UK Police Test 'Temporarily Blinding' LASER 398
esocid writes "Called the SMU 100 it costs £25,000 and sends out a three-meter 'wall of light' that leaves anyone caught in it briefly unable to see. Designed by a former Royal Marine Commando, it was originally developed for use against pirates in Somalia. While tasers and CS gas work well over short distances the laser is said to be effective at up to 500 meters (1,640ft). Being targeted by the beam has been compared to staring into the sun before being forced to turn away. Paul Kerr, managing director of Clyde-based Photonic Security Systems, which came up with the design, said 'If you can't look at something you can't attack it.'"
Re:What is with the UK and all this surveillance a (Score:2, Insightful)
Mostly because the other places that test this first don't let the reports out.
Re:What is with the UK and all this surveillance a (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, point lasers at me and blind me. That's really healthy
Although I am pretty sure this goes against a Geneva convention this is healthier for you than high speed lead.
Re:What is with the UK and all this surveillance a (Score:5, Insightful)
Right. If the police aren't allowed to use this laser then they will have to shoot protesters. There is just no other way.
Re:What is with the UK and all this surveillance a (Score:5, Insightful)
UK citizens should build their own and point them at all the cameras. Instant privacy.
Re:What is with the UK and all this surveillance a (Score:4, Insightful)
Right. If the police aren't allowed to use this laser then they will have to shoot protesters. There is just no other way.
Society under surveillance, blinded by the Met ... how much longer before V becomes reality?
Re:What is with the UK and all this surveillance a (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless they're running for a train in London...
Re:What is with the UK and all this surveillance a (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:least-worst alternative (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd rather be lasered in the face than gassed or shot with bean bags or beaten
The mistake is thinking this is an either-or situation. First they blind you, then they beat the shit out of you. Now you can't ID which ones assaulted you even if you could get a criminal case going against them.
Re:What is with the UK and all this surveillance a (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, point lasers at me and blind me. That's really healthy
Although I am pretty sure this goes against a Geneva convention this is healthier for you than high speed lead.
which means they will use this "harmless" weapon without hesitation in situations where they previously wouldn't use any more force than handcuffs. back when all they had was a gun and a baton they tended not to pull a weapon unless you did first. we've seen this now with pepper spray, tazers, etc. the less lethal they are the more quickly they get pulled out.
remember that asshole lieutenant cop who gleefully pepper sprayed lots of peaceful protestors at once? he could try to make an excuse for that, at least if he weren't caught on video being such a dick. he would have had no excuse for gunning down these unarmed people in cold blood. that would have resulted in him on trial for murder and selfish pricks like him look after "Number One" better than that. that's why he didn't use his gun. but now he has neat little "relatively harmless" pain-compliance type of weapons at his disposal that don't produce pesky dead bodies that must be explained away.
they are becoming less and less like peace officers and more and more like militarized thugs every day. this is what you want? more toys for them? if you weren't such a simpleton you would understand why new weapons like this make the situation worse, not better.
This seems pitifully useless... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless the laser is a tightly focused dot(in which case it won't be much use against a crowd) its intensity will vary rapidly with distance. In order to not be a complete toy at operationally useful ranges, it will very likely be downright dangerous at closer ones. Luckily, cops are technical experts and models of restraint, so that won't prove to be a problem.
In a similar vein, since lasers are a reasonably common occupational/hobby hazard these days, laser-protective eyewear, designed for strong attenuation of the common laser type of your choice, with minimal impact on general vision, is cheap and readily available. In order to have any effect on somebody wearing such, you'd likely need alarmingly higher power levels than you would need to have the same effect on an unshielded subject. So, either ~$20 eyewear gains you immunity to this fancy tech toy, or this fancy tech toy is powerful enough to stun protected users and fry retinas on everybody else. Brilliant.
Re:If you can't look at something you can't attack (Score:2, Insightful)
What about if someone has a gun, they may just start firing towards the general direction of the blinding light, hitting innocent bystanders,...
Guns are hard to aim when blind. Molotov cocktails, not so hard. Just saying.
Re:We'll see how long this lasts... (Score:4, Insightful)
How many action movies have you seen lately? First of all, you would have to draw and pull up your mirror faster than the police fires the laser at you. Did you assume that you would reflect it precisely into the police officer's eyes, like in a comic book? Since you won't, you might as well just close your eyes instead of pulling up a mirror, that will presumably protect you
Now, finally, you are standing there with a mirror in front of you or eyes closed and you will probably get clubbed or arrested (or both) in that curious state.
