Cook the "Bad Guys" - The Active Denial System

Tasers are a hot item with police forces across the country, but a soon to be released "less lethal" weapon is in the wings. The weapon is called the "Active Denial System" and it fires a microwave beam which rapidly heats its "target" to a high level of pain. The plan at the current time is to deploy the "crowd control" device in Iraq in 2006 (New Scientist, Al Jazeera.net, Reuters).

From the New Scientist:

"The ADS (Active Denial System) fires a 95-gigahertz microwave beam, which is supposed to heat skin and to cause pain but no physical damage (New Scientist, 27 October 2001, p 26). Little information about its effects has been released, but details of tests in 2003 and 2004 were revealed after Edward Hammond, director of the US Sunshine Project - an organisation campaigning against the use of biological and non-lethal weapons - requested them under the Freedom of Information Act."

The New Scientist notes that the tests that were conducted instructed the targets to remove glasses and metal objects from their pockets. Many have seen what happens to metal when you place it in a microwave - sparks and overheating and the melting of the interior of the microwave. Imagine that on a person. Now imagine a random crowd targeted by a microwave. How many would have metal on their person?

In an earlier (April 30, 2005) New Scientist article, it was reported that the ADS system was being funded by the US Department of Justice National Institute of Justice (NIJ is a research arm of the DoJ).Three separate weapons are being developed and tested by NIJ: the ADS with a range of 600 meters which is truck mounted; a similar system which is a "portable" hand weapon; the third, which is a "pulse energy projection" system which fires a plasma burst.

The government claims that such weapons are not lethal, but Neil Davison of the Bradford Non-Lethal Weapons Research Project at the University of Bradford, UK says that it is possible that such weapons may have a lethal setting.

It seems to me that ADS couldn't be anything but lethal. If you free fire a directed microwave (or laser) beam into a crowd and the person has metal on them (which almost everyone does) and they cannot move out of the way, then serious damage (and possibly death) are going to result. I remind people of the pictures from across the world (including the U.S.) of riot police chasing protestors with fire hydrant canisters of pepper spray - another "non-lethal" crowd control device. In those images, riot police stand over protestors lying in the ground screaming while police continue to pump pepper spray into their face. Now imagine riot police (or soldiers) with a microwave or laser in their hands. Non-lethal?

The truck mounted ADS has a reported range of 600 meters (almost 1800 feet or 18 football fields). What kind of a "riot" can you fire at with selective purpose from 18 football fields away? What kind of power would it take to have a weapon be effective at such a range?

Since these weapons are being developed by the Department of Justice, their primary target has to be domestic - that is us folks. The fact that the Pentagon is also using these systems (or a higher power version of them) means they are likely not for "crowd control" or non-lethal.

Oh Boy, the days of the "ray guns" and "phasers" are here. I can hardly wait for them to hit the consumer "personal protection" market.

Posted by rowan at July 23, 2005 9:35 AM | TrackBack | [eMail this article!] |