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Philip Kindred Dick

absolute evil - "...I enjoyed writing all of them. But I think that if I could only choose a few, which, for example, might escape World War Three, I would choose, first, Eye in the Sky. Then The Man in the High Castle. Martian Time-Slip (published by Ballantine). Dr. Bloodmoney (a recent Ace novel). Then The Zap Gun and The Penultimate Truth, both of which I wrote at the same time. And finally another Ace book, The Simulacra. But this list leaves out the most vital of them all: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. I am afraid of that book; it deals with absolute evil, and I wrote it during a great crisis in my religious beliefs. I decided to write a novel dealing with absolute evil as personified in the form of a "human." When the galleys came from Doubleday I couldn't correct them because I could not bear to read the text, and this is still true..." (Wikiquote)

spotless mind - "...Dick died shortly before Blade Runner's release in 1982, and, despite a cult readership, he spent most of his life in poverty. Yet now, more than two decades later, the future he saw has made him one of the most sought-after writers in Hollywood. Paycheck, based on a 1953 short story Dick sold to a pulp magazine for less than $200, will bring close to $2 million to his estate. And movies based on more than a half-dozen other stories and novels are in the works - among them "The King of the Elves" at Disney, "The Short, Happy Life of the Brown Oxford" at Miramax, and A Scanner Darkly at Warner Bros. Dick's anxious surrealism all but defines contemporary Hollywood science fiction and spills over into other kinds of movies as well. His influence is pervasive in The Matrix and its sequels, which present the world we know as nothing more than an information grid; Dick articulated the concept in a 1977 speech in which he posited the existence of multiple realities overlapping the "matrix world" that most of us experience. Vanilla Sky, with its dizzying shifts between fantasy and fact, likewise ventures into a Dickian warp zone, as does Dark City, The Thirteenth Floor, and David Cronenberg's eXistenZ. Memento reprises Dick's memory obsession by focusing on a man whose attempts to avenge his wife's murder are complicated by his inability to remember anything. In The Truman Show, Jim Carrey discovers the life he's living is an illusion, an idea Dick developed in his 1959 novel Time Out of Joint. Next year, Carrey and Kate Winslet will play a couple who have their memories of each other erased in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Memory, paranoia, alternate realities: Dick's themes are everywhere..." (The Second Coming of Philip K. Dick)

transcendentally rational mind - "...In 1963, Dick won the Hugo Award for The Man in the High Castle.[5] Although he was hailed as a genius in the science fiction world, the mainstream literary world was unappreciative, and he could publish books only through low-paying science fiction publishers such as Ace. Even in his later years, he continued to have financial troubles. In the introduction to the 1980 short story collection The Golden Man, Dick wrote: “Several years ago, when I was ill, Heinlein offered his help, anything he could do, and we had never met; he would phone me to cheer me up and see how I was doing. He wanted to buy me an electric typewriter, God bless him—one of the few true gentlemen in this world. I don’t agree with any ideas he puts forth in his writing, but that is neither here nor there. One time when I owed the IRS a lot of money and couldn’t raise it, Heinlein loaned the money to me. I think a great deal of him and his wife; I dedicated a book to them in appreciation. Robert Heinlein is a fine-looking man, very impressive and very military in stance; you can tell he has a military background, even to the haircut. He knows I’m a flipped-out freak and still he helped me and my wife when we were in trouble. That is the best in humanity, there; that is who and what I love.”...throughout February and March 1974, he experienced a series of visions, which he referred to as “two-three-seventy four” (2-3-74), shorthand for February-March 1974. He described the initial visions as laser beams and geometric patterns, and, occasionally, brief pictures of Jesus and of ancient Rome. As the visions increased in length and frequency, Dick claimed he began to live a double life, one as himself, “Philip K. Dick”, and one as “Thomas”, a Christian persecuted by Romans in the 1st century A.D. Despite his history of drug use and elevated stroke risk, Dick began seeking other rationalist and religious explanations for these experiences. He referred to the “transcendentally rational mind” as “Zebra”, “God” and, most often, “VALIS”. Dick wrote about the experiences in the semi-autobiographical novels VALIS and Radio Free Albemuth. At one point Dick felt that he had been taken over by the spirit of the prophet Elijah. He believed that an episode in his novel Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said was a detailed retelling of a story from the Biblical Book of Acts, which he had never read. Philip K. Dick died in Santa Ana, California, on March 2, 1982. He had suffered a stroke five days earlier, and was disconnected from life support after his EEG had been consistently isoelectric since losing consciousness. After his death, his father Edgar took his son’s ashes to Fort Morgan, Colorado. When his twin sister Jane died, her tombstone had both their names carved on it, with an empty space for Dick’s death date..." (Philip K. Dick Bio: Author)

military operation - "...Around 1944-46, he underwent intensive psychiatric treatment against agoraphobia and some other psychological troubles. He entered Berkeley High School in 1944. At 18, he left his mother's flat, where he had been living since his parents' divorce. He moved to a flat shared with artists and homosexual poets; doing so was probably only to show his mother he could manage himself alone, since homosexuality didn't attract him. Besides, he quickly moved out to a small attic apartment, of course still in Berkeley. At this time he suffered tachycardia. He quickly became dependent on the medicines he's prescribed...The 17th of November, 1971, somebody broke into his house. He was convinced it was the CIA. This troubling event starts a paranoia in Dick's mind, for nothing of value has been taken away, just perishable food; it appears to have been more a military operation than a simple burglary, not to mention that his safe was opened with explosives! ...Around this period (1972), he met K. W. Jeter and Tim Powers at Cal-State in Fullerton; they attended a lecture by a writing professor named John Schwarz. The next year, he got many threatening phone calls. He sheltered in Canada without Kathy. There, he gave his famous lecture, THE ANDROID AND THE HUMAN, in Vancouver, first at the University of British Columbia and a day or two later as his Guest of Honor speech at the second annual Vancouver Science Fiction Convention; and met another DARK-HAIRED GIRL named Jamis..." (Philip K. Dick (1928-1982))

Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982) was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered states. In his later works Dick's thematic focus strongly reflected his personal interest in metaphysics and theology. He often drew upon his own life experiences in addressing the nature of drug abuse, paranoia and schizophrenia, and transcendental experiences in novels such as A Scanner Darkly and VALIS. The novel The Man in the High Castle bridged the genres of alternate history and science fiction, earning Dick a Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1963. Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, a novel about a celebrity who awakens in a parallel universe where he is unknown, won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel in 1975. "I want to write about people I love, and put them into a fictional world spun out of my own mind, not the world we actually have, because the world we actually have does not meet my standards," Dick wrote of these stories. "In my writing I even question the universe; I wonder out loud if it is real, and I wonder out loud if all of us are real." Dick referred to himself as a "fictionalizing philosopher." In addition to 44 published novels, Dick wrote approximately 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines during his lifetime. Although Dick spent most of his career as a writer in near-poverty, ten of his stories have been adapted into popular films since his death, including Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report, Paycheck, Next, Screamers, and The Adjustment Bureau. In 2005, Time magazine named Ubik one of the one hundred greatest English-language novels published since 1923. In 2007, Dick became the first science fiction writer to be included in The Library of America series (Wikepedia).

RELATED READING:
Official Web-site: Philip K Dick
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Philip K Dick (Video)

Allen Barker's The Truth

These are some basic truths about our society today. Look around, see for yourself. I am not going to be sidetracked into the wasted effort of "proving'' these things here for people who will not listen anyway [but please see the additional reading section]. Listen to me, listen to the press, listen to the government. Who do you believe?

The United States Government tortures its own citizens. We go around the world talking about human rights, but agents of the U.S. government have not hesitated to commit the most vicious crimes against humanity right here at home. The political reality is that the U.S. is the leading economic and political power in the world, and the only superpower. Thus the U.S. government can maintain its pious hypocritical stance without fear of ``serious'' exposure. Our government has grossly abused its current power. It has wasted a chance to be a world role model for ethical government, and the chance likely will never come again.

The U.S. Constitution is just a piece of paper to covert thugs. The only rights you have are the ones you can enforce. Here in the land of High Noon, despite all the talk to the contrary, it is every man for himself. There are plenty of people who would love to see you literally tortured if you differ from them on the most minor political points. We lead the world in the technology of warfare and espionage. The same technology is used to suppress and harass so-called dissidents or ``threatening'' people and movements. If you cannot prove it happened, and the weapons officially do not exist, then nothing really happened, did it?

