Special Analysis:
The Area Denial Option: From Fallujah to New Orleans
American Technology Corp. and HPV Technologies LLC dominate the market for sonic devices that can communicate commands as far away as a mile with a sound clarity that is amazing. If this were their exclusive or even primary function, there would be little controversy. That is not the case, however: these devices, in their most important role, are non-lethal weapons for crowd control and dispersal, and they have been deployed and used in situational theatres of operations for some time, now. As a point of comparison about sound levels, a smoke detector pumps out sound at 80 to 90 decibels; one of these acoustical devices can push sound in the 2100 to 3100 Hertz range at up to 150 decibels. According to Richard Salvi, director of the Center for Hearing and Deafness at the University at Buffalo, "That's a sensitive region for developing hearing loss... The longer the duration, the more serious it is." American Technology Corporation Vice President of Military and Government Operations Carl Gruenler said, "Inside 100 yards, you definitely don't want to be there."
As just mentioned, American Technology features the Long Range Acoustical Device, otherwise known as The Sound of Force Protection®, which projects high-quality sound up to a mile. According to the company, the cone of sound can be varied from 15° to 30°, and it features both microphone and MP3 input capabilities.
For shorter ranges, American Technology offers the Medium Range Acoustic Device™ (MRAD™), otherwise known as The Sound of Emergency Notification™, which projects high-quality sound up to 300 meters. This device is described by the company as "Man-Portable." It features microphone, MP3, CD, tape, and laptop computer input capabilities.
Other products in the company's family of The Sound of Emergency Notification™ are the SoundSaber devices, which feature flat panel technology, making them attractive for quick deployment in space-constrained situations, including indoor and outdoor events.
According to Newsweek, not only have the Marines taken them into combat situations in places like Fallujah, and not only has the Navy secured a number of them for use in the Persian Gulf, but law enforcement authorities across the United States are considering the purchase and deployment of LRADs and MRADs: the list from Newsweek includes "...Miami, Los Angeles, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and the Department of Homeland Security..." In a company press release dated August 26, 2004, American Technology Corporation noted that the New York City Police Department had purchased two of the devices and intended to use them if necessary against protesters at the Republican National Convention. In that same press release, it was disclosed that the United States Border Patrol had acquired LRADs.
The devices are also now in use by the military forces of other nations. In a June 10, 2005, communiqué as reported by the Seattle Weekly, AP correspondent Amy Teibel described protesters at the West Bank wall "...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..."
The acoustical devices now in operational use from Israel to Iraq to the streets of America are not the "pain ray" machines of Raytheon Corp., which are designed to create an unbearable burning sensation that will drive people away, nor are LRADs of the acoustical variety in the very low-frequency ranges long sought by some musicians to cause their fans to defecate: there is still considerable dispute about exactly what frequencies induce which biological reactions, although research is surely continuing apace for entertainment as well as military applications.
American Technology is clearly a leader in non-lethal weaponry for crowd notification, riot control, and area denial. With the introduction of this technology to the domestic law enforcement situation management inventory, the same successful results achieved by Israelis against Palestinian and Israeli protesters and by Coalition forces against Iraqis is now available to manage the ever-increasing threat that Americans in large numbers pose to civil order.
And with the generous donation of devices by American Technology Corporation to the United States for use in New Orleans, the nation's armed forces will now have greater assurance that law and order will be maintained among those who would otherwise, like many other enemies of America, pose a clear and present threat by virtue of their desperation.
The Dark Wraith has spoken.
Published 9/04/2005 04:52:00 PM
<< 18 Comments Total
I suspect that foam gun plugs when used with the kind of ear protectors used by workers around jet airplanes (these look like old fashioned earphones) will provide enough relief so that demonstrators or whoever can stay focused on their job.
So bring this equipment to the next peace rally. Or find deaf demonstrators.
Every tactic has a defense.
Good evening, Anonymous.
There are methods to mitigate this type of assault, but foam ear plugs are not among the solutions. The acoustical waves are affecting the inner ear, not the timpanic membrane. Even under ideal conditions, as anyone who's tried to block annoying music with earplugs can attest, they provide only a modicum of noise abatement. The LRADs and MRADs are causing resonance behind the membrane and are doing so by creating harmonics in the mastoid and cartiledge surrounding the regions in which the inner ear fluids reside. That's why these weapons create nausea and dizziness.
The effective solutions involve hard deflector plates, but not ones that are flat: the waves would wash right over a planar surface perpendicular to the forward vector of the waves' surfaces. Far better would be something roughly like a half rectangular prismoid, but it would have to be fairly flat. This would allow the waves to deflect gently back along the surfaces and past the tissues being targeted for effect. This is based upon the way X-ray telescopes are constructed: unlike the almost flat, parabolic mirror in a telescope that collects visible light, the photon collecting surfaces of a telescope designed to gather and focus high energy particles is shaped more like a steep cone to allow high-energy photons to "slide" (or, more graphically, "skid") down to a focal point. I am speculating upon optimal design for an acoustical shield, but the same basic principle would be in operation, I am guessing, because of the high energy, high focus these acoustical waves are being given by the LRAD pump.
