Area Denial

Last week, in "Gotcha Coming and Going", I mentioned that the military has developed a new vehicle mounted microwave transmitter to be used for crowd control. It's an interesting concept. It 'projects' microwave radiation with the effect, when directed at people, of causing their skin to heat up causing a burning sensation. They claim it has no harmful effects, it only distracts folks from whatever purpose they had in mind before the thingie was turned on them.

I'm a little dubious about the effects on very soft tissue such as eyes, but there's now a video available on YouTube showing the reaction of test subjects. One lady reporter Squeaked! and danced out of the path of the radiation. Nobody, including a platoon of Army volunteers, seemed to be otherwise harmed. Some even smiled in chagrin at their dancing avoidance of the radiation.

Here is the promotional video, where it's referred to as an "Active Denial System" (ADS). It has a range of 500 yards.

The explanation is clear, and it seems a reasonable non-lethal system with immediate applicability in places such as military urban perimeters in Iraq.

I'll warn you about the text accompanying the video. It was originally written by someone with an apparent case of the jaws against both the military and the current administration, but now I see that the text has been changed.

However, the comments are interesting. Here's the one I saw:

This weapon is still able to kill or torture ppl. Its a lie to tell its non-lethal. I saw other video and documentory on this new technologie weapon, it burn the skin without burning the material around. They did the tests on innoncent ppl in Irak, wich they are burned seriously (many are dead).

Ignore the limited English writing ability of the author (perhaps English is a second language -- I'm not being critical as I have not second-language skills at ALL!)

The charges made here are interesting. I haven't visited any of the other videos co-listed, so I can't comment on the validity of the assertions. I may say that almost anything can be mis-applied to caused effects for which it was not originally designed and I can't say I would be surprised to learn that this device would be deliberately mis-applied with destructive intent.

However, I'm dubious about the report of people dying in Iraqi testing. I've done a quick search of major news outlets (including among others The Guardian, the LA Times and the NY Times, AP, Reuters, USA Today) and I'm sure that a story like this would at least be as prominently displayed as the one about the Florida woman who claims to have found a razor blade in her Egg McMuffin.

UPDATE (The Next Morning):
I've done more reading on the so-called ADS.

Here's a bunch of people at BUZZFEED talking about this system which, we learn, isn't actually scheduled for deployment until 2010. And here's a PDF which explains it's not a MICROwave projector (my error, excuse the blunder, pay no attention ...) but a MILLIMETER Wave projector. It even explains the difference. With pictures.

Finally, the BBC weighs in with the vague 'feeling' that there must be something dibolical about the entire concept. Why? "Such a weapon also has the potential to cause panic and deadly stampedes." Even the Guardian (okay, ALWAYS the Guardian) has a negative impression to share: "According to papers released under freedom of information requests, mishaps during trials have caused blistering at least six times and one second degree burn when the beam was fired on too high a setting. According to the US military, the risk of injury is less than 0.1%."

Oh, well that wouldn't be good. Better throw the thing away, somebody might get hurt.

Frankly, I'm a little off-put by the whole thing.

No no no, I don't mean the ADC or the confusing terminology. I mean this early-morning blogging. I'm accustomed to doing all of my writing in the evening, even late late at night. Here it is 7am and I'm sitting at my computer waiting for the coffee to finish perking.

I've heard that people who write these weBLOG journals (surely not a serious attempt at communicating, just a diary that we leave unlocked for the whole world to read ... as if I could ever get that kind of traffic!) are to be referred to as Pajama Pundits because we spend all of our time online and never even have to get dressed all day. Sounds like my kind of job, I wish. Instead, judging from my mail, I stay up late so YOU can read exciting new (or exciting warmed-over for the next day) stuff like this while you sit around in your pajamas sipping coffee.

So what does that make you? Bathrobe Browsers?