"Freedom'' is an empty concept used for social control. You are free only to the extent that you do not, for any reason, step on the toes of any ``important'' people. You may not even know what you have done, and may never find out: The repressive machinery will kick into gear and your life will be ruined. You may even come to realize that a campaign of dirty tricks is being focused on you, but no one will believe you. Most people live boring (to others) lives that do not threaten the powerful, and therefore do not draw the attention of the repressive apparatus. Thus the myth of freedom is perpetuated, while you are labeled a paranoid kook. The rhetoric of freedom is at least useful in that it forces the repression into covert channels. That is why I can openly post this list.

The elite and powerful in the U.S. are effectively immune to law. The law is a tool to serve the ends of the powerful. Selective enforcement is the norm. Of course, the powerful have their own sets of laws they use to attack each other. Bad policies, based on misguided notions and a patronizing, pseudo-moralizing paternalism, produce disastrous consequences. Politicians cynically exploit the resulting suffering to maintain their positions of power, reinforcing the misguided policies. Police on the street end up paying the price, bearing the brunt of enforcing bad laws.

The elite opinion-makers are not nearly as smart as they think they are. Their insular debates are frequently characterized by ignorance and outright stupidity. This tendency is heavily abetted by a forced conformity of belief. The price of mounting too strong a challenge to a ``politically powerful'' idea is ostracism and ridicule by their peers. Soon, testing ideas for political viability or against projected poll results becomes a substitute for critical thinking.

The mainstream press will not challenge -- and at times participates in -- outrageous governmental abuses. Watergate and the investigations of intelligence abuses in the mid-'70s were historical rarities. The press routinely cooperates in a conspiracy of silence -- even when innocent American lives are being destroyed and hideous crimes are being committed. The investigations of intelligence abuses in the '70s were also not especially effective. The investigators were completely outclassed by a group of professional liars, trained to subvert governments worldwide. The Cold War was still on, giving additional clout to the apologists for domestic crimes committed by our own forces. The ``intelligence community'' is well aware of the limited attention span of the American press, and repeatedly and effectively uses stonewalling, or worse, to escape any responsibility or accountability for its actions. The reforms of the '70s were subsequently largely reversed. We need a sustained, nonpartisan political consensus to clean out our nation's dirty secrets, give the domestic victims redress, punish the Cold War criminals, and start fresh without the baggage of secret, unacknowledged atrocities.

The "ruling class'' elites typically respond positively only to the threat of losing their privileged positions or of violence. That is just how it is. It often takes a riot or other violent actions to even draw their passing notice. But then this violence -- often caused by their shameful neglect of gross injustice and intolerable conditions -- is used to justify increasing police and secret police powers. In their insulated cocoons, the elites pretend not to hear the cries of the disenfranchised -- after all, things like that do not happen in their neighborhoods. By definition, those people must have done something to deserve it. There need not be any official, organized conspiracy. Conspiracies do occur regularly -- they have throughout history, and our time is no exception. But, for the individuals who are victimized by the system, it does not matter if it is an organized unit following orders or a system of well-understood winks and nods. Rule of law is clearly a joke in the U.S. today.

They blame it on "rogues'' if they are caught, but knowledge goes straight up to the top. Even where some actions truly are the results of rogue agents, the coverups go straight to the top. Purposeful ignorance to maintain ``plausible deniability'' is no excuse or escape from culpability. The buck never stops... The U.S. government is not the United States or America. Most Americans are decent people who would be appalled to know the dirty tricks their government carries out in their names. Unable or unwilling to accept the ruthless amorality of the power-hungry, they tend to believe whatever lies are sent their way. And unfortunately, as in any society, a significant minority of Americans are simply fascists. Excessive government secrecy has even destroyed the democratic accountability of our leaders to the people: Politicians can engage in, approve of, or willfully ignore covert operations, knowing their actions will never be revealed to the public. Amazingly, some members of Congressional intelligence committees are ``not cleared'' to even know details of the programs they must vote on. (These are our elected representatives being dictated to by a permanent, secret bureaucracy.) The public will never go to the voting booths knowing which of their leaders participated in domestic spying, political surveillance, and outright torture.

Links for Further Reading: These are some notes and links to other pages on the web. I do not endorse anything but reading the pages and forming your own impressions. At least look over a few before dismissing what I have said above. Appendix E of the Interim Report of the Advisory Committee on http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/radiation/ Human Radiation Experiments. This appendix gives a summary of the records retrieval process by various U.S. government agencies. It also has some brief summaries of programs of unconsented experimentation carried out on the American public. Remember, this is a government document. Only experiments carried out before May 30, 1974 were covered (for example, the Navy identified 650 experiments after 1975 and 150 before). The notes at the end of the CIA section are especially interesting, including: "CIA did investigate the use and effect of microwaves on humans in response to Soviet practice of beaming microwaves on the U.S. Embassy but determined that this was outside the scope of the Committee's purview.'' Additional information, including the Final Report is available online. This entire investigation was a breath of fresh air, but too little and (50 years) too late. Most victims have still not even been notified. U.S. News and World Report, in its Jan. 24, 1994 issue, has an article titled "The Cold War Experiments.'' This article discusses the many instances of illegal human experimentation in addition to radiation experiments.

Some excerpts: "...the government has long ignored thousands of other cold war victims, rebuffing their requests for compensation and refusing to admit its responsibility for injuries they suffered.'' "Continued secrecy and legal roadblocks erected by the government have made it virtually impossible for victims of these cold war human experiments to sue the government successfully, legal experts say.'' "Many of the stories of people whose lives were destroyed by mind-altering drugs, electroshock `treatments' and other military and CIA experiments involving toxic chemicals or behavior modification have been known for almost 20 years. But U.S. News has discovered that only a handful were ever compensated -- or even told what was done to them.''

"Admiral Turner, in his 1983 deposition, conceded that `a disappointingly small number' were notified but defended the agency's continuing refusal to declassify the names of the researchers and universities involved. `I don't think that would have been necessarily the best way,' Turner said. `Not in the litigious society we live in.'' These are, simply put, gross violations of basic human rights, carried out by and still perpetuated by our government. COINTELPRO was an FBI operation in the 1960s that aimed to infiltrate and destroy movements and organizations the FBI had labeled ``subversive.'' The targets included, among others, women's liberation groups, black nationalist groups, and American Indian movements. The techniques included harassment, intimidation, infiltration, the use of agents provocateur, wiretapping, bugging, and blackmail. Even Martin Luther King Jr. was singled out for harassment and bugging. There is NO reason to believe these techniques are not still being employed by our government (whether or not the FBI itself is still involved). The technology is much advanced now, and the psychological warfare techniques likely are too. (The Bill of Rights has not changed.) U.S. Domestic Covert Operations, a local copy of articles at mediafilter.org.

COINTELPRO Revisited, an article by Brian Glick. [Brian Glick wrote the preface to the book The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against Domestic Dissent by Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall.] This article is interesting in that it also offers suggestions for groups dealing with this type of harassment. We know about COINTELPRO because of some documents removed from an FBI office in 1971. This prompted official investigations. Otherwise, allegations of such large-scale harassment would surely have been dismissed as a crazy conspiracy theory, and we would likely have heard, ``There is no way they could keep something like that secret.'' Frank Donner was an attorney and political theorist. He included the reality of federal repression and vigilante action in his political theories. Here is a summary of his theories, expanded from a Covert Action Quarterly article.

Mind control and electromagnetic radiation: From "Microwaves and Behavior'' by Don Justesen, American Psychologist, Mar. 1975: "Human beings can `hear' microwave energy. The averaged densities of energy necessary for perception of the hisses, clicks, and pops that seem to occur inside the head are quite small, at least an order of magnitude below the current permissible limit in the United States for continuous exposure to microwaves, which is 10 mW/cm^2.''

