Son James sent an IM to me today with this link:
A senior government official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has expressed great interest in a so-called safety bracelet that would serve as a stun device, similar to that of a police Taser®. According to this promotional video found at the Lamperd Less Lethal, Inc. website, the bracelet would be worn by all airline passengers (video also shown below).
This bracelet would:
- Take the place of an airline boarding pass
- Contain personal information about the traveler
- Be able to monitor the whereabouts of each passenger and his/her luggage
- Shock the wearer on command, completely immobilizing him/her for several minutes
The conversation with James then went something like this:
James:
may be taken out of context or blown out of proportion depending on what sources you consider credible *shrug*
Joe:
My bet is I could smuggle a knife through security and get out of the bracelet before I ever got on the plane.
James:
oh yeah, there’s all sorts of ways you could subvert the bracelet
plus, the bad guys could figure out a way to set off the bracelets themselves, thus immobilizing any resistance!
Joe:
And something that is going to immobilize a Sumo wrestler is probably going to kill an 80 year old little old lady with a heart problem.
James:
yeah, basically the plan has FAIL written all over it
Joe:
Another way to defeat the bracelet would be to wrap it in aluminum foil. You would disappear off of the location monitoring device and no radio or laser could trigger the shock.
“My bet is I could smuggle a knife through security …” I have no doubt you could do it simply by carrying one through security on your person.
Back in the merely crappy (proximo ante TSA)days of flying I’d regularly carry (it was legal then) a moderately sized pocket knife through the magnetometer with nary a beep. And twice, by accident, I carried the same knife through Euoropean magnetometers with zero detection in late ’06. In contrast, a thin stainless steel business card (BTW, sharp as hell in it’s own right and carried thereafter in carry on luggage) given me by a supplier set the machines a beeping.
Smallish pocket knives (~2″ blade), lighters, liquids, and most other smallish contraband objects can be smuggled into “sterile” areas with no special effort – of course the law abiding simply don’t do that – and, of course, those are the ones we should least worry about.
I saw something like that on Star Trek years ago. They called it the “collar of obedience”. It was used to keep the thralls of Triskelion in their place.
Funny isn’t it, how they never think of empowering anyone, but only of disabling them? You’d think that in their meetings, someone would say, “OK, very funny. Now enough of the Star Trek shit, how about we actually come up with something intelligent? Would that be too much to ask? Hmm?”
But wait. That’s not their job, is it?