There are other strange and fascinating similarities between this new acoustical, area denial weapon and devices from other military and scientific fields. It's a new world, but means can always be found to at least partially circumvent and mitigate the full effect.
That does not mean, however, that LRADs and MRADs will be rendered ineffective anytime soon. In crowd control, it is very unlikely that more than a handful of rioters would be prepared for something like this. That means the mass panic that would be created by the pain being delivered by the devices would force pretty much everyone into full-blown retreat, and any person who might be withstanding the devices' effect could end up getting seriously hurt in the stampede of people trying to get away from the pain.
That does not mean, however, that mitigation strategies should not be devised and transmitted to as many people as possible. Unfortunately, most people are not trained in the military ways of learning procedures and enduring adversity under extreme situational pressures. This means that demonstrators need to spend at least some time being taught how to deal with these devices, as well as with tear gas, pepper spray, and truncheon attacks.
These are good skills to learn for the months and days that are soon to come.
That, at least, is how the Dark Wraith sees the times that are coming.
Dear Mr. Wraith
I appoligize for my leave of absense but I have been very, very busy. I spent the last 20 minutes or so reading you last several posts and I have to say I am very impressed. I appreciate all that you do and what you write.
I wish I had something insightful to say at this point in time but I don't. I am just completely in shell-shock over what is happening in this country right now.
I believe it is borderline unprecidented in our history. I don't know how many of you have been following the story behind the story but the Bush Administration's focus has been to take control of Louisiana and strip power away from the State.
I cannot say whether or not this is a bad thing. I can say that they way the Bush Administration intially handled Hurricane Katrina makes me leary of giving the Bush Administration emergency powers over the Gulf States.
What concerns me most is that to me this seems an obvious attempt by the Bush Administration to Nationalize their power. Rather than care about the victims, they seem to be focused on their own NeoCon Agenda which seems to be centered around turning the United States into a fascist dictatorship.
Good day/evening to all! Oddjob, gypsy, shakes, Julien, and so many others that I know here, I pray that you are all well. God be with you.
PoliShifter/Paradigm Shifter
Ah, there you are, PoliShifter.
You've been busy over at your own blogs, that's for sure.
We do what we can: we keep this information stream continuous and dense. We use our varied interests, focuses, and talents to make the future history aware of what happened in this time. We do not let up, and we do not give up.
Those forces aligned against us—against our right to be a free people—will do what they can to diminish us, to degrade us, to deny us what our forefathers fought so hard to achieve. Those forces aligned against us want to use the tools of modernity to return the people to a cattle stock that was so much easier for them to understand, to abuse, and to exploit.
We will not let them do that. Just as they envision weaponry that degrades and humiliates us, that strips us even of the martyrdom that comes with death in battle, so too will we deny them their hope of achieving that awful place where they can simply chase us away in pain and fear.
They can be stopped; it will, however, take all of us and all that is within us to do so.
But in that day when we may claim victory over them, beware, PoliShifter: they will come back.
It is for us to ensure that our descendants who will face their kind again may read of a time before theirs when the same processes were trying to drive the world into the night of crushing enslavement. It is for us to scream across the gulf of our graves that this can be stopped, and it must be stopped again.
And again, and again.
The Dark Wraith wishes you well, PoliShifter.
Thank you so much Dark Wraith
I consider us all in the Big Brass Alliance and other bloggers in the same vein the be modern day "minute men" and minute women harkening back to the Revolution.
We must continue to get the message out there for posterity for, at the very least to let our children and grandchildren know that we all did not agree on the direction this country is headed. And also perhaps...maybe it is egotositical on my part, but maybe we can provide some guidance for our future generations who, in my opinion will greatly suffer as a result of our actions today if we do not seek to change our ways.
Dark Wraith, as a personal favor, I ask that you visit Scadapaly and tell me what you think of my latest article.
For in my opinion it strikes at the very heart of what you and so many in the blogoshere are trying to do. I would love for your input. Alas the battle over ego is always present but above all else in my heart I want what is best for our Nation and Our People regardless of race, color, creed, religion, or political affiliation.
Dark times indeed we have hit upon. Only history (or herstory) will tell if we were truly intelligent enough to overcome the coming trials and tribulations.
