Britain Bringing Out 'Sonic Gun' For Olympics Security 193
skipkent writes with news that Britain is planning to use high-tech, non-lethal sonic weapons to provide security at the Olympics this summer. The Ministry of Defense says they intend to use the devices primarily as giant loudspeakers. But if they find themselves in need of a way to disperse crowds, the weapons can project sound up to 150 decibels, causing physical pain within a few hundred meters. "It has been successfully used aboard ships to repel Somali pirates." The maximum range for alarms and warnings is 3km. "Police and military planners say they are preparing for a range of security threats at the Olympics including protesters trying to disrupt events and attacks using hijacked airliners."
Really putting out the welcome mat (Score:5, Insightful)
The more I read about preparations, the less I want to attend.
Sounds like it will be a lot more pleasant to watch at home.
the Olympics seems to be losing its purpose (Score:5, Insightful)
The Olympics was supposed to be an event promoting amateur sports competition to solidify friendship and peace between nations.
Now we have:
1. Increasingly, highly paid professional athletes, not amateurs; and even the "amateurs" are often exceptionally well-funded and de-facto full-time athletes.
2. National pride of the host nation, where the Olympics is supposed to show off their greatness at least as much as promote any sort of friendship between nations (admittedly, this is an old trend, at least dating back to the 1936 Berlin Olympics).
3. Extensive commercialization of the entire event, with whole shady networks of construction/sponsorship/etc. deals, even extending to weird brand-exclusivity rules that would make it illegal for you to wear a shirt with the wrong logo.
4. Extensive security procedures and apparatus, which makes the event as a promotion of international friendship and peace fall a bit flat... peace under the watch of heavily militarized police is a pretty empty kind of peace.
Re:Wow! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wow! (Score:3, Insightful)
How in the world does that count as a "win" for terrorists? The terrorists aren't winning anything. We haven't left their countries alone or changed our "evil ways" and adopted Sharia Law. Only Western authoritarians are winning.
A crowd dispersal weapon has absolutely nothing to do with stopping a terrorist. Why would you even think that?
Re:ordinary people can see the games in FTA HD (Score:5, Insightful)
ordinary people can see the games in FTA HD on like 24 channels so they can sit at home and not pay for tickets.
Everyone from the UK has paid for the games and they were very expensive too.
The ticket that are for sale are way out of the price range of normal honest working people yet the ticket prices don't even nearly cover the cost of the thing, taxpayers got soaked for the rest. The whole thing is an insane waste of money and turning London into North Korea for some misguided idea of 'security' is doubly insane.
150 db won't just cause physical pain. (Score:5, Insightful)
Is torture being declared legal now in the UK? Because that's what this is.
Sustained noise levels this loud will cause completely irreversible hearing damage, and the damage will only worsen with each passing second that the noise level is sustained. Even the loudest that rock concerts get is generally at about 120db or so (which even that can also problematic for sustained periods). I respect that they are trying to keep the peace here, but at what cost?
Yeah, peace by jocks... please (Score:4, Insightful)
The Olympics are a vile joke, they always have been and always will be. Didn't the nazi's hosting it? It simply going on after Munich because not a single jock wanted to give up their chance at a bit of fame? The boycots by the USSR and the USA in turn show this clearly already?
It is only held so the rich can show off on tax-payers money they don't pay any of themselves while bankrupting a nation. Not a single event has actually helped the economy. Goes for all such events. For god sakes, the South African Soccer laugh off had the hookers hoping for extra profits. THINK about it, the average WHITE soccer fan, is he looking for a BLACK hooker? Not all soccer fans as racist hooligans you say? Indeed, so you are saying that there are nice respectable soccer fans... going to hookers?
Brits will be paying the price for this rich men show off for decades, just as all the other nations before and new nations are lining up to pay for work shy rich boy athletes to show how they fail in modern society. Nobody without free money can afford to take part and the sports are all the sports nobody cares about. Really, stick throwing? How wonderful.
The simplest proof how unwanted the olympics are is to ban all subsidy. Let the origanisers build their own buildings, pay rent to the nation it is hosted in, pay for their own security etc etc. They couldn't even hold it for one hour on a commercial basis. So instead it is a tax payers event for the rich while the poor have to evicted from their houses and put up with months of congestion, construction and invasion of privacy and reduction of liberty.
Nice.
Re:I'll counter (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think politicians are usually stupid.
Politicians at upper levels are highly motivated people. They have a singular focus, to further their careers... which is closely tied to money and influence. So you look at a poor/silly "remedy" for something like this and think, "that's stupid". The problem is, you're evaluating it against the stated goal.
Figure out what the real goal is, be it the appearance of having done something high-tech to protect the people, or influence with manufacturers, or prestige among people that might be able to get you on some important committee... and then you'll usually find that it makes perfect sense.
Even the ones that are genuinely pretty stupid are surrounded by people that aren't, and know how to use them. Otherwise they never would've made it to where they are. They just don't do stuff like this because they think they're helping in the best way possible.
Re:I've used the LRAD... (Score:4, Insightful)
The lesson from the introduction of Tasers and pepper spray is that given more choices of offensive weapons, police don't reduce the force they apply. They use weapons in more situations than they would before.
So you won't get LRADed instead of being pepper sprayed. You'll still get pepper sprayed in situations where you would before. But in lesser situations, where previously they wouldn't have done anything, now they'll LRAD you.
Earplugs AND a video camera are both essential equipment now.
Exactly (Score:4, Insightful)
If Heironymus Bosch was still around he'd be able to paint it, but sadly Britart is on the Ship of Fools, not observing it.
Re:I've used the LRAD... (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone who's experienced some tinnitus from just going to some shows, these horrify me.
I'm horrified about idiots being put in charge of some detainment facilities and given "non-lethal" weapons to use against the inmates.