"To `hear' microwave energy, it must first be modulated so that it impinges upon the `listener' as a pulse or a series of pulses of high amplitude.'' "Sharp and Grove ... found that appropriate modulation of microwave energy can result in direct `wireless' and `receiverless' communication of speech. They recorded by voice on tape each of the single-syllable words for digits between 1 and 10. The electrical sine-wave analogs of each word were then processed so that each time a sine wave crossed zero reference in the negative direction, a brief pulse of microwave energy was triggered. By radiating themselves with these `voice-modulated' microwaves, Sharp and Grover were readily able to hear, identify, and distinguish among the 9 words. The sounds heard were not unlike those emitted by persons with artificial larynxes.'' Note that the published date is 1975. There is little doubt that improved modulation and microwave generation techniques have been developed in the meantime. This is a fairly sophisticated application of microwave harassment techniques. The same article notes that basic microwave heating can cause damage before sensations of heating are even noticed. Microwave attacks by thermal loading can inflict brain damage and other physical damage, and on this point science has never been in doubt.

A Newsweek article "Soon, `Phasers on Stun'', from Feb. 7, 1994, subtitled, "The Science of War: A new generation of nonlethal weapons may help rout mobs, subdue gunmen, even win wars -- without killing the innocent.'' Excerpts: "Warden and other new-wave military thinkers say the list of exotic technologies that could be harnessed for nonlethal weapons is already large and growing. It includes lasers, microwaves, sound waves, strobe lights, electromagnetic pulses, microbes, chemicals...'' "Sources tell Newsweek that the FBI consulted Moscow experts on the possible use of a Soviet technique for beaming subliminal messages to Koresh. The technique uses inaudible transmissions that could have convinced Koresh he was hearing the voice of God in his head... None of this was used, of course...''

Note that in many cases these weapons can kill and "nonlethal'' is a misnomer. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is concerned about these new ``nonlethal,'' directed energy, and laser blinding weapons, as they will likely be employed in the next major war (unless a ban in enacted). In March of 1996 the Red Cross held a symposium on the medical profession and the effects of weapons which included several papers on ``nonlethal'' weapons and electromagnetic anti-personnel weapons. Medical professionals should maintain an awareness of the fact that their research may be used to design weapons, whether or not that was its original intention. The same could be said of scientists and engineers. Another good paper at the Red Cross site is on "How visits by the ICRC can help prisoners cope with the effects of traumatic stress". This paper discusses the effects of imprisonment and torture on individuals, and how visits by ICRC members can help. Of torture they note, ``the worst scars are in the mind.''

An excerpt from the book The Body Electric by Robert Becker, copyright 1985. Of particular note: "The Central Intelligence Agency funded research on electromagnetic mind control at least as early as 1960, when the notorious MKULTRA program, mostly concerned with hypnosis and psychedelic drugs, included money for adapting bioelectric sensing methods (at that time primarily the EEG) to surveillance and interrogation, as well as for finding `techniques of activation of the human organism by remote electronic means.' In testimony before the Senate Sub- committee on Health and Scientific Research on September 21, 1977, MKULTRA director Dr. Sydney Gottlieb recalled: `There was a running interest in what effects people's standing in the field of radio energy have...'' Ordering information for the book can be found here, as well as other places on the web. A series of articles on the history of mind control by Harry V. Martin and David Caul, from the Napa Sentinel. The original version, and one with a table of contents.

Do you think electromagnetic weapons are new? Here is an article called Radio Waves and Life , by Tom Jaski, from 1960. [Note that I have not yet been able to locate this reference in the library. Tom Jaski and Charles Susskind have an article in Science, Feb. 17, 1961, 133:3451, which discusses many of the same articles and results, though in a more ``scientific'' tone.] Notice that he is discussing and replicating (in many cases) results reported as early as the 1920s. Particularly intriguing is the mention of different ``resonant frequencies'' which subjectively interfere with different people. Also worth noting is the suggestion that information about internal mental states could be inferred by broadcasting a radio signal and analyzing changes to the received signal induced by an active brain. Given the low power levels required for some of these psychophysical effects, and the ability to concentrate certain frequencies of electromagnetic radiation into tight beams, it is worth considering the possibility that low-orbiting satellites could transmit such signals. After all, satellites send broadcast signals down to Earth all the time. Such a capability would have obvious strategic value were it technically possible.

Mind reading. There is little published research on this topic, so the following notes are somewhat speculative. I hope they convince you that what at first seem like ridiculous claims are definitely possible. Nothing generates more ridicule and accusations of schizophrenia than someone claiming people can read their mind (or thoughts, or subvocalized speech). But even without the capability to truly read someone's mind, one could fake that ability by planting subliminal words or suggestions in the victim's mind. Using a microwave ``voice projection'' device, or some other means of conveying subliminal messages, the sick harasser could first plant an idea or suggestion in the victim's mind and later reveal that ``thought'' to the victim. The harasser plants the thought and then reveals the thought he has planted, but to the unsuspecting victim it appears his mind has been read. (One could also create temporal illusions by planting a thought from a previously-sent message; an illusion that a third party is involved could be created by planting a thought from someone else's message.) (Eye-gaze monitoring, for example, could also be used to infer something about a person's thought process.)

"Mind reading'' does not mean someone has a ``grand theory of mind,'' or understands everything about how the brain works. It just means that someone has correlated some measured signal or vibration with brain activity the person experiences as thinking. For example, thinking to oneself in one's ``inner voice'' is likely neurologically very closely related to speech production. The patterns of brain activity are likely to be similar. It would not be surprising if the muscles of the throat and larynx receive the same signals as in speech but at much lower levels, resulting in a measurable physical response that could be directly converted to sound. The body naturally emits electromagnetic radiation. Passive sensor devices can pick up this radiation. It is possible that by measuring and analyzing these signals one could make inferences about the brain processes that created them. While it is fashionable to criticize the government as inept, in certain classified areas including sensor technology and signal analysis the government is likely far ahead of the private sector. (If nothing else they can steal the best technology from around the world.) Passive sensor technology could easily be advanced enough to measure signals with extremely low power levels. In addition to passive devices, it may be possible to use active devices to infer some of the workings of a person's brain. (An example of active versus passive sensors is a submarine which pings the ocean to get a reading versus one that simply listens.) It was mentioned above that the CIA focused much interest on the effects of people standing in a field of radio energy.

Implanted devices are commonly assumed to be the mechanism for thought-reading. While this assumption tends to be dismissed, implanted devices have been in use for years. An excerpt from ``Two-Way Transdermal Communication with the Brain,'' by Jose Delgado et al., American Psychologist, March 1975: "Permanent implantation of electrodes within the brain is a widely used method to investigate neurological functions and electrophysiological correlates of behavior.'' In this paper, an implanted device is described which is coupled with an external transmitter and power supply via a pair of coils acting as a transformer. This means the implanted device does not require a battery or external lead wires. This was from 1975, when integrated circuits were just coming into use. These days an external transmitter would not be necessary since a transmitter, miniature electric field probes, and other circuitry can be PopularScience fabricated together on a microchip. (Microchips can be made extremely small. Most of the size of the standard chips we are used to seeing is in packaging and input/output pins.) Delgado et al. also write about direct brain to computer to brain links, and brain to other brain links.

From an article titled "Thought Control,'' by Peter Thomas, in New Scientist, 9 March, 1996: "Last year, at the University of Tottori, near Osaka in Japan, a team of computer scientists lead by Michio Inoue took this idea further by analysing the EEG signals that correspond to a subject concentrating on a specific word... The system depends on a database of EEG patterns taken from a subject concentrating on known words. To work out what the subject is thinking, the computer attempts to match their EEG signals with the patterns in the database. For the moment the computer has a vocabulary of only five words and takes 25 seconds to make its guess. In tests, Inoue claims a success rate of 80 percent, but he is working on improvements...''

Note that the time to guess is not really meaningful by itself (depending on the computer and algorithm) and that significant improvements to both the signal measurements and the pattern matching algorithm are almost surely possible. Another researcher is working to use EEG signals to allow disabled people to control their wheelchairs. Other groups are working on brain implant chips to allow the blind to ``see'': "Normann's group has been developing devices that can be implanted directly in the brain. They consist of an array of 100 `needle' electrodes resembling a tiny hairbrush. Each needle is less than 2 millimetres long, isolated from its neighbour by a glass sheath and mounted on a silicon base about 4 millimetres square.'' A video camera encodes images which are sent to the chip to stimulate the visual cortex. "At the moment, results seem to show that the approach is capable of creating artificial vision, even though it may appear to the subject like a grainy version of reality -- similar to looking at the large scoreboards at football stadiums.'' (In a sighted person one could implant a chip which reads neural activations as well, and which transmits these signals outside the body. A small imaging device might also be implanted in a subject's eyeball to allow ``looking'' out the subject's eye.)

