The research arm of the US Department of Justice is working on two portable non-lethal weapons that inflict pain from a distance using beams of laser light or microwaves, with the intention of putting them into the hands of police to subdue suspects.
A modified version of this laser rifle created to dazzle enemies by the US Air Force has been adapted by the Department of Justice to inflict pain from a distance (Image: US Air Force)
The two devices under development by the civilian National Institute of Justice both build on knowledge gained from the Pentagon's controversial Active Denial System (ADS) - first demonstrated in public last year, which uses a 2-metre beam of short microwaves to heat up the outer layer of a person's skin and cause pain.
'Reduced injuries'
Like the ADS, the new portable devices will also heat the skin, but will have beams only a few centimetres across. They are designed to elicit what the Pentagon calls a "repel response" - a strong urge to escape from the beam.
A spokesperson for the National Institute for Justice likens the effect of the new devices to that of "blunt trauma" weapons such as rubber bullets, "But unlike blunt trauma devices, the injury should not be present. This research is looking to reduce the injuries to suspects," they say.
Existing blunt trauma weapons can break ribs or even kill, making alternatives welcome. Yet ADS has recorded problems too - out of several thousand tests on human subjects there were two cases of second-degree burns.
Dazzle and burn
The NIJ's laser weapon has been dubbed Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response - PHaSR - and resembles a bulky rifle. It was created in 2005 by a US air force agency to temporarily dazzle enemies (see image, right), but the addition of a second, infrared laser makes it able to heat skin too.
The NIJ is testing the PHaSR in various scenarios, which may include prison situations as well as law enforcement.
The NIJ's portable microwave-based weapon is less developed. Currently a tabletop prototype with a range of less than a metre, a backpack-sized prototype with a range of 15 metres will be ready next year, a spokesperson says.
The truly portable mini-ADS could prove the more useful, as microwaves penetrate clothing better than the infra-red beam, which is most effective on exposed skin. Although the spokesman says: "In LEC [Law Enforcement and Corrections] use there is always a little bit of skin to target."
Torture concerns
The effect of microwave beams on humans has been investigated for years, but there is little publicly available research on the effects of PHaSR-type lasers on humans. The attraction of using a laser is that it can be less bulky than a microwave device.
Human rights groups say that equipping police with such weapons would add to the problems posed by existing "non-lethals" such as Tasers. Security expert Steve Wright at Leeds Metropolitan University describes the new weapons as "torture at the touch of a button".
"We have grave concerns about the deployment and use of any such devices, which have the potential to be used for torture or other ill treatment," says Amnesty International's arms control researcher Helen Hughes, adding that all research into their effects should be made public.
"Policy of multiculturalism in Europe has failed" 2013 05 22 The UK is experiencing a deficit of Caucasian people in the regions where the majority of the population is made up of immigrants and ethnic minorities. In the last 10 years more than 620 thousand white Brits left the capital of the UK, where Caucasians are now a minority making up only 45% of London’s population.
The policy of multiculturalism in ...
Stockholm braced for further rioting by young immigrants 2013 05 21
Main article from FT.com follows below this comment:
Well, all of this is hardly unexpected, since there now is pretty much annual riots in Sweden. Disgruntled immigrants who are burning cars, schools and other buildings is now turning into the norm in Sweden ...as it seems to be throughout the rest of Europe. Stones are flying and you can smell the ...
Dzhokhar’s boat ‘confession’ the most unbelievable part yet of Boston psyop 2013 05 21 Remember the notes that accompanied the anthrax deliveries right after 9/11? They said things like, “Allah is great!” “Death to Israel,” “Death to America!” and “9-11-01: This is next.”
In other words, THE MUSLIMS DID IT: the same ones who had so handily defeated the world’s greatest military machine on Sept. 11, 2001. And they did it because they hate us ...
The Mystery of the ’Immaculately Conceived’ Baby Anteater 2013 05 21 [...]Staffers at a zoological conservation center in Greenwich, Conn., are very confused — as are the rest of us — because their female giant anteater, Armani, has managed to conceive a baby, apparently without the presence of a male anteater.
What?
It all started in August, writes Lisa Chamoff for Greenwich Time. Armani, an anteater at the LEO Zoological Conservation Center, ...
The US Government Might Be the Biggest Hacker in the World 2013 05 21 Cyber crime is big business in the US. It’s used to spy, steal, harass competition, political opponents, or to stage an attack and blamed it on a foreign enemy.
Is the government in on this crime industry? Yes, and in bigger ways than you can imagine…
This trend is enabled domestically by an institutionally corrupt US legal system and a police state ...
"Policy of multiculturalism in Europe has failed"
Stockholm braced for further rioting by young immigrants
Dzhokhar’s boat ‘confession’ the most unbelievable part yet of Boston psyop
The Mystery of the ’Immaculately Conceived’ Baby Anteater 
The US Government Might Be the Biggest Hacker in the World