Long Range Acoustical Device (LRAD)<\/span> and it has the ability to blast a small area with 110 decibels of sound \u2014 the equivalent of a power saw at close range.<\/p>\nBut police officials say that\u2019s not how it\u2019s being used at Zuccotti Park and other protest sites, where it functions as the world\u2019s clearest megaphone.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t use it to disrupt. We don\u2019t use it as some horrible noisemaker,\u201d said Police Department spokesman Paul Browne.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe set it up away from where a crowd is. We create a 50-foot safety zone. It sends out a clear, uniform message that can be heard for several blocks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The California company that invented the device says it was developed after the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000 so naval ships could communicate with anyone approaching.<\/p>\n
The system sends out a highly magnified beam of sound in much the way a lens focuses a beam of light.<\/p>\n
The company is loathe to say it can be used as a weapon or discuss the potential physical effects of being bombarded with ear-splitting noise at close range.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan your car horn be used as a weapon? Can you play loud noise with the LRAD? Absolutely,\u201d said Scott Stuckey, vice president of business development.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey could cover their ears if it\u2019s too loud.\u201d<\/p>\n
Critics say the devices have the potential for misuse by civilian agencies and can cause hearing loss, headaches or nausea.<\/p>\n
The New York Civil Liberties Union said the $35,000 devices should only be used for communication purposes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt clearly can be used to disperse people,\u201d said Christopher Dunn, associate legal director. \u201cThey cause physical pain to make people move.”<\/p>\n
He said the group has received no reports of the NYPD using either of its two LRADs as a weapon.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaking announcements that people can hear is always good,\u201d he said. \u201cUsing a sonic cannon to disperse people is not.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Editor’s note: \u00a0Most readers of this site are familiar with the wind industry’s misuse of infrasound: \u00a0The industry at first claimed there was zero infrasound coming from their turbines. \u00a0When they could no longer cover their genitals with that preposterous fig leaf, they went on to hire a fool who made himself famous brazenly declaring that, though there was infrasound, it was so insignificant as to be irrelevant. \u00a0When that fig leaf was likewise blown away by empirical evidence, they retreated to the pathetic argument, “Well, hell! \u00a0If people are getting sick, it’s their own damn fault! \u00a0They’re making it up!” \u00a0And so it goes. Of course, the military industrial crowd has been jerking off over infrasonic weaponry (“acoustic weapons”) for decades. \u00a0Do a Google search to find titillating reading of varying degrees of credibility. Now (see “Police Use Military Megaphone,” below) New York City cops are using it. \u00a0But, like Big Wind, they’re pretending they’re not. \u00a0And the manufacturer of this diabolical toy (“military megaphone” my ass!) is being just as coy. \u00a0The issue is not so much what the cochlea “hears,” but the sound pressure that messes up the vestibular organs—the sound pressure that, as others have put it, “kills us softly with its torture.” \u00a0Or not so softly, depending on intensity, duration of exposure, and pulse of the infrasound. Read on. \u00a0The New York Civil Liberties Union, by the way, has been hornswoggled. \u00a0This $35K weapon is not about “communication”; it’s about torture. Karen Piper, PhD, Dept of English, Univ of Missouri\u00a0 . Read Professor Karen Piper’s experience with this same device. \u00a0The following is taken from Piper v. City of Pittsburgh, US District Court for the Western District of Penn.,\u00a0Case 2:11-cv-01215-MPK, filed 09\/21\/11.\u00a0 24. When the LRAD was activated, Plaintiff suffered immediate pain in her ears,Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[163,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18099"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18099\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}