An implanted device need not necessarily be implanted in the brain. A subdermal device implanted anywhere on the body would still be permanently in the vicinity of the person and able to pick up sound vibrations and electromagnetic emissions. It could also provide tracking data on a person. Academic researchers have already produced fingernail-sized devices of this sort. A Neurophone-type circuit in the chip could even allow voices to be projected into the victim's mind. (A Neurophone and similar devices apparently allow for ``hearing through the skin,'' regardless of what other claims are made for them.)

The NIH is currently funding a program in neural prosthesis. The aim of this program is to develop devices to interface with and possibly assume some of the functions of a person's nervous system. The program includes research on electrode development, stimulation parameters, and materials for implanted devices. It is possible that some devices or techniques may alter people's time perception. It is interesting to speculate what effects this could be used to create. (After all, time perception is a sense too.)

These scientific analyses do not begin to touch on the human element and the extreme rape of having your very freedom of thought stolen and used against you. While all these techniques are frightening by themselves, they become even more frightening if taken together. Advanced bugging and video surveillance systems are common enough that people generally take their existence for granted. When remote surveillance is combined with remote punishment or reward capability (or any other remote input) the resulting feedback loops allow for the remote ``training'' of the targeted individual -- even in their own home and perhaps unaware it is happening at all. The use of technology to mimic psychiatric illnesses is beyond shameful. Not only are the direct victims violated, but the truly mentally ill are too. It is nonetheless a reality we must deal with. The truly schizophrenic individual who now doubts he has a brain disorder is as much a victim as the perfectly sane person driven to defend or even question his own sanity. In fact, the line can blur since some of these weapons can cause brain damage, in addition to the traumatic stress of torture. This unfortunate reality should not be used to dismiss people's complaints or deflect attention from the true human rights violations.

Other governments also possess these weapons and abilities. The U.S. government has recently introduced some of these previously more-highly-classified technologies to domestic law enforcement agencies. Criminals and private individuals will have some of these weapons before long, if not already. There are already people selling what are purported to be crude electromagnetic harassment devices. Here is part of a Staff Report Prepared for the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, from Dec. 1994, dealing with human experimentation by the military. It also discusses the Nuremburg Code, as well as current U.S. policies and laws on human experimentation.

Here is a letter to the Washington Post ombudsman by Julian C. Holmes, from 1992. It is interesting reading and documented with numerous notes and references.

Here is an article about The Secret FISA Court: Rubber Stamping on Rights, from the Covert Action Quarterly. This secret court has the power to authorize both bugs and physical searches of private American homes, based only on an invocation of ``national security.'' As of the writing of the article, this court had rejected only one out of 7500 spying requests. Most targets of such searches and surveillance have no idea what has happened. An excerpt: "The Supreme Court, however, has never endorsed the concept of a national security exception for physical searches. In 1972, it ruled that the Fourth Amendment prohibits warrantless surveillance of domestic targets. The Court specifically warned that the danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts under so vague a concept as the power to protect `domestic security.' But given the secrecy surrounding the FISA court, even finding a test case to challenge incursion on Fourth Amendment rights may be difficult.''

Some Final Words: These sorts of problems are not anything new in history. The weapons have changed, and the years have advanced, but human nature remains the same. Our institutions have ``learned'' only very slowly over this time. This does not mean we should simply pretend to be civilized while ignoring the barbarism around us. Especially when our government and basic principles of governance are at issue. In this age of steadily advancing technology and surveillance capabilities it is increasingly important that our laws be fair, rational, and uniformly enforced. Technology will transform our society. We must work to ensure that it transforms us for the better, because it can also be used to create a police state such as the world has never seen. That may sound extreme, but it is the simple truth -- and one we do not want to discover too late.

Other points: We need to teach people the crucial distinction between being personally opposed to some behavior and wanting to lock other human beings in cages for engaging in that behavior. Obvious as this point seems, it regularly disappears in ``learned'' debates. In the case of behaviors like murder, the loss of that distinction does not effectively make a difference. In other cases, though -- especially in the case of victimless "crimes'' -- the distinction is extremely important.

When a single individual can now wreak terrible damage as a terrorist, it is increasingly important that we do not let anyone ``fall through the cracks.''

We must avoid entering into an escalating cycle of increasing police and secret police powers and violence by those who will not voluntarily give up their basic rights. (Was Jefferson a terrorist? What is the difference? Where is the line?) Pushing people too hard and too long will turn them into exactly what you were afraid of. Abusive covert agents love this, since it helps them justify their existence and their inflated budgets. They then innocently say ``I told you so'' about the violence they have in large measure created.

On this page I have discussed ideas in several different, though related, areas. While not exactly a summary, I end with the following sentence, the truth of which should be self-evident: AN AMERICAN CITIZEN TORTURED BY THE U.S. GOVERNMENT SHOULD NOT HAVE TO FIGHT THAT SAME GOVERNMENT EVERY STEP OF THE WAY TO EVEN PROVE IT HAPPENED.

Source: Allen Barker's The Truth Also, More links about secret government, mind control, nonlethal weapons, the press, etc. Click Here.

The "Soft Kill" Fallacy by Steven Aftergood

Details about programs to develop so-called "non-lethal" weapons are slowly emerging from the U.S. government's secret "black budget." The futuristic aura of many non-lethal weapons is seductive, and their advent has been heralded uncritically by many media reports of kinder, gentler weapons.1 But basic political, legal, and strategic questions about the utility of the non-lethal thrust remain unanswered-sometimes even unasked. "Non-lethal weapons disable or destroy without causing significant injury or damage," asserted Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz in a March 1991 memorandum. This is an important misconception. Nevertheless, Wolfowitz wrote, "A U.S. lead in non-lethal technologies will increase our options and reinforce our position in the post­Cold War world."2 The concept of non-lethal weapons is not new; the term appears in heavily censored CIA documents dating from the 1960s. But research and development in non-lethal technologies has received new impetus as post­ Cold War Pentagon planning has shifted its focus to regional conflicts, insurgencies, and peacekeeping. Dozens of non-lethal weapons have been proposed or developed, mostly in laboratory-scale models. They encompass a broad range of technologies, including chemical, biological kinetic, electromagnetic, and acoustic weapons, as well as informational techniques such as computer viruses (see "A Non-lethal Laundry List," page 43).

Of course, the arsenal of conventional warfare already includes systems like electronic jamming devices and anti-radar missiles that are "non-lethal" in the sense that they disable enemy weapons-but only in the context of armed and deadly conflict. In contrast, the proponents of non-lethal weapons apparently envision a relatively benign battlefield. Sticky foams and "calmatives" would immobilize or sedate adversaries. Specially cultured bacteria would corrode and degrade components of weapons systems. Optical munitions would cripple sensors and dazzle, if not blind, soldiers. Acoustic beam weapons would knock them out. Netting and shrouds would thwart the movement of aircraft, tank, and armored vehicles. These and many other related technologies have already been demonstrated at a proof-of-concept level. In some cases, the proposed technologies raise questions about compliance with international agreements (see "Non-lethal Weapons May Violate Treaties," page 44). In the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War, the Pentagon has moved to coordinate these diverse research programs, as well as plan the acquisition of non-lethal weapons and their incorporation into military training.3 Current funding, which is secret, is probably no more than several tens of millions of dollars per year, although reportedly it could grow to more than $1 billion over the next several years.

