Re: [microsound] sonic pain stick

[graham miller <grahammiller@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

sounds like a kenny g concert:) they should just unleash him - operation
g-force. hell hath no fury like smooth jazz.

g(raham)

Kim Cascone wrote:

> Weapon of the Week
> by George Smith
>
> 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 of
> 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.
>
> 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 National
> Defense News, the army set up a testing regimen to torture animals?referred
> to as "surrogates"?but was unable to reliably agonize them. As a result,
> DoD's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate stopped funding some research in
> the area.
>
> Other arms of the military?like the navy?remain 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.
>
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