It's a mad, mad world!! Post's of interest below.
joe 6pk Amer I CAN/ see & know
PS. Amnesty International is not endorsed by me any more than AP etc.
Informational purposes only

World trade rises in torture weapons

Richard Norton-Taylor
Tuesday February 27, 2001
The Guardian

Trade in torture weapons, including high-tech electro-shock weapons, leg
irons, serrated thumb cuffs, and stun belts prisoners are forced to wear, is
increasing worldwide, Amnesty International says in a report published
today.
The report coincides with a separate study showing that Nato governments are
investing in new weapons that are potentially as lethal as anti-personnel
mines banned by the Ottawa treaty.

The human rights group says that the number of countries producing
electro-shock equipment has grown from around 30 in the 1980s to more than
130 now. Some batons, which it calls the favoured tool of the modern
torturer, even bear the "EC" standard marking approved by the European
Union.

Though it is illegal in America to own some of the equipment, the US
commerce department has granted sales valued at $97m since 1997 under the
category of "crime-control equipment". Recipients include Saudi Arabia,
Russia, Taiwan, Israel, and Egypt, says Amnesty.

Amnesty says that in July 1997, Zambian police used tear gas to break up a
peaceful protest march in Lusaka. Yet Britain re-supplied tear gas two years
later despite the lack of training of the police.

"The government must press the EU to seek an end to the complicity of all
its members in the torture trade," said Kate Allen, Amnesty International UK
director.

Other countries with companies selling torture equipment include China,
France, Russia, Germany, Britain, Poland, Israel, South Africa, Brazil,
Mexico, South Korea and Taiwan.

The British-based Landmine Action campaign also identified mines that are
"victim-activated and civilian-targeted", designed to get round the Ottawa
treaty, which is limited to conventional anti-personnel mines. It says the
the government's defence research agency is developing alternatives to
conventional mines, including dazzling lasers and high-powered microwaves.


****************************************
26 February 2001

From: NameBase@cs.com
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 17:25:29 EST
Subject: Announcing: PIR has a new site
To: jya@pipeline.com

The publishers of NameBase ( http://www.pir.org/  ) have added a new site:

http://www.cia-on-campus.org/
So far, only 17 items have been posted, but four of these are the full text
of absolute classics that are impossible to find. Even if you know of a
library that carried Ramparts, chances are that these important articles
were ripped out (either by hippies or CIA agents):


Ramparts, April 1966: Article on Michigan State University and its Vietnam
project.
Ramparts, March, 1967: CIA funds the National Student Association through a
network of real and dummy foundations.
Ramparts, October 1969: Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller foundations set up
all International Studies and Area Studies programs during the Cold War,
with OSS vets and other top U.S. intelligence people pulling the strings.
(This fine article, "Sinews of Empire," is by David Horowitz. Yes, he's the
same one who defected to the right about ten years ago, mostly out of a
disgust over "political correctness." At the end of the article, he thanks
the activists at Columbia and Harvard who liberated documents from the
offices of administrators during sit-ins.)
An article written in 1970, which appeared in a 1975 collection published by
Ramparts Press: How the Ford Foundation and CIA, together with MIT,
Berkeley, Harvard, Cornell, Syracuse, and the University of Kentucky,
trained the elites who undermined and eventually overthrew Sukarno. Includes
interesting background on the 1965 coup, during which hundreds of thousands
were slaughtered.
For more recent research on this coup, including info on CIA involvement
that was not publicly available in 1970, see:

http://www.pir.org/scott.html
The www.cia-on-campus.org  site includes a full-text site search engine. It
also includes a special gateway into NameBase that allows unrestricted
NameBase searching without a password. (The latter is a limited-time
promotional feature.)

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Public Information Research, PO Box 680635, San Antonio TX 78268-0635
Tel:210-509-3160 Fax:210-509-3161 Nonprofit publisher of NameBase
http://www.pir.org/  NameBase@cs.com
******************************************
Fastest Gun In World
Developed At Sandia
By Robert Uhlig - Technology Correspondent
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
2-27-1


A Gun that fires coin-size pellets 10 times faster than a bullet has been
developed in America.

