sonic pain stick

[Kim Cascone <kim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Weapon of the Week=20
by George Smith=20

The Sonic Pain Stick
Torture Gets Technical

February 12 - 18, 2003

New methods of American technical torture continue to roll off
private-sector assembly lines in the effort to aid the war on terror. One o=
f
the most aggressively pitched is a meter-long sonic pain stick marketed to
the Department of Defense by the American Technology Corporation of San
Diego. =20

In a recent full-court press to the media, the company gaily described the
sonic baton's potential to agonize terrorists on airplanes, where flying
bullets wouldn't do. Intended for use at short range, the weapon projects
sound intense enough to cause temporary loss of hearing, perhaps nullifying
its effect, or possibly shattering the hijacker's eardrums. It would also
probably agonize or rupture the hearing of everyone else in an enclosed
cabin, blocking the communication of useful commands like "Get that
terrorist bastard!"

Department of Defense efforts at wielding sound waves to inflict
unpleasantness have yielded refreshingly poor results. According to Nationa=
l
Defense News, the army set up a testing regimen to torture animals=8Breferred
to as "surrogates"=8Bbut was unable to reliably agonize them. As a result,
DoD's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate stopped funding some research in
the area. =20

Other arms of the military=8Blike the navy=8Bremain interested in sonic guns to
disable foreign ship crews, or at least to make them very angry.

The soldiers, weirdos, sadists, and tinkerers enthusiastic about acoustic
technology envision strapping the sonic pain stick to an M-16. While it
would be no good in situations where people can shoot back or even throw
rocks, it certainly could have its uses in rousting frightened women and
children from closets in an occupied Iraq.

America's nonlethal-weapons scientists note that in our country, hearing
aids and surgery can mitigate damage to the outer and middle ear caused by
such a weapon. However, mangling of the inner ear is permanent. But in poor
or just bombed-flat foreign lands, access to health insurance to pay for
damage claims, hearing aids, and good surgeons may be hard to come by.
Nonlethal weaponeers are also vexed by the fact that once one's ears are
ruined, the sonic weapon loses its bite.

American Technology Corporation is not alone in the arms race for painful
sound. Scientific Applications & Research Associates, a Pentagon contractor
also located in Southern California, is pushing its "Sonic Firehose," an
allegedly portable widget with the same glorious mission as the aural agony
rod. =20

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