One of the people spending that money is John B. Alexander of Los Alamos National Laboratory. The 32-year army veteran belongs to the "special technologies" group of the lab's International Technology Division, which assesses the national security implications of emerging technologies. Alexander coordinates the lab's multidisciplinary effort on non-lethal weapons. For his outstanding leadership in this capacity, Aviation Week & Space Technology honored him as one of its annual aerospace "laureates" this past January. Alexander also has a pronounced interest in paranormal phenomena. In a notorious 1980 article, "The New Mental Battlefield," which appeared in Military Review (a U.S. Army journal), Alexander wrote that "there are weapons systems that operate on the power of the mind and whose lethal capacity has already been demonstrated. . . . The psychotronic weapon would be silent, difficult to detect, and would require only a human operator as a power source." Discussing "out-of-body experiences," he asserted that "it has been demonstrated that certain persons appear to have the ability to mentally retrieve data from afar while physically remaining in a secure location. . . . The strategic and tactical applications are unlimited." (And in fact there is evidence that "remote viewers" have provided consulting services to U.S. intelligence agencies.)

"There is sufficient concern about psychic intrusion to cause work to begin on countermeasures," Alexander advised in the article. Last year, Alexander organized a national conference devoted to researching "reports of ritual abuse, near-death experiences, human contacts with extraterrestrial aliens and other so-called 'anomalous experiences,'" the Albuquerque Journal reported in March 1993. The Australian magazine Nexus reported last year that in 1971, Alexander "was diving in the Bimini Islands looking for the lost continent of Atlantis. He was an official representative for the Silva mind control organization and a lecturer on precataclysmic civilizations . . . [and] he helped perform ESP experiments with dolphins." In The Warrior's Edge: Front-line Strategies for Victory on the Corporate Battlefield-a 1990 book he co-authored with Maj. Richard Groller and Janet Morris-Alexander describes himself as having "evolved from hard-core mercenary to thanatologist." "As a Special Forces A-Team commander in Thailand and Vietnam, he led hundreds of mercenaries into battle," the book explains. "At the same time, he studied meditation in Buddhist monasteries and later engaged in technical exploration and demonstration of advanced human performance." Along the way, Alexander seems to have immersed himself in nearly every peripheral or imaginary mode of human experience. Alexander is forthright and unapologetic about his interest in the paranormal, insisting that it has no connection at all with his work at Los Alamos. He also says that a forthcoming book by Jim Marrs will "take the wraps off" the field of parapsychology and help to vindicate his position. Marrs is the author of a Kennedy assassination conspiracy book, Crossfire. John Alexander is by all accounts a resourceful and imaginative individual. He would make a splendid character in a science fiction novel. But he probably shouldn't be spending taxpayer money without adult supervision.

The first step in fathoming the non-lethal weapons program is to get past the name. When even proponents concede that non-lethal weapons are not necessarily non-lethal, why are they still called that? Because the term is politically attractive. "Major political benefit can be accrued by being the first nation to announce a policy advocating projection of force in a manner that does not result in killing people," Alexander writes (4). Various names were considered and are still sometimes used: soft kill, mission kill, less-than-lethal weapons, noninjurious incapacitation, disabling measures, strategic immobility. "Having been through a number of names, I can say that nothing has had the impact of 'non-lethal,'" avers Alexander. The growing prominence of the non-lethal program tends to validate this strategy. Rebelling against the program's marketing spin, analysts across the political spectrum have rejected the assertion that non-lethal weapons represent a new development in warfighting- or even a fruitful area for investment. Defense expert William M. Arkin says that the resurgence of interest in non-lethal weapons was spawned in part by "the use of special weapons [the Kit 2 carbon-fiber warheads on Tomahawk sea-launched cruise missiles] against electrical installations" in the Persian Gulf War. However, he notes, this "non-lethal" application devastated a civilian population that was otherwise largely spared the direct effects of bombing. Non-lethal weaponry, Arkin concludes, is a "fantasy program" (5).

Likewise, Eliot A. Cohen, writing in Foreign Affairs, declares that "the most dangerous legacy of the Persian Gulf War [is] the fantasy of near-bloodless use of force." Further, Cohen says, "the occupants of a helicopter crashing to earth after its flight controls have fallen prey to a high-power microwave weapon would take little solace from the knowledge that a non-lethal weapon had sealed their doom. Some of these weapons (blinding lasers, for example) may not kill, but have exceedingly nasty consequences for their victims. And in the end a disabling weapon works only if it leaves an opponent vulnerable to full-scale, deadly force" (6). Many official spokespersons concede the point and argue that non-lethality is being evaluated as an adjunct to-not a replacement for-large-scale conventional warfare. "We're not looking at this as a new warfighting strategy per se, but rather as another effective tool for the users," says Frank Kendall, director of the Pentagon's tactical warfare programs (7). But some, like Alexander of Los Alamos, are far more ambitious. Alexander envisions a fundamental reorganization of the military in which non-lethal weapons would apparently occupy a central position. "Non-lethal defense concepts are comprehensive, far beyond adjuncts to present warfighting capabilities. Non-lethal defense has applicability across the continuum of conflict up to and including strategic paralysis of an adversary" (8).

If there is any substantive basis for this contention, it is obscured by the secrecy surrounding the programs. Because most non-lethal weapons programs are classified, they are shielded from the democratic process. Such secrecy precludes informed public discussion of some of the most basic policy issues as well. One immediate consequence of the excessive secrecy is a wasteful duplication of effort. Justice Department officials who surveyed some of the "black budget" programs for possible law enforcement applications found the same technologies being developed in as many as six independent programs. "We've been startled at the number of times we've run into this," says David Boyd of the National Institute of Justice (9). The waste results from a lack of independent oversight of non-lethal programs, which- like other highly classified "special access" or "black" programs in defense and intelligence- operate beyond the reach of the checks and balances that U.S. citizens take for granted. Special access programs employ security measures that are draconian compared to ordinary classified programs. Cong. Patricia Schroeder, the Colorado Democrat who chairs the House Armed Services Research and Technology subcommittee, mentioned at a recent hearing that she'd asked the Defense Department for a list of special access programs and their costs. Her request was turned down. Anita Jones, the Pentagon director of defense research and engineering, claimed that providing the list to Schroeder-whose subcommittee must authorize spending for such programs-would be too dangerous to national security (10).

This decision was grotesque but not surprising. In the special access world, constitutional democracy does not apply, and government accountability is a subversive idea. The government secrecy system as a whole is among the most poisonous legacies of the Cold War-and a godsend for non-lethal weapons programs. Of course, there has always been a degree of secrecy in the U.S. government, and it's always been recognized that certain narrow areas must be protected from disclosure for the sake of a larger public interest. But the Cold War secrecy system still in place today goes far beyond those areas of consensus. It is in fact a kind of political cancer that has been allowed to spread unchecked into vast sectors of government, masking huge secret budgets, suppressing incredible volumes of historical and policy records, and concealing environmental data and other essential requirements of democratic decision-making and government accountability. Beyond simply concealing enormous quantities of information from the public, the Cold War secrecy system also mandates active deception. A security manual for special access programs authorizes contractors to employ "cover stories" to disguise their activities. The only condition is that "cover stories must be believable" (11).

Even the government is starting to recognize that official cover and deception programs are getting out of hand and need to be curtailed. A Joint Security Commission established by the secretary of defense and the director of central intelligence reported in March that "the use of cover to conceal the existence of a government facility or the fact of government research and development interest in a particular technology is broader than necessary and significantly increases costs." "For example, one military service routinely uses cover mechanisms for its [special access] programs without regard to individual threat or need. Another military organization uses cover to hide the existence of certain activities or facilities. Critics maintain that in many cases, cover is being used to hide what is already known and widely reported in the news media," the commission stated (12). The hazards of unaccountable government, from secret wars to secret radiation experiments, are well known. And yet the system continues. The Clinton administration has made progress toward reforming it, but measurable results still have not materialized. The nominal justification for secrecy in non-lethal weapons is that developing them on a totally unclassified basis would enable potential adversaries to duplicate the effort or develop countermeasures. This is a valid concern that is exploited beyond all justification to the point of concealing the budgets and even the very existence of many programs. If a non-lethal technology is so fragile that simply acknowledging its existence would negate its effectiveness, then it probably isn't worth much.

