CROWD CONTROL TECHNOLOGIES - Omega Research Foundation

that stated "Less aggressive officers may experience negative results [the stun gun not inflicting
incapacitation]...due to the fact that you must physically make contact and hold that contact for up to six
or eight seconds." 306 One design feature in a modern stun gun is an automatic switch-off after 15
seconds of use, which is reactivated after 5 seconds. It would appear, therefore, that prolonged or
repeated application of a stun belt, gun or baton constituting severe ill-treatment or torture is not
prevented by their technological design and remains an ever-present danger. The characteristic lack of
physical signs of injuries also ensures that ill-treatment, abuse and torture with stun weapons will, in all
likelihood, remain under-reported and this now includes child targets. 307
Human rights organisations continue to document increasing numbers of cases where torture and
ill-treatment are committed with electro-shock weapons. Meanwhile, many European Union member
states continue to allow their companies to manufacture, supply and export such electro-shock
weapons. Some of these exports are to countries where torture and ill-treatment have been
documented. Appendix 1 provides details of companies in Belgium, France and Germany who have
manufactured, supplied or distributed electro-shock weapons between 1990 and the present. Some of
these companies continue to trade. Further more, the EC has actually given CE quality control
markings for such weapons and foreign manufacturers such as those from Taiwan boast as an official
seal of approval in promoting their overseas sales (Taiwan bans such weapons for home use). This
practice should be terminated. (Figure 10 shows an example of Taiwanese electro-shock batons with
CE markings).
6. AN ASSESSMENT OF FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES & THEIR EFFECTS
6.1 History. The emergence of a second generation of non lethal weapons from the United States in
the early 1990's resulted from military strategists eager to embrace the oxymoronic doctrine of nonlethal
warfare. The doctrines promoters were primarily futurologists such as Alvin and Heidi Toffler, 308
naive Quaker science fiction writers Chris & Janet Morris, 309 and a former deputy director of the CIA
Ray Cline, and his US Global Strategy Council in Washington. They found willing ears not only
amongst the former chiefs of staff of the US Army and the Strategic Air Command but also the US
National Nuclear Laboratories at Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Oakridge.
The 1990 seminal work of the Morriss, Non-Lethality :A Global Challenge 310 defined the new
ideology as a revolutionary new strategy of deterring and containing aggression with non-lethal and
highly constrained force that provides utility across the continuum of conflicts. The disingenuous nonlethal
ideology was further championed by Col. John Alexander who co-authored a book with Janet
Morris, The Warriors Edge. 311 Alexander spearheaded the )special technologies( group of the Los
Alamos National Laboratory and co-ordinated their early efforts on non-lethal weapons. Ironically,
Alexander made his name in the rather more lethal Phoenix assassination programs in the Vietnam
War (and later became a proponent of psychic warfare). 312
Statements from advocates of the doctrine present it as a humane alternative to more lethal
warfare and a logical response to the changes in the global security environment. For example )As
major conventional conflict becomes rare, less-than-lethal-war violence, instigated by those immune to
world opinion and economic costs associated with making war, has become common(. Such stances
have been used to justify the so called revolution in military affairs. 313 Others are more cynical about
such claims for the moral high ground, viewing these new initiatives as an )institutional rice bowls(
response with scientists and the military looking for new weapons projects to justify their careers and
massive expenditures, once the end of the Cold War made many of the old )containment( stances
redundant. 314 The Morriss came up with a new philosophy, what they called the containment of
barbarism aimed at controlling disruptive behaviour, rather than any particular ideology.
In May 1993, the US Attorney General Janet Reno appeared before Congress to describe the FBI
role the standoff with the Branch Davidian cult at Waco. She expressed the wish that there had been a
magic non-lethal bullet that could have saved the lives of the children who were incinerated in the fire
at the compound. 315 Later in October that year, the US military were stinging with the
xli