The Z accelerator could fire a pellet from London to Edinburgh in 26
seconds, or from London to New York in four and a half minutes. It is
outpaced only by a nuclear explosion.

It has been nicknamed the "fastest gun in the West". Marcus Knudson, who led
the project to develop the Z accelerator at Sandia, an American nuclear
laboratory, said that description was an understatement. "It's the fastest
gun in the world."

The aluminium plates it fires move so fast that the air resistance turns
them to liquid, heating them to 2,700C, and forcing Dr Knudson to look at
other materials, such as titanium and copper.

It has been used only to examine the effect of high-velocity projectile
impacts over a distance of a few feet, but the technology is being
considered as an alternative to launching spacecraft. A more mobile version
could be a "hyper velocity" weapon, piercing thicker armour than any used in
battle, Dr Knudson added.

The accelerator's vacuum chamber is the most powerful producer of electrical
discharge on Earth. It uses 20,000 amps to develop a magnetic field that
accelerates pellets up to 45,000 mph in 200 billionths of a second, three
times faster than the speed needed to escape Earth's gravitational pull.

Dr Knudson is using data from the accelerator to simulate the effect of
space junk colliding with a satellite or space station travelling in the
opposite direction. This will help scientists to balance lightness with
strength in satellite and observatory shells. It is also being used to find
out how materials react to high pressures and temperatures.
********************************************

Coast Guard units head to Middle East

Associated Press



Coast Guard units from Florida and Ohio are in training for harbor defense
duties in the Middle East. These reservists and active-duty personnel
provide security from the water and from shore at strategically critical
ports worldwide.

For several weeks more than 230 men and women from units based at St.
Petersburg, Fla., and Port Clinton, Ohio, have been training in the
Tampa-St. Petersburg area.

On Feb. 25, they head to Camp LeJeune, N.C., to complete training for
assignments under U.S. Central Command in the Mideast later in the year,
said Lt. Cmdr. Ron LaBrec at the Coast Guard's Miami station.

Port Security Units served in Desert Storm in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait City
and in Haiti as part of Operation Uphold Democracy. They also provided
waterside security for the 1996 Olympic Games at Atlanta.

They operate 25-foot guardian boats, equipped with machine guns, radar and
communications system. They also provide command and control and logistics
support.

The Coast Guard said the 117-person units can be deployed within 96 hours of
notification.

Feb. 23, 2001

Copyright 2001 Army Times Publishing Company. All Rights Reserved.
****************************************


New non-lethal energy weapon heats skin
Monday, 26 February 2001 21:14 (ET)


New non-lethal energy weapon heats skin
By KELLY HEARN, UPI Technology Writer

WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 (UPI) -- The Marine Corps is developing a non-lethal
weapon that uses electromagnetic energy to heat but not permanently burn
human skin. The weapon could help soldiers counter terrorism threats,
control unruly crowds and defend airfields and ships.

Experts confirmed it was the first time the military had designed a
so-called "directed energy weapon" for use against human targets.

The weapon concentrates energy into a beam of micro-millimeter waves that
penetrate clothes to rapidly heat moisture particles in the outermost layer
of flesh without going deep enough to damage organs. The device reportedly
causes no permanent damage to the body or to electronic devices such as
pacemakers.

Dubbed the Vehicle-Mounted Active Denial System, the weapon was revealed in
a story published first in the Marine Corps Times Monday.

Officials at the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate in Quantico, Va.
reportedly planned to show the classified system to top generals in April.
But Monday's story scuttled those plans and sent officials scrambling to
contain a possible public relations fiasco.

A Marine spokesmen would not comment on the system, saying only that
subject specialists would be available for interviews later this week.