End Notes
1. "Soon, 'Phasers on Stun,'" Newsweek (Feb. 7, 1994), pp. 24­26; "Not So Deadly Weapons," Los Angeles Times, Dec. 20, 1994, p. A4.
2. Paul Wolfowitz, "Do We Need a Nonlethal Defense Initiative?" memorandum to the Secretary of Defense (March 10, 1991) USD(P).
3. Barbara Opall, "DoD to Boost Nonlethal Options," Defense News (March 28, 1994), p. 46.
4. John B. Alexander, Los Alamos National Laboratory Report No. LA-UR-92-3206.
5. William M. Arkin, "Arms Control After the Gulf War," (Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland, 1993), p. 26.
6. Eliot A. Cohen, "The Mystique of U.S. Air Power," Foreign Affairs ( Jan./Feb. 1994), p. 121.
7. Opall, Defense News.
8. John B. Alexander, Los Alamos National Laboratory Report No. LA-UR-92-3773.
9. Stacey Evers, "Police, Prisons Want Cheap Non-lethal Technologies," Aerospace Daily, Nov. 19, 1993, p. 299.
10. "Perry Studying Black Budget Oversight Procedures," Defense Daily, April 19, 1994, p. 106.
11. John Horgan, "Lying By the Book," Scientific American (Oct. 1992), p. 20.
12. "Redefining Security," a Report to the Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central Intelligence by the Joint Security Commission (Feb. 28, 1994), pp. 19­20.

A non-lethal laundry list: Dozens of technologies are being studied or developed under the elastic rubric of "non-lethal weapons." Some of the non-lethal weapons concepts most frequently cited in the unclassified literature were proposed or first publicly described by Janet Morris of the U.S. Global Strategy Council, whose advocacy helped motivate the current Pentagon initiative on non-lethal weapons. Publicly described weapons include:

Infrasound: Very low-frequency sound generators could be tuned to incapacitate humans, causing disorientation, nausea, vomiting, or bowel spasms.

Laser weapons: Low-energy laser rifles could dazzle or temporarily blind enemy soldiers, or disable optical and infrared systems used for target acquisition, tracking, night vision, and range finding. The International Committee of the Red Cross has initiated a humanitarian campaign to prohibit the use of lasers as weapons of war.

Supercaustics: These highly acidic chemical agents can be millions of times more caustic than hydrofluoric acid. They could destroy the optics of heavily armored vehicles, as well as tires and structural metals.

Biological agents: Microbial cultures can be "designed" to chew up almost anything. Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory reviewed naturally occurring organisms that could be cultured to enhance certain characteristics. "As a result, we discovered a bacterium that degrades a specific material used in many weapons systems" ("Antimaterial Technology," Los Alamos National Lab FY 1991 Progress Report, LA-12319-PR, p 19).

Acoustic beam weapons: High frequency acoustic "bullets" used against people would induce blunt-object trauma "like being hit by a baseball." According to John Alexander of Los Alamos, "Proof of principle has been established; we can make relatively compact acoustic weapons" (Mark Tapscott and Kay Atwal, "New Weapons That Win Without Killing on DOD's Horizon," Defense Electronics (Feb. 1993), p 41).

Combustion inhibitors: Chemical agents can be released into the atmosphere or introduced directly into fuel tanks to contaminate fuel or change its viscosity to degrade or disable all mechanical devices powered by combustion.

Mini-nukes: Jumping onto the non-lethal bandwagon, the redoubtable Edward Teller has proposed developing mini nuclear weapons with explosive yields of 100 tons ("The 'Soft Kill' Solution," March/April 1994 Bulletin). These would be non-lethal, one supposes, as long as the enemy does what he is told.

Among the many other technologies under consideration in the Pentagon's non-lethal program are sticky foams to immobilize individuals, anti-traction chemicals to slicken roads and runways, high-power microwave generators, mechanical entanglements, holographic projectors, non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse generators, neural inhibitors, and wireless stun devices (Elaine M. Grossman, "Pentagon to Set Priorities in Non-lethal Technologies, Weapons," Inside the Air Force (April 15, 1994), p1)-S. A.

"Non-lethal" weapons may violate treaties - Development of many of the proposed weapons described on these pages has been undertaken by NATO, the United States, and probably other nations as well. Most of the weapons could be considered "pre-lethal" rather than non-lethal. They would actually provide a continuum of effects ranging from mild to lethal, with varying degrees of controllability. Serious questions arise about the legality of these expensive and highly classified development programs. Four international treaties are particularly relevant.

The Biological Weapons Convention. - The development of biological agents for "non-lethal" uses such as degradation of aircraft fuel, lubricants, or electrical insulation would appear to violate the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), which prohibits the development, production, or possession of biological agents that have no justification for prophylactic, protective, or other peaceful purposes. Although "protective purposes" is not defined in the treaty, by analogy with the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) it can be presumed to mean protection against dangerous biological agents. U.S. law implementing the treaty provides criminal penalties for the development or possession of "any biological agent" for use as a weapon; "biological agent" is defined to include any microorganism capable of causing "deterioration of food, water, equipment, supplies, or material of any kind; or deleterious alteration of the environment." There is no exemption for use in law enforcement.

The Chemical Weapons Convention and the Geneva Protocol. - The development of "non-lethal" chemical weapons, such as sedatives delivered in aerosols absorbed through the skin or supercaustics that corrode roads and tires (and inevitably also clothing, shoes, skin, and flesh), threatens to violate the Chemical Weapons Convention. The convention is expected to come into force next year. It prohibits the development, production, or retention for prohibited purposes of toxic chemicals, defined as "any chemical which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm to humans or animals." The definition would include substances such as caustics and other harmful chemicals not usually classified as poisons. The convention permits the production of toxic chemicals if they are used for peaceful purposes, as in agriculture; protective purposes (against toxic chemicals); "military purposes not connected with the use of chemical weapons and not dependent on the use of the toxic properties of chemicals as a method of warfare"; and "law enforcement including domestic riot control purposes." The third of these permissible purposes might be construed to include chemicals such as supercaustics, on the grounds that "life processes" are not the intended target, provided that use of the chemicals as weapons would entail little contact with living things. For some weapons, this would be difficult to establish. The Geneva Protocol of 1925 prohibits "the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquid materials or devices." The "or other" appears to broaden the prohibition beyond asphyxiating or toxic substances.

Thus, the use in warfare of harmful chemicals such as supercaustics and sticky foams (which, in addition to forming a kind of "roach motel" for people, could act as asphyxiating agents) may be illegal, and the use of metal embrittlement agents, superlubricants, chemicals that interfere with fuel combustion, and so forth could also be questioned. Under the CWC, the fourth permissible purpose for developing chemical weapons agents-law enforcement, including domestic riot control-is the major reason currently offered for developing non-lethal weapons. This permissible purpose, however, contains an ambiguity in urgent need of clarification. "Law enforcement" is not defined in the treaty. Does it include anything more than riot control? If so, what? And what law? In contrast, the convention defines "riot control agents" narrowly and prohibits their use in warfare. Regarding law enforcement, it excludes the use of "Schedule 1" chemicals (one of several categories of chemical weapon agents) but says no more. This implies that for any law enforcement purposes other than domestic riot control, any non­Schedule 1 chemical may be developed, produced, acquired, stockpiled, or transferred as a weapon. Furthermore, although riot control agents must be declared, the treaty says nothing about declaring other agents that might be developed or held for law enforcement.

In the report containing the final text of the CWC, several of the national delegations to the negotiating body pointed out the problems raised by the undefined term "law enforcement' as a permissible purpose.1 One delegation stated that "this might give rise to far-fetched interpretations of what the negotiators intended." Indeed, the three delegations that commented on this issue interpreted this permissible purpose in widely different ways: as limited to domestic actions, as applicable outside national boundaries, or as including only domestic and U.N. peacekeeping activities. Unless the CWC Preparatory Commission takes steps to define more closely and limit this wild card, it could subvert much of the intent of the convention and render its elaborate verification mechanism futile. For domestic riot control, the development of chemical agents is clearly permissible under the CWC, although their use in warfare is prohibited. Riot control agents are defined in the CWC as chemicals "which can produce rapidly in humans sensory irritation or disabling physical effects which disappear within a short time following termination of exposure." This might be true of certain sedatives, depending on the dose; it is certainly not true of corrosive chemicals or immobilizing glues. No agent that causes a deleterious effect not automatically reversible can be considered acceptable and humane for use in domestic riot control; it would be unethical to subject innocent bystanders, children, or hostages to severe psychological stress, possible permanent injury, or death. The development of chemical weapons in the guise of domestic riot control agents must not be allowed as a means of circumventing the CWC. The treaty states that every chemical held for domestic riot control purposes must be declared; the CWC Preparatory Commission needs to specify that these chemicals must fit the convention's humanitarian definition of a riot control agent.

