US Tests: Scary Crowd-Stopping Technology at Pittsburgh Protests

Robocops Employ Scary Crowd-Stopping Technology at Pittsburgh Protests

By Mike Ferner,

September 28, 2009.

An arsenal of “crowd control munitions,” was deployed with a
massive, overpowering police presence in Pittsburgh during last week’s
G-20 protests.

No longer the stuff of disturbing futuristic fantasies, an arsenal
of “crowd control munitions,” including one that reportedly made its
debut in the U.S., was deployed with a massive, overpowering police
presence in Pittsburgh during last week’s G-20 protests.

Nearly 200 arrests were made and civil liberties groups charged the
many thousands of police (most transported on Port Authority buses
displaying “PITTSBURGH WELCOMES THE WORLD”), from as far away as
Arizona and Florida with overreactingand they had plenty of weaponry
with which to do it.

Bean bags fired from shotguns, CS (tear) gas, OC
(Oleoresin Capsicum) spray, flash-bang grenades, batons and, according
to local news reports, for the first time on the streets of America,
the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD).

Mounted in the turret of an Armored Personnel Carrier (APC), I saw
the LRAD in action twice in the area of 25th, Penn and Liberty Streets
of Lawrenceville, an old Pittsburgh neighborhood.  Blasting a shrill,
piercing noise like a high-pitched police siren on steroids, it quickly
swept streets and sidewalks of pedestrians, merchants and journalists
and drove residents into their homes, but in neither case were any
demonstrators present.  The APC, oversized and sinister for a city
street, together with lines of police in full riot gear looking like
darkly threatening Michelin Men, made for a scene out of a movie you
didn’t want to be in.

As intimidating as this massive show of armed force and technology
was, the good burghers of Pittsburgh and their fellow citizens in the
Land of the Brave and Home of the Free ain’t seen nothin’ yet.  Tear
gas and pepper spray are nothing to sniff at and, indeed, have proven fatal
a surprising number of times, but they have now become the old standbys
compared to the list below that’s already at or coming soon to a police
station or National Guard headquarters near you.  Proving that “what
goes around, comes around,” some of the new Property Protection Devices
were developed by a network of federally-funded, university-based
research institutes like one in Pittsburgh itself, Penn State’s Institute for Non-Lethal Defense Technologies.

Raytheon Corp.’s Active Denial System, designed for crowd control in combat zones, uses an energy beam to induce an intolerable heating sensation,
like a hot iron placed on the skin.  It is effective beyond the range
of small arms, in excess of 400 meters.  Company officials have been
advised they could expand the market by selling a smaller,
tripod-mounted version for police forces.

M5 Modular Crowd Control Munition,
with a range of 30 meters “is similar in operation to a claymore mine,
but it delivers…a strong, nonpenetrating blow to the body with multiple
sub-munitions (600 rubber balls).”

Long Range Acoustic Device
or “The Scream,” is a powerful megaphone the size of a satellite dish
that can emit sound “50 times greater than the human threshold for
pain” at close range, causing permanent hearing damage.  The L.A. Times
wrote U.S. Marines in  Iraq used it in 2004.  It can deliver recorded
warnings in Arabic and, on command, emit a piercing tone…”[For] most
people, even if they plug their ears, [the device] will produce the
equivalent of an instant migraine,” says Woody Norris, chairman of
American Technology Corp., the San Diego firm that produces the weapon.
“It will knock [some people] on their knees.”  CBS News reported in
2005 that the Israeli Army first used the device in the field
to break up a protest against Israel’s separation wall.  “Protesters
covered their ears and grabbed their heads, overcome by dizziness and
nausea, after the vehicle-mounted device began sending out bursts of
audible, but not loud, sound at intervals of about 10 seconds…A
military official said the device emits a special frequency that
targets the inner ear.”

In “Non-lethal Technologies: An Overview,”
Lewer and Davison describe a lengthy catalog of new weaponry including
the “Directed Stick Radiator,” a hand-held system based on the same
technology as The Scream.  “It fires high intensity ’sonic bullets’ or
pulses of sound between 125-150db for a second or two.  Such a weapon
could, when fully developed, have the capacity to knock people off
their feet.”

The Penn State facility is testing a “Distributed Sound and Light Array Debilitator” a.k.a. the “puke ray.” 
The colors and rhythm of light are absorbed by the retina and disorient
the brain, blinding the victim for several seconds.  In conjunction
with disturbing sounds it can make the person stumble or feel
nauseated.  Foreign Policy in Focus reports that the Department of
Homeland Security, with $1 million invested for testing the device,
hopes to see it “in the hands of thousands of policemen, border agents
and National Guardsmen” by 2010.

