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DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

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Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#131

Post by emodendroket »

sooheon wrote: post #92
everdev wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that there are many ways to profile, but race and religion have been historically pervasive profiling techniques. It does seem more fair to simply put everyone through the same process. If you're annoyed at why you (an innocent) have to be subjected to such stringent and time consuming security, that's how innocents who fit "the profile" might feel as well.

If those doing the profiling are interested in being successful, and race and religion prove to be ineffective indicators of threat, then such profiling should stop (or bombs will keep getting through at an inordinate rate). Otherwise, race and religion are simply observations about passengers which have value in directing attention.

> If those doing the profiling are interested in being successful, and race and religion prove to be ineffective indicators of threat, then such profiling should stop

I mean maybe if the profiling is being done by robots, but in reality I have my doubts.

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#132

Post by tatersolid »

louithethrid wrote: post #128
daveFNbuck wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These countries all have at least 10x the population density of the US. I'm not sure about healthcare, but the rest of your list gets cheaper as population density increases.

Fine, we are talking about the trhee main urban centers of the US here - not the whole country. Now that this strawman is out of the way- are we allowed to continue?

No. You don’t get to wire up NYC at the expense of all taxpayers.

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#133

Post by rdtsc »

mrob wrote: post #76
matt_the_bass wrote: post #10

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…

These are weapons designed to maim. And they are particularly insidious because permanent hearing damage and tinnitus are invisible. You can ruin hundreds of lives at once with no messy blood spills. Damaging hearing is a great way to punish "undesirable" people while pretending you're not evil. I can't think of any argument for their use that doesn't also permit use of biological and chemical weapons. It's 100% unet…

Agreed. If given the choice I can see someone opting to have their arm broken than getting permanent hearing loss. Yet one seems more violent because it requires physical contact while other is invisible.

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#134

Post by tatersolid »

omegaworks wrote: post #60
matt_the_bass wrote: post #10

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 also believe that these abuses do not represent all police. The institution of police was created to undermine labor movements. It may behoove you to re-examine your assumption that they're there to keep you safe.

Umm... not so much. Police forces pre-date the industral revolution by over 2000 years, dating back to ancient China, Greece, and Rome. Their common duty has always been enforcement if of natural law (prevention of theft and violence or investigation and capture of such criminals).

Source: Wikipedia.

My local sheriff and his crew actually do protect and serve the public. As do 99% of Police in the USA.

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#135

Post by chongli »

louithethrid wrote: post #129
code_duck wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the reason the DDR did that was because of their power was already slipping. If they massacred a lot of citizens, they would probably have a revolution on their hands… They practically already did. It’s a difficult comparison to North Korea because the regime is not in that situation. The situation is more nuanced than that. I elaborated on possible motivations for using nonlethal force earlier... In the…

I find it fascinating that in North-Korea, even though they where starving, the system itself did not deteriorate. To be honest, the moment my life is slowly ending, due to missing calories- the politics of survival should kick in and vote for freedom (aka food) with theire feet.

North Korea would have collapsed long ago were it not for external influence. The country is like that alcoholic uncle that we keep enabling. Every time he throws a tantrum we give in to his demands because we don't want him to hurt his kids or burn the house down or attack the neighbours.

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#136

Post by djsumdog »

ajmurmann wrote: post #50
djsumdog wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if she won, she was still the Secretary of State that gave us more predator drones, more bombing and served under a president that spent every day at work (the first president in history). I feel like people don't realize the corruption is pretty equal between both candidates/parties, they just toss a few pandering policies here and there to get people angry, or spin things differently.

I think it doesn't matter which side you see it from, democracy in the US is completely broken. In most states your vote doesn't matter. Both parties ended up with candidates that were disliked by more people than liked. Trump keeps bringing up Hillary because she probably is the only candidate who makes him even remotely look good to anyone meanwhile even most Democrats didn't want her. Both parties had to fight off…

Sorry, that should have read "every day at war"

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#137

Post by venning »

Potentially, DC Police may own these devices due to DC being home to a large deaf population. I believe DC has the highest deaf population, as a percentage of the whole, among all major US cities.

DC Police began installing "Rumbler" systems in police cars ten years ago, partly to help the deaf population identify when police cars were present. [1]

I could imagine a situation where someone on the city/police council saw the LRAD devices as potentially useful in the event of a largely-deaf protest, as happened in 2006.

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10...

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#138

Post by zkms »

comex wrote: post #121
ohazi wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making the same mistake that everyone in this thread is afraid the cops are also making. A sound cannon is not a loudspeaker, it's a weapon. If you want a loudspeaker, get a loudspeaker. This thing is designed to inflict actual, serious, permanent damage to people mechanically, from a large standoff distance. It's used to paralize combatants approaching a convoy. It shouldn't be used against crowds at home.

If you look at LRAD's product guide [1], they primarily describe their devices as being for "communication", not as a weapon. Now, they apparently can also output "deterrent tones", which are potentially dangerous - and I wouldn't be surprised if the product guide 'sugarcoats' things by focusing on non-offensive use cases. But it seems like a leap to claim that it's incapable of being used safely as a loudspeaker (wh…

That device is indeed for "communication" in the same way that a warning shot is a method of communication. This is not hyperbole, this is quite literally what the device was designed for, per the US military itself:

"AHD is a non-lethal, counterpersonnel, long-range hailing and warning device capable of producing highly directional sound beams, allowing users to project warning tones and intelligible voice commands beyond small arms engagement range. This capability helps Soldiers more effectively determine the intent of a person, crowd, vessel, or vehicle at a safe distance, potentially deterring them prior to escalating to lethal force." (http://www.pica.army.mil/pmccs/combatmunitions/nonlethalsys/...)

and

"Acoustic Hailing Devices are designed to deny access into/out of an area to individuals, move individuals through an area, and suppress individuals." (http://jnlwp.defense.gov/Current-Non-Lethal-Weapons/Acoustic...)

("AHD" = "acoustic hailing device", the generic term for LRADs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_hailing_device#Origin )

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#139

Post by makomk »

heartbreak wrote: post #87
djsumdog wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

becoming? It's been this way for a very long time. Very few major media outlets cover the Democrat/Republican National Conventions, but you can watch videos online of the protests from past years going back quite a bit. Rage Against the Machine use to do protests at both the DNC and RNC which I thought was hilarious. It's very common for protesters to be smoke bombed, herded, arrested and detained. There are several…

> Trump coined the term "fake news" Trump did not, in fact, coin the term “fake news”.

The origin of the term "fake news" was rewritten by the people who did actually coin the term right around when every totalitarian state in the world (quite predictably) adopted it to justify their crackdowns on speech. (It was obvious they would because it meshed so nicely with the existing narratives they used to justify this to their citizens.) The claim that Trump didn't coin the term is now an alternative fact; the only permissible non-Trump origin is the supposed tie to "Lugenpresse" that's also since appeared.
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