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Subject: Acoustic Weaponry
Replies: 19 Views: 251

shadow27 25.01.20 - 02:31pm
They can break up protests with loud, piercing sound, but Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRADs) can also cause permanent hearing damage. Australian law enforcement agencies are now investing in the technology, but sound and law experts say their potential use is extremely concerning.

'Non Lethal' weapons * +

shadow27 25.01.20 - 02:32pm
Australia's police forces are buying up devices capable of causing long-term hearing damage from a distance.

The controversial Long Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD, has been used to disperse crowds in protest situations in the US. * +

shadow27 25.01.20 - 02:34pm
Its use at a Pittsburgh G20 protest in 2009 left University of Missouri English professor Karen Piper with permanent hearing damage.

'We had seen these machines there [that] looked like an armoured vehicle with a satellite dish on top,' says Piper, who had been observing the protest from a distance.

'Then this machine emits this long piercing noise. It's a very high frequency, it really hurts your ears.

'I started to not feel well immediately after that. I felt dizzy and nauseous and disoriented.' * +

shadow27 25.01.20 - 02:36pm
Piper's hearing continued to suffer in the following days and months. Tests eventually revealed the effects caused by her exposure to the LRAD were permanent.

'It's actually nerve damage, and those nerves will never recover,' she says.

LRADs continue to be used by American authorities, including during protests over police brutality in 2014.

The Law Report contacted all of Australia's police forces and found more than half now own LRADs. * +

shadow27 25.01.20 - 02:38pm
Victorian, West Australian, South Australian and Queensland police, as well as the Australian Federal Police, admitted to purchasing the device, while New South Wales and Northern Territory police would not comment.

Melbourne University sound and law expert James Parker says potential use of the LRAD in Australia is deeply troubling.

'The secrecy of the state around the tools, the weapons that it has and is capable of using on its population is something to be really, really concerned about,' says Parker. * +

shadow27 25.01.20 - 02:39pm
Fascists.. how can you fight such a thing? It's like Orwell wrote about the future.. a boot stamping on someone's head. * +

shadow27 25.01.20 - 02:40pm
'It expands the nature of police/state/military authority in a certain kind of way. It makes sound itself part of the arsenal that police and military and state institutions have.

'I think there's a question about whether or not we want sound to be used in this way at all.'

The LRAD is marketed as a communication device, and was first used at sea by the US Navy and commercial shipping companies to ward off pirates. * +

mok214 25.01.20 - 02:41pm
When you are foolish enough to try to resisist against that system you are bound to suffer ill effects. * +

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