Spider silk is cited in the University of Bradford’s Non-Lethal Weapons Research Project, Report #4 (pg. 20)
as an up-and-comer.  “A research collaboration between the University
of New Hampshire and the U.S. Army Natick Research, Development and
Engineering Center is looking into the use of spider silk as a
non-lethal ‘entanglement’ material for disabling people. They have
developed a method for producing recombinant spider silk protein using
E. coli and are trying to develop methods to produce large quantities
of these fibres.”

New Scientist reports that the (I’m not making this up) Inertial Capacitive Incapacitator
(ICI), developed by the Physical Optics Corporation of Torrance,
California, uses a thin-film storage device charged during manufacture
that only discharges when it strikes the target. It can be incorporated
into a ring-shaped aerofoil and fired from a standard grenade launcher
at low velocity, while still maintaining a flat trajectory for maximum
accuracy.

Aiming beyond Tasers, the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency, (FY 2009 budget: $1B) the domestic equivalent of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA),
plans to develop wireless weapons effective over greater distances,
such as in an auditorium or sports stadium, or on a city street.  One
such device, the Piezer,
uses piezoelectric crystals that produce voltage when they are
compressed.  A 12-gauge shotgun fires the crystals, stunning the target
with an electric shock on impact.  Lynntech of College Station, Texas,
is developing a projectile
Taser that can be fired from a shotgun or 40-mm grenade launcher to
increase greatly the weapon’s current range of seven meters.

“Off the Rocker and On the Floor: Continued Development of Biochemical Incapacitating Weapons,”
a report by the Bradford Disarmament Research Centre revealed that in
1992, the National Institute of Justice contracted with Lawrence
Livermore National Lab to review clinical anesthetics for use by
special ops military forces and police.  LLNL concluded the best option
was an opioid, like fentanyl, effective at very low doses compared to
morphine.  Combined with a patch soaked in DMSO (dimethylsufoxide, a
solvent) and fired from an air rifle, fentanyl could be delivered to
the skin even through light clothing.  Another recommended application
for the drug was mixed with fine powder and dispersed as smoke.

After upgrades, the infamous “Puff the Magic Dragon” gunship from the Vietnam War is now the AC-130.  “Non-Lethal Weaponry: Applications to AC-130 Gunships,”
observes that “With the increasing involvement of US military in
operations other than war…” the AC-130  “would provide commanders a
full range of non-lethal weaponry from an airborne platform which was
not previously available to them.”  The paper concludes in part that
“As the use of non-lethal weapons increases and it becomes valid and
acceptable, more options will become available.”

Prozac and Zoloft are two of over 100 pharmaceuticals identified by
the Penn State College of Medicine and the university’s Applied
Research Lab for further study as “non-lethal calmatives.”  These
Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), noted the Penn State study,
“…are found to be highly effective for numerous behavioral disturbances
encountered in situations where a deployment of a non-lethal technique
must be considered.  This class of pharmaceutical agents also continues
to be under intense development by the pharmaceutical industry…New
compounds under development (WO 09500194) are being designed with a
faster onset of action.  Drug development is continuing at a rapid rate
in this area due to the large market for the treatment of depression
(15 million individuals in North America)…It is likely that an SSRI
agent can be identified in the near future that will feature a rapid
rate of onset.”

In Pittsburgh last week, an enormously expensive show of police and
weaponry, intended for “security” of the G20 delegates, simultaneously
shut workers out of downtown jobs for two days, forced gasping students
and residents back into their dormitories and homes, and turned
journalists’ press passes into quaint, obsolete reminders of a bygone
time.

Most significant of all, however, was what Witold Walczak,
legal director of the Pennsylvania ACLU, told the Associated Press:
“It’s not just intimidation, it’s disruption and in some cases outright
prevention of peaceful protesters being able to get their message out.”

Source

http://www.alternet.org/media/142951/robocops_employ_scary_crowd-stoppin...

experimenting on US Citizens. Trying out some of their new toys.  War on US citizens on US soil.

 i saw some short clips and retweeted when could. it was maddening to see what was happening the short clips on youtube. I recall making comment that it was stupid move to push steel garbage bins into the cops, these outside cops, this not just pitts. I think of Ghandi, howeveri I  believe in self defence

when I see this and one done with Nigel Parry in, and the guy shot with the bullets i cried.

putting this together  was a call to duty by those who did  and those in the battle for democracy and freedom of expression without intinimation or fear, threats of violence or violence.  if there is such a thing as democracy, I have questioned that and I don't believe there is.

Thanks to all that put this together , and I hope it;'s on youtube haven't been there yet, and gets published in high profile papers and more

now the question is and as Flux put it: what do you do when you fear your own government. I have asked myself the same question

come to terms and ignore give in, just lock your door, non-violent resistance, or violence and civil war.

they have the power and the means to squash anyone like bugs, they already have and do. memories of Kent State