The Certain Conventional Weapons Convention (also known as the Inhumane Weapons Convention).2 Many of the non-lethal weapons under consideration utilize infrasound or electromagnetic energy (including lasers, microwave or radio-frequency radiation, or visible light pulsed at brain-wave frequency) for their effects. These weapons are said to cause temporary or permanent blinding, interference with mental processes, modification of behavior and emotional response, seizures, severe pain, dizziness, nausea and diarrhea, or disruption of internal organ functions in various other ways. In addition, the use of high-power microwaves to melt down electronic systems would incidentally cook every person in the vicinity. Typically, the biological effects of these weapons depend on a number of variables that, theoretically, could be tuned to control the severity of the effects. However, the precision of control is questionable. The use of such weapons for law enforcement might constitute severe bodily punishment without due process. In warfare, the use of these weapons in a non-lethal mode would be analogous to the use of riot control agents in the Vietnam War, a practice now outlawed by the CWC. Regardless of the level of injury inflicted, the use of many non-lethal weapons is likely to violate international humanitarian law on the basis of superfluous suffering and/or indiscriminate effects.3 In addition, under the Certain Conventional Weapons Convention, international discussions are now under way that may lead to the development of specific new protocols covering electromagnetic weapons; a report is expected sometime next year. The current surge of interest in electromagnetic and similar technologies makes the adoption of a protocol explicitly outlawing the use of these dehumanizing weapons an urgent matter. -Barbara Hatch Rosenberg

End Notes:
1. Conference on Disarmament, Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Chemical Weapons to the Conference on Disarmament, Aug. 26, 1992, Nos. 22, 25, 34 (CD/1170).
2. The full name of this treaty is "Convention on Prohibition or Restriction of the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects."
3. Louise Doswald-Beck, ed., Blinding Weapons: Reports of the Meetings of Experts Convened by the International Committee of the Red Cross on Battlefield Laser Weapons, 1989­1991 (Geneva: Internal Committee of the Red Cross, 1993).

Source: The "Soft Kill" Fallacy by Steven Aftergood

Wonder Weapons by Douglas Pasternak

The Pentagon's quest for nonlethal arms is amazing. But is it smart?- Tucked away in the corner of a drab industrial park in Huntington Beach, Calif., is a windowless, nondescript building. Inside, under extremely tight security, engineers and scientists are working on devices whose ordinary appearance masks the oddity of their function. One is cone shaped, about the size of a fire hydrant. Another is a 3-foot-long metal tube, mounted on a tripod, with some black boxes at the operator's end. These are the newest weapons of war. For hundreds of years, sci-fi writers have imagined weapons that might use energy waves or pulses to knock out, knock down, or otherwise disable enemies--without necessarily killing them. And for a good 40 years the U.S. military has quietly been pursuing weapons of this sort. Much of this work is still secret, and it has yet to produce a usable "nonlethal" weapon. But now that the cold war has ended and the United States is engaged in more humanitarian and peacekeeping missions, the search for weapons that could incapacitate people without inflicting lethal injuries has intensified. Police, too, are keenly interested. Scores of new contracts have been let, and scientists, aided by government research on the "bioeffects" of beamed energy, are searching the electromagnetic and sonic spectrums for wavelengths that can affect human behavior. Recent advancements in miniaturized electronics, power generation, and beam aiming may finally have put such pulse and beam weapons on the cusp of practicality, some experts say.

Weapons already exist that use lasers, which can temporarily or permanently blind enemy soldiers. So-called acoustic or sonic weapons, like the ones in the aforementioned lab, can vibrate the insides of humans to stun them, nauseate them, or even "liquefy their bowels and reduce them to quivering diarrheic messes," according to a Pentagon briefing. Prototypes of such weapons were recently considered for tryout when U.S. troops intervened in Somalia. Other, stranger effects also have been explored, such as using electromagnetic waves to put human targets to sleep or to heat them up, on the microwave-oven principle. Scientists are also trying to make a sonic cannon that throws a shock wave with enough force to knock down a man. While this and similar weapons may seem far-fetched, scientists say they are natural successors to projects already underway--beams that disable the electronic systems of aircraft, computers, or missiles, for instance. "Once you are into these antimateriel weapons, it is a short jump to antipersonnel weapons," says Louis Slesin, editor of the trade journal Microwave News. That's because the human body is essentially an electrochemical system, and devices that disrupt the electrical impulses of the nervous system can affect behavior and body functions. But these programs--particularly those involving antipersonnel research--are so well guarded that details are scarce. "People [in the military] go silent on this issue," says Slesin, "more than any other issue. People just do not want to talk about this."

Projects underway. To learn what the Pentagon has been doing, U.S. News talked to more than 70 experts and scoured biomedical and engineering journals, contracts, budgets, and research proposals. The effort to develop exotic weapons is surprising in its range. Scores of projects are underway, most with funding of several hundred thousand dollars each. One Air Force lab plans to spend more than $100 million by 2003 to research the "bioeffects" of such weaponry. The benefits of bloodless battles for soldiers and law enforcement are obvious. But the search for new weapons--cloaked as they are in secrecy--faces hurdles. One is the acute skepticism of many conventional-weapons experts. "It is interesting technology but it won't end bloodshed and wars," says Harvey Sapolsky, director of the Security Studies Program at MIT. Says Charles Bernard, a former Navy weapons-research director: "I have yet to see one of these ray gun things that actually works." And if they do work, other problems arise: Some so-called nonlethal weapons could end up killing rather than just disabling victims if used at the wrong range. Others may easily be thwarted by shielding.

Sterner warnings come from ethicists. Years ago the world drafted conventions and treaties to attempt to set rules for the use of bullets and bombs in war. But no treaties govern the use of unconventional weapons. And no one knows what will happen to people exposed to them over the long term. Moreover, medical researchers worry that their work on such things as the use of electromagnetic waves to stimulate hearing in the deaf or to halt seizures in epileptics might be used to develop weaponry. In fact, the military routinely has approached the National Institutes of Health for research information. "DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency] has come to us every few years to see if there are ways to incapacitate the central nervous system remotely," Dr. F. Terry Hambrecht, head of the Neural Prosthesis Program at NIH, told U.S. News. "But nothing has ever come of it," he said. "That is too science fiction and far-fetched." Still, the Pentagon plans to conduct human testing with lasers and acoustics in the future, says Charles Swett, an assistant for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict. Swett insists that the testing will be constrained and highly ethical. It may not be far off. The U.S. Air Force expects to have microwave weapons by the year 2015 and other nonlethal weaponry sooner. "When that does happen," warns Steven Metz, professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Army War College, "I think there will be a public uproar. We need an open debate on them now."

Laser ethics - What happened with U.S. forces in Somalia foreshadows the impending ethical dilemmas. In early 1995, some U.S. marines were supplied with so-called dazzling lasers. The idea was to inflict as little harm as possible if Somalis turned hostile. But the marines' commander then decided that the lasers should be "de-tuned" to prevent the chance of their blinding citizens. With their intensity thus diminished, they could be used only for designating or illuminating targets. On March 1, 1995, commandos of U.S. Navy SEAL Team 5 were positioned at the south end of Mogadishu airport. At 7 a.m., a technician from the Air Force's Phillips Laboratory, developer of the lasers, used one to illuminate a Somali man armed with a rocket-propelled grenade. A SEAL sniper shot and killed the Somali. There was no question the Somali was aiming at the SEALs. But the decision not to use the laser to dazzle or temporarily blind the man irks some of the nonlethal-team members. "We were not allowed to disable these guys because that was considered inhumane," said one. "Putting a bullet in their head is somehow more humane?" Despite such arguments, the International Red Cross and Human Rights Watch have since led a fight against antipersonnel lasers. In the fall of 1995, the United States signed a treaty that prohibits the development of lasers designed "to cause permanent blindness." Still, laser weapons are known to have been developed by the Russians, and proliferation is a big concern. Also, the treaty does not forbid dazzling or "glare" lasers, whose effects are temporary. U.S. military labs are continuing work in this area, and commercial contractors are marketing such lasers to police.