Though detailed information about the weapon's design remain classified,
the story stated that the weapon would heat a target's skin to approximately
130 degrees Fahrenheit in about two seconds. Humans start to feel pain at
113 degrees. The report went on to say that soldiers could fire the weapon
from distances exceeding 750 meters (2,250 feet) from their target -- a
range that would allow them to remain outside the reach of most small arms
fire. The weapon could be mounted atop a military vehicle or on an aircraft.


Defense experts told United Press International the Marines especially have
sought new ways to non-lethally confront large, hostile crowds. Among other
things, the Department of Defense has looked to lasers, teargas and rubber
bullets for less-than-lethal impact. But these have either proven
ineffective or have attracted consternation from human rights groups.

"Unlike the other three branches, the Marines often are in situations
where there are lots of innocent bystanders, where they have to control an
unruly mob," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a non-profit
policy research firm in Alexandria, Va. "Tear gas and rubber bullets just
have not been effective, so they've want something more lethal than those
and less lethal than an M16. Whether they have found that here remains to be
seen."

"One of the fears is that there will be a misapplication of this kind of
technology, particularly in terms of civilian use," said Chris Hellman, a
senior analyst for the Center for Defense Information, a Washington
D.C.-based independent research group that monitors military planning and
policy. "Clearly we've seen military combat weaponry migrate to the civil
sector. Just walk past any Swat Team and you see what is basically an army
unit," he told UPI.

The article quoted an official saying that human subjects had been exposed
to the beams more than 6,000 times under laboratory conditions. Furthermore,
military researchers had completed a study, which has not been released, on
the long-term health effects of exposure.

"This puts a non-lethal arrow in quiver of commanders," said Ron Madrid,
former Marine and an expert on non-lethal weaponry at the University of
Pennsylvania. "It provides decision makers with options. You can guarantee
that the Marines were excruciatingly detailed in building in technological
limiters to keep the system from having a lethal effect,"

Retired Major General William L. Nash, the former commanding general of the
1st Armored Division, told UPI the device will inevitably create a race to
build counter weapons. "The good news is the weapon is non-lethal but the
bad news is that for every weapon there is bound to be a counter weapon," he
said. "I can imagine someone trying to develop a polymer based shield
against this, for example."

The Defense Department spent nearly $40 million over 10 years to develop
the technology, said the Marine Corps Times report. The Air Force
co-sponsored the project, the story said, doing much of the research and
development.
--
Copyright 2001 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.
********************************
aw shucks:
ENGLAND: The M25 motorway (highway) was closed for four hours Monday night
after bomb disposal experts exploded a suspect van on the shoulder. The road
was closed both ways at the Homedale Tunnel, Hertfordshire, where the van
had been left. A preliminary police investigation to establish the owner and
the contents of the van led officers to have concerns. But no explosive
material was found in the vehicle after the controlled explosion.
*******************************
fyi
its a beautiful day in the Oak Ridge neighborhood. Tech 2020 demo of more
technology to love us with
----- Original Message -----
From:
Sent: Monday, February 26, 2001 10:51 AM
Subject: Trends in Computer Security/Web-Enabling Seminar


> Wednesday, February 28, 2001
> 11:30-1:00
> @ Technology 2020
>
> Topic: Trends in Security with a demonstration of the Ethentica Biometric
> Finger Print device
> presented by John Doyle & Phil Smith of Ethentica
>
> Ethentica's Tactile Sense is a biometric fingerprint sensor module used to
> securely access your laptop's, PCs, PDAs, cell phones, networks,
> applications, the internet and internet web pages. Many of your customers
> are demanding greater security from their laptops, PCs, PDAs, cell phones,
> etc. TactileSense T-FPM Fingerprint Sensor Module provides manufacturers,
> system integrators and VARs with a superior fingerprint biometric solution
> that secures access from unauthorized use and data theft. Increase the
> value of your product solutions by offering customers high-level
> protection of sensitive data and personal information. Intervada will be
> demonstrating the "MS 3000" laptop device.
>
> Cost for the lunch meeting is $10 for affiliates, $20 for non-affiliates,
> and $5 for students. Please RSVP to hofbauer@tech2020.org  by Monday,
> February 26.

joe 6pk