Pentagon grants DHS permission to test heat ray weapon for use at border

The system in question is basically just a directed microwave emitter. It is designed to heat up the first ~0.5mm of your skin.

It's safety is basically completely a function of the operator. Since the beam will keep depositing energy (ie heating), if the beam is held on a target, it will incur more and more heating (and potentially harm).

In proper usage, safety is ensured through the combination of operator training, selection of proper settings, and induced compliance. If you have a shitty operator, risk of over exposure increases. The nature of this device means that it's not a barrier, it's a beam.

During earlier testing, they were able to induce second degree burns on a test subject due to incorrect power and duration settings.

Brother, so the ai bots will literally microwave us, what a time to be alive

First the border, I don't see why they would stop there with the tech

This is a weapon that will be deployed primarily against their own citizens.

It's my understanding that this tool is for crowd control and area denial. While I can understand how this may useful along the border in fantasy, it appears to be literal atomic flyswatter to unreal problem.

Surely the border patrol will not use it to torture a trespasser?

And suddenly, there was a market for body-sized Bragg reflectors in the microwave region.

Wasn't there a relatively high-profile case of a journalist dying of "nothing" after whistleblowing recently? I only remember that a directed energy weapon was one of the proposed methods of their assasination.

just a hop step and jump to being used on (completely legal) protestors

there are already several recorded incidents of LRADs being used on crowds which do permanent damage but invisible so very handy for authoritarian governments

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmK-KZOiT-c

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-range_acoustic_device

> The heat ray, officially known as the Active Denial System, is a nonlethal weapon that shoots an invisible beam of electromagnetic waves that can reach a little more than half a mile away, according to the US military.

Stun gun and electro shocks are also advertised as non-lethal. But the name is wrong; it should be called less-lethal at best.

what the actual fuck.

edit: okay, first reaction, obviously not contributing to any conversation. This is barbaric and if I paid US taxes I'd be writing my government.

I read DHH, and started wondering if he is ok :D

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the actual problem is that the 'pentagon' has zero authority to grant some jumped upp 3 letter agency the go ahead to test what is basicly an electronic flame thrower on civilian refugees, you know ,scared, hungry, tired, women carrying infants with absolutly no idea what is happening to them, and this by an organisation with a solid record of publicly executing american citizens and walking away saying 'fucking bitch' put the pieces on one page and it looks full on gestapo high tech kill squad times.

Sadistic