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I'd like to know the protocol for the deployment of these sound cannons. If they first try to apply officers on the ground to direct crowds, and then deploy sonic cannons afterwards when the aforementioned fails, then i personally feel that's justifiable. However i'm not sure I agree with the use of such tech as a first line option, it screams dystopian to me personally.
There are legitimate (IMHO) uses for these. For example, a crowd panics and people start getting trampled. An LRAD can be used to communicate directions quickly at long range to help stop the panic. The report sounds like the police were doing what they should be doing. Have the organizers of that March complained about police actions or disputed the report? If not, then I would tend to believe the report. If correct…
I think the bigger issue is legality of protest and the police's role in governance.
I'd like to know the protocol for the deployment of these sound cannons. If they first try to apply officers on the ground to direct crowds, and then deploy sonic cannons afterwards when the aforementioned fails, then i personally feel that's justifiable. However i'm not sure I agree with the use of such tech as a first line option, it screams dystopian to me personally.
If police are unable to control the crowd, at what point is that simply because the crowd is so large that the police should be unable to control them? If the DDR had this sort of technology, would the Berlin wall still be standing? And, if so, would that be a good thing?
So it was only after the spokesperson for the Berlin Communist Party announced they would allow free crossing of the wall that people began crossing (en-masse).
How have we ended up with things like tear gas and LRAD, that would be outlawed in military conflict but seem perfectly fine for "crowd control" purposes?
I'd like to know the protocol for the deployment of these sound cannons. If they first try to apply officers on the ground to direct crowds, and then deploy sonic cannons afterwards when the aforementioned fails, then i personally feel that's justifiable. However i'm not sure I agree with the use of such tech as a first line option, it screams dystopian to me personally.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If police are unable to control the crowd, at what point is that simply because the crowd is so large that the police should be unable to control them? If the DDR had this sort of technology, would the Berlin wall still be standing? And, if so, would that be a good thing?
When the crowd is large enough to show up at the polls and get more votes for the candidate of their choice than anybody else. This is a democracy.
This is a strong indictment of political science education in this country.
First of all, you need to understand that the policy preferences of the voting constituency in any given national election are not strongly correlated to policy results. This is shown convincingly in Benjamin Ginsberg's book, "Do Elections Matter?" I strongly recommend this book - after reading it, you will never again try to explain away an act of government with the same tired logic of, "we get the government we vote for."
It is a difficult-to-deny fact that, in the USA, the government frequently and quietly advances policies which do not appear to be derived from any kind electoral mandate, nor are favored by a substantial portion of the electorate.
But there's a much stronger argument here, and it's about this completely incorrect assertion of yours:
> This is a democracy.
While it's true that, in the modern international parlance, the USA is a democratic state, it is not a democracy in the way that you have used that word here - and our founding documents (and the federalist papers) go out of their way to distinguish our form of government from a democracy as such.
The difference is this: Even if 100% of the voting public votes for a measure that abolishes the freedom to assemble, the government has no authority and no legal standing to trample any individual's rights. This is the essence of a republic: the powers of the government are limited and enumerated and do not change by dint of a given election.
The police presence and tactics at any large assembly in the country since about 1970 has unambiguously been an affront to this right, and the refusal of the courts to recognize this represents one of the most visible abdications of legal reason in modern constitutional law (not the most, but one of the most).
If the government wants to bring sonic cannons and rubber bullets and kettling to protests, it needs to first go through the legal process of amending the constitution to remove the freedom to assemble from the 1st amendment.
Polls and votes and candidates are entirely orthogonal to this matter.
I support requiring something akin to an amateur radio license to operate high powered parametric ultrasonic speakers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If police are unable to control the crowd, at what point is that simply because the crowd is so large that the police should be unable to control them? If the DDR had this sort of technology, would the Berlin wall still be standing? And, if so, would that be a good thing?
When the crowd is large enough to show up at the polls and get more votes for the candidate of their choice than anybody else. This is a democracy.
This isn't democracy.
High power directed ultrasound can potentially cause brain damage from induced mechanical strain in brain tissue. I feel like parametric ultrasonic speakers should be more stringently regulated before every single police department starts using them as if they were regular loudspeakers. I support requiring something akin to an amateur radio license to operate high powered parametric ultrasonic speakers.