Big Brother Shock Therapy: Is Homeland Security Considering Requiring All Airline Passengers to Wear High-Tech Tasing Devices?

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
by Meg White

Start with long lines and rising prices. Now add the possibility of walking into an airport and having a bracelet attached to your wrist with the power to completely incapacitate you.

No wonder air travel is increasingly unpopular.

As reported by The Washington Times earlier this week, Paul Ruwaldt, an official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, wrote a letter to the Canadian security company Lamperd Less Lethal, Inc. requesting a proposal for a stun-gun-type device