Rummy's Test Subjects: John and Jane Doe

By Number Six

Saturday, September 23, 2006 at 03:57 PM

Neat piece over at GNN: It would appear that some new tinkertoy weapons will be actually tested on innocent civilians...

Gee, didn't we see this plot years ago in that flick Blue Thunder?

One example of a crowd-control device possibly coming to your hometown is Raytheon's Active Denial System heat-beam, which a U.S. Air Force fact sheet describes as a "focused speed-of-light millimeter wave energy beam to induce an intolerable heating sensation." How long before a weapon like that is illicitly used for interrogations, let alone for torture?

Um, lessee, long enough to make them by the metric boxcar?

There's also the crowd-control Taser, an updated version of the "stun gun" already authorized for U.S. government use against civilians. The Taser delivers a short-term electrical charge of 50,000 volts and though marketed as a non-lethal weapon, has been linked to a number of deaths . While the Taser's dart-firing technology is of little use for crowd control or on vehicles, a new laser version of the gun will reportedly be able to deliver a similar 50,000-volt shock across a crowd.

In other words, protest rallies could soon become much more dangerous for those with medical conditions (such as heart problems) potentially exacerbated by electric shocks.

So? Like our precious fascist regime gives an obese rodent's anus? As pointed out, there have been many protests to date, how many actually got any coverage? So, protesters die. Who's going to know?

"They can't do that!", you may scream. Oh, yes, Virginia, they sure can:

Or does it. Get a load of Section 1515, another part of Chapter 32, this one entitled "Suspension; Presidential authorization":

After November 19, 1969, the operation of this chapter, or any portion thereof, may be suspended by the President during the period of any war declared by Congress and during the period of any national emergency declared by Congress or by the President.

You got it. If the President or Congress decides we're at war then the Secretary of Defense doesn't need anybody's consent to test chemical or biological agents on human beings. Gives one pause during these days of a perpetual "war on terror."

Shades of The Enabling Act! Oh, well, democracy was so much fun....