and not the boot that might otherwise grind our faces into the dirt.
Morality of this? (Score:4, Insightful)
non-lethal != A-OK (Score:3, Insightful)
And we don't need to be using weapons on each other more often, but less.
Re:from the article (Score:5, Insightful)
Wouldn't it be easier to just have border officials who spoke Spanish?
So I'm confused here... (Score:4, Insightful)
Couldn't I just pull up into Home Depot's color center and have them make paint in the "evil" color and use it for whatever (pranks, revenge, robbery)?
Re:Oh no! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Short on details, long on imagination (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This will work just great... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Legal liability? (Score:2, Insightful)
People have won lawsuits after the egregious/lethal application of tasers.
Re:Nail in the coffin (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, this can, at some point, will be misused, just as any law enforcement tool will eventually be misused, but would you rather have them misuse something lethal?
Scopes and landmines? (Score:3, Insightful)
Welcome to America. Sorry about your mother and the rest of your family. Uh...our bad.
Re:This will work just great... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The good and the bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, that's true, and in riot-type situations that is exactly what happens.
In this particular case I'm more worried about the potential for abuse in encounters with a single suspect. While truncheons and rubber bullets leave marks, presumably this device will leave no indication that it was used other than a case of foul breath. It would be easy for a lawyer to argue that person did not beat themselves between the shoulder blades with a club, could they prove that the suspect did actually throw up, and that it wasn't a case where they vomited from anxiety (from their guilt, of course) then decided to blame the puke ray?
Basically I worry about any tool that can be used unaccountably, and yeah the lesser barrier to usage that "non-lethal"* weapons imply. Accountability means a lot -- for example it's why the police are more likely to prevent you from hitting your head as you get into the squad car rather than ensuring that you hit your head, because those kinds of bruises became easy lawsuit fodder. So now the good cops have to make sure the suspect doesn't hit their head on purpose, but that's the price that must be paid for the actions of bad cops.
* Oh yeah, and remember back when that innocent bystander to a protest in NYC was shot through her eye and killed by a rubber bullet? Remember that for a while the press was referring to the pellet guns as "less-lethal weapons"? Can we go back to using that term? Because I'd like for us to keep that in mind before some cop decides to stick this in the face of some suspect with a condition for five minutes just to teach them a lesson.
Re:Nail in the coffin (Score:1, Insightful)
over 400 arrested during the Republican Convention [nytimes.com]
I call bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nail in the coffin (Score:4, Insightful)
You must have an awfully short memory. How about non-lethal foam-rubber projectiles?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Los_Angeles_May_Re:The good and the bad (Score:4, Insightful)
Good reason for that (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:from the article (Score:3, Insightful)
We're against ILLEGAL immigrants, which is not the same thing.
Re:Nail in the coffin (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's see a slightly larger selection of quotes...
several people began pelting Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers with rocks, bottles, and other debris
the LAPD had approximately 600 officers on the scene
police fired 146 foam-rubber projectiles
27 marchers and 9 members of the media were injured,
Video footage shows police striking with their batons at apparently non-combative protesters
many reporters were also pushed and beaten
Police Chief William J. Bratton
So, we have the cops, who heavily outnumber the "several" violent protesters, firing about 150 times at the crowd, injuring almost 40 people. They pushed and beat reporters and other non-combative protesters. The police Chief himself said most of the people there were not misbehaving.
I think that goes a little beyond 'being jackasses'.
Re:This will work just great... (Score:3, Insightful)
I realize that being anti government, especially anti Bush is pretty hip-cool right now, but...
I don't think you could call these guys "bad" when they just spent an ass-load of time and money to invent a weapon that makes you puke when they could have just said "screw 'em", saved an ass-load of money and simply shot whoever the puke-ray was intended for with a REAL gun. We already invented the 9mm. Why waste the time?
I think these "Bad Guys", as you like to call them, just did something incredibly humane and you should find a way to give credit where it is due rather than bashing every single chance you get.
Re:Or (Score:3, Insightful)
a) something the good guys have?
b) something the bad guys have?
Re:This will work just great... (Score:5, Insightful)
But if the cops shot everybody, most especially the white children of Middle America, there'd be hell to pay. Better to scare the little shits off with tasers and rubber bullets and puke rays when they try to protest over tossing the quaint Geneva Conventions, that musty old Constitution, or the Magna Fuckin' Carta in the dustbin.
Re:This will work just great... (Score:4, Insightful)
I really don't think that this is something that has been developed for usage overseas.
Re:What about epilepsy ? (Score:3, Insightful)
I've seen interview where police were talking about tazors and they said they were only dangerous in rare cases if the victim was on drugs. The official tazor policy is that it is always the drugs that kill them not the tazors. I believe that like I believe the cigarette advertising from the 50s. If you think about it, police are _most_ likely to use tazors in drugs situations.
I read an article about a cop who killed a person accidentally with a tazor and he clearly seemed to feel bad about killing the dude. But he should have thought ahead of time. If someone is naked: A) He's not hiding a gun. B) He is probably on drugs.
Re:Other uses... (Score:2, Insightful)