Acoustic pain - The next debate may well focus on acoustic or sonic weapons. Benign sonic effects are certainly familiar, ranging from the sonic boom from an airplane to the ultrasound instrument that "sees" a baby in the uterus. The military is looking for something less benign--an acoustic weapon with frequencies tunable all the way up to lethal. Indeed, Huntington Beach-based Scientific Applications & Research Associates Inc. (SARA) has built a device that will make internal organs resonate: The effects can run from discomfort to damage or death. If used to protect an area, its beams would make intruders increasingly uncomfortable the closer they get. "We have built several prototypes," says Parviz Parhami, SARA's CEO. Such acoustic fences, he says, could be deployed today. He estimates that five to 10 years will be needed to develop acoustic rifles and other more exotic weapons, but adds, "I have heard people as optimistic as one to two years." The military also envisions acoustic fields being used to control riots or to clear paths for convoys.

SARA's acoustic devices have already been tested at the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base, near the company's Huntington Beach office. And they were considered for Somalia. "We asked for acoustics," says one nonlethal weapons expert who was there. But the Department of Defense said, "No," since they were still untested. The Pentagon feared they could have caused permanent injury to pregnant women, the old, or the sick. Parhami sees acoustics "as just one more tool" for the military and law enforcement. "Like any tool, I suppose this can be abused," he says. "But like any tool, it can be used in a humane and ethical way." Toward the end of World War II, the Germans were reported to have made a different type of acoustic device. It looked like a large cannon and sent out a sonic boomlike shock wave that in theory could have felled a B-17 bomber. In the mid-1940s, the U.S. Navy created a program called Project Squid to study the German vortex technology. The results are unknown. But Guy Obolensky, an American inventor, says he replicated the Nazi device in his laboratory in 1949. Against hard objects the effect was astounding, he says: It could snap a board like a twig. Against soft targets like people, it had a different effect. "I felt like I had been hit by a thick rubber blanket," says Obolensky, who once stood in its path. The idea seemed to founder for years until recently, when the military was intrigued by its nonlethal possibilities. The Army and Navy now have vortex projects underway. The SARA lab has tested its prototype device at Camp Pendleton, one source says.

Electromagnetic heat - The Soviets were known to have potent blinding lasers. They were also feared to have developed acoustic and radio-wave weapons. The 1987 issue of Soviet Military Power, a cold war Pentagon publication, warned that the Soviets might be close to "a prototype short-range tactical RF [radio frequency] weapon." The Washington Post reported that year that the Soviets had used such weapons to kill goats at 1 kilometer's range. The Pentagon, it turns out, has been pursuing similar devices since the 1960s. Typical of some of the more exotic proposals are those from Clay Easterly. Last December, Easterly--who works at the Health Sciences Research Division of Oak Ridge National Laboratory--briefed the Marine Corps on work he had conducted for the National Institute of Justice, which does research on crime control. One of the projects he suggested was an electromagnetic gun that would "induce epilepticlike seizures." Another was a "thermal gun [that] would have the operational effect of heating the body to 105 to 107" degrees Fahrenheit. Such effects would bring on discomfort, fevers, or even death.

But, unlike the work on blinding lasers and acoustic weapons, progress here has been slow. The biggest problem is power. High-powered microwaves intended to heat someone standing 200 yards away to 105 degrees Fahrenheit may kill someone standing 10 yards away. On the other hand, electromagnetic fields weaken quickly with distance from the source. And beams of such energy are difficult to direct to their target. Mission Research Corp. of Albuquerque, N.M., has used a computer model to study the ability of microwaves to stimulate the body's peripheral nervous system. "If sufficient peripheral nerves fire, then the body shuts down to further stimulus, producing the so-called stun effect," an abstract states. But, it concludes, "the ranges at which this can be done are only a few meters." Nonetheless, government laboratories and private contractors are pursuing numerous similar programs. A 1996 Air Force Scientific Advisory Board report on future weapons, for instance, includes a classified section on a radio frequency or "RF Gunship." Other military documents confirm that radio-frequency antipersonnel weapons programs are underway. And the Air Force's Armstrong Laboratory at Brooks Air Force Base in Texas is heavily engaged in such research. According to budget documents, the lab intends to spend more than $110 million over the next six years "to exploit less-than-lethal biological effects of electromagnetic radiation for Air Force security, peacekeeping, and war-fighting operations."

Low-frequency sleep - From 1980 to 1983, a man named Eldon Byrd ran the Marine Corps Nonlethal Electromagnetic Weapons project. He conducted most of his research at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Bethesda, Md. "We were looking at electrical activity in the brain and how to influence it," he says. Byrd, a specialist in medical engineering and bioeffects, funded small research projects, including a paper on vortex weapons by Obolensky. He conducted experiments on animals--and even on himself--to see if brain waves would move into sync with waves impinging on them from the outside. (He found that they would, but the effect was short lived.) By using very low frequency electromagnetic radiation--the waves way below radio frequencies on the electromagnetic spectrum--he found he could induce the brain to release behavior-regulating chemicals. "We could put animals into a stupor," he says, by hitting them with these frequencies. "We got chick brains--in vitro--to dump 80 percent of the natural opioids in their brains," Byrd says. He even ran a small project that used magnetic fields to cause certain brain cells in rats to release histamine. In humans, this would cause instant flulike symptoms and produce nausea. "These fields were extremely weak. They were undetectable," says Byrd. "The effects were nonlethal and reversible. You could disable a person temporarily," Byrd hypothesizes. "It [would have been] like a stun gun." Byrd never tested any of his hardware in the field, and his program, scheduled for four years, apparently was closed down after two, he says. "The work was really outstanding," he grumbles. "We would have had a weapon in one year." Byrd says he was told his work would be unclassified, "unless it works." Because it worked, he suspects that the program "went black." Other scientists tell similar tales of research on electromagnetic radiation turning top secret once successful results were achieved. There are clues that such work is continuing. In 1995, the annual meeting of four-star U.S. Air Force generals--called CORONA--reviewed more than 1,000 potential projects. One was called "Put the Enemy to Sleep/Keep the Enemy From Sleeping." It called for exploring "acoustics," "microwaves," and "brain-wave manipulation" to alter sleep patterns. It was one of only three projects approved for initial investigation.

Direct contact - As the military continues its search for nonlethal weapons, one device that works on contact has already hit the streets. It is called the "Pulse Wave Myotron." A sales video shows it in action. A big, thuggish-looking "criminal" approaches a well-dressed woman. As he tries to choke her, she touches him with a white device about the size of a pack of cigarettes. He falls to the floor in a fetal position, seemingly paralyzed but with eyes open, and he does not recover for minutes. "Contact with the Myotron," says the narrator, "feels like millions of tiny needles are sent racing through the body. This is a result of scrambling the signals from the motor cortex region of the brain," he says. "It is horrible," says William Gunby, CEO of the company that developed the Myotron. "It is no toy." The Myotron overrides voluntary--but not involuntary--muscle movements, so the victim's vital functions are maintained. Sales are targeted at women, but law enforcement officers and agencies--including the Arizona state police and bailiffs with the New York Supreme Court--have purchased the device, Gunby says. A special model built for law enforcement, called the Black Widow, is being tested by the FBI, he says. "I hope they don't order a lot soon," he adds. "The Russian government just ordered 100,000 of them, and I need to replenish my stock." The U.S. military also has shown interest in the Myotron. "About the time of the gulf war, I got calls from people in the military," recalls Gunby. "They asked me about bonding the Myotron's pulse wave to a laser beam so that everyone in the path of the laser would collapse." While it could not be done, Gunby says, he nonetheless was warned to keep quiet. "I was told that these calls were totally confidential," he says, "and that they would completely deny it if I ever mentioned it." Some say such secrecy is necessary in new-weapons development. But others think it is a mistake. "Because the programs are secret, the sponsorship is low level, and the technology is unconventional," says William Arkin of Human Rights Watch Arms Project, "the military has not done any of the things to determine if the money is being well spent or the programs are a good idea." It should not be long before the evidence is in.

Source: Wonder Weapons by Douglas Pasternak

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