PoliShifter/Paradigm Shifter
The article on the new weapons systems is interesting and insightful as always. I've been away from my computer while I've been moving to Canada for my secomd Masters degree. I'm really rather glad to be here myself. :)
I too see some dark days coming and I have a sneaking feeling that they are coming this month. Because Bush is being hit far too hard and people are starting to wake up to who and what his administration really is. A bunch of worthless political hacks.
For me right now I'm just holding on to hope that the US survives to see another hopefully better administration or that we can find someway to toss the current one out.
But I would say that Bush tries to pull any terrorist attacks out of his hat in the next few weeks it will be the end of the US as we know, and I don't think any of us will feel fine.
-Gary A
Good morning, Mr. Wraith.
Car 54, be on the lookout for any darkies, looking haggard/dehydrated, walking dizzily and/or holding head. Shoot to kill! I repeat...STK!
Good morning, T. Rogers.
Today, my newstream over at The Dark Wraith Forums Message Board is leading with the headline about the military declaring that it's in "combat" in New Orleans.
"Combat," for God's sake.
I also ran in that same leader the story from Conspiracy Planet that Delta Force or some other Special Ops snipers are involved. I discounted that part of the story until I heard that a group of workers who were heading across a bridge to do some repairs were shot. Six kills from a distance would not be the work of regular unit soldiers. That's sniper craft.
We have now introduced to New Orleans yet one more armed faction vying for control.
In other words, we're creating our own version of something like Bosnia, circa late 20th Century.
The Dark Wraith finds this just stunning.
Off topic:
Couldn't find your email address, so I'm having to do this through the comments. Sorry!
My blog URL has changed to http://www.labkat.blogspot.com
Would you change it here and on bloggrrlz gallery and blogscream?
danke
LABKAT! You're still ALIVE!
We were talking about you over on the Message Board, wondering what had become of you.
Personally, I thought you'd been taken away by Homeland Security and rendered to one of those Third World countries where they were torturing the cheese biscuits out of you, but I didn't want to say anything that would get everyone else really worried, so I kept my mouth shut until I got some intel from a few contacts in the Torture-the-Cheese-Biscuits-Out-of-Bloggers community.
Fortunately, everything worked out, and you're back.
The Dark Wraith is quite relieved.
dark one.....one's true character usually apears in emergency situations. the US leadership has shown its character in this horrible situation. they are all scrambling to cover their own butts. surprise, surprise!
your weapon post was rather stunning.thank you.
my thoughts go out to all poor folks caught in this disaster. a pox on the houses of those able to help others that worry about their economic and political interests at a time like this. poopheads!
Well, I must say, I got a little paranoid when I found that I just started getting hits from MSNBC/Newsweek online. Fortunately, it was somewhat good news: MSNBC apparently has a trackback for articles reprinted from Newsweek, and the article here at The Dark Wraith Forums from which this thread is originating took top position.
Welcome to those of you who have found this blog from MSNBC Online and made it this far down the thread without getting a little worried about how strange some of the comments can get, sometimes. Now that I know how you found this place, I can relax.
There for a minute, the Dark Wraith thought it was about time to shut down the blog.
[I really need to get this paranoia thing under some semblance of control.]
"[I really need to get this paranoia thing under some semblance of control.]" -- Dark Wraith
Why be paranoid when there is no conspiracy? 'Course, there might be a plot.
Conspiracies at the grand scale exist. Like it or not, knowing the details makes you part of those conspiracies, however you choose to proceed.
— Dark Wraith
Good evening, Dark Wraith.
As I read of many types of non-lethal weaponry the govt has available to it, I am becoming overly concerned. You say: That is not the case, however: these devices, in their most important role, are non-lethal weapons for crowd control and dispersal, and they have been deployed and used in situational theatres of operations for some time, now.
This gives them (police, military, etc) the means to control all of us. It could take away some of the ways we might try to get our messages across. I realize the current admin doesn't want to know how the common folk feel about the current ruling party, but there must be some way of counteracting/getting around their controls.
I wonder if there are any tea barges around?
Good evening, Old White Lady.
One of the last consulting gigs I ever did involved a crowd control technology that you wouldn't believe; and if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would have been certain it was straight out of a science fiction movie. I knew it wasn't because, regardless of whether or not I was awed, flabbergasted, and impressed by what I was seeing and hearing about, there was one important factor that convinced me the technology was quite real and most definitely going to be come to fuition within ten years.
What convinced me?
The number of governments that were starting to shovel money into the technology.
When money like that starts to flow in, something serious is underway.
The Dark Wraith departed the whole consulting business when the future become too easy to predict and too scary to watch unfold.
Good morning Mr. Wraith.
When money like that starts to flow in, something serious is underway.
Well maybe now is a good time to start marketing some of those mitigation devices.
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The sidebar link to this analysis links the readers to the Able Danger.
Thank you, Mr. Goat.
The Dark Wraith couldn't do without the editorial staff around here.