This thing is perfect. (Score:5, Insightful)
Now we can immobilize EVERYONE within 500 meters whether they're doing anything wrong or not, such as journalists and other so-called "innocent bystanders". Surely any person within 500 meters of a public disturbance is up to no good. All good citizens always stay at home where they belong. What a jubilant triumph for the brave defenders of our glorious homeland!
Re:What is with the UK and all this surveillance a (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What is with the UK and all this surveillance a (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not useful against protesters. The police use pepper spray on protestors to hurt and punish, not to protect themselves. A peaceful protestor siting with their arms linked can just close their eyes.
Add it to the Long List (Score:5, Insightful)
Now we've got the blinding light weapon, and the deafening sound weapon, [wikipedia.org] and that Ray Gun that makes your skin feel like it's on fire [wikipedia.org]. All this massive R&D going into novel crowd control technologies. It's almost as if the US Government anticipates needing fancy new riot gear. Wonder why that could be.
Re:What is with the UK and all this surveillance a (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that in the US, even if somone is shoting at the police, 9/10 times if they kill somone, they get fired.
Bullshit. Name one instance. Police are practically never punished for anything they do here. If you managed to find a single instance it would be one in a million. Although there are exceptions to every rule, the cops in the US are much, much worse than their UK counterparts. When I leave my house I am much more afraid of the police than I am of any criminals. Cops are far more dangerous and violent. And if they attack you they also throw you in jail and file false charges against you just for fun.
Re:If you can't look at something you can't attack (Score:5, Insightful)
There's some sort of weird stupidity from the people buying these items for governments, so they believe all the hype about new gadgets, and don't ask what happens when the problem tries to route around it.
This is an excellent point. I mean forget about attacking the person who was pointing the weapon. Look at the big picture: Something terrible is wrong politically and a large mass of people are protesting it in a nonviolent way. You bring out your crowd control weapons. You disperse the protestors. Job done, right?
What do you think those people are going to do if you make nonviolent protesting unavailable? Thank you for your benevolence and then go home and give up? Forget all about the fact that they can't find a job and are heading for bankruptcy?
The protesters are not the problem. The protesters are the symptom. Fighting the symptom doesn't solve the problem. And not solving the problem will only give it enough time to turn into a disaster.
Re:What is with the UK and all this surveillance a (Score:5, Insightful)
It is worse than that. FTA:
Similar devices have already been used by British and American troops in Afghanistan to help protect convoys from attack.
It seems that "normal civilians" are now being treated no differently than your average throat-cutting, convoy robbing, wife-whuppin', goat-fucking Taliban Mujahedin* in the Iraq or the Afghanistan. Yay for Democracy, Freedom and other Western Values.
_____
* This image of the Taliban is based on post-Soviet era Western media portrayal. Before that the Mujahedin were brave, just, honest and peace-loving farmers who were badly abused by the Bloody KGB and only kept goats for the milk and the meat.
Re:What is with the UK and all this surveillance a (Score:2, Insightful)
To be precise, most of the people the cops plink in the US are the sort many of the rest of us are fine with them plinking, and if they plink in error it only causes outcry if the plinkee is both innocent and has a wholesome prior track record. If they are an established dirtbag then it's an enemy casualty.
Many Americans prefer that security in their zones be maintained by any force necessary.
It's not "nice" and we don't give a shit.
Re:What is with the UK and all this surveillance a (Score:4, Insightful)
This. The police crack skulls and ask questions later. There was a recent eviction of travellers where one of them pushed a tazer through a fence and fired it blind, then kept pressing the trigger over and over again without seeing who he was electrocuting. Fortunately he missed and the needles landed in some earth, but we could easily have had another murder enquiry on our hands there.
Presumably if the police tried to assault you and in self defence you used some form of non-lethal weapon like a laser you would be set upon by his friends and eventually charged. Thugs join the police for this specific reason - they can kick the shit out of people for fun with almost total immunity, and even when they kill someone the ranks close and it gets covered up. It remains to be seen if the murder PC Hardwood will get away with it.
Re:What is with the UK and all this surveillance a (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What is with the UK and all this surveillance a (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What is with the UK and all this surveillance a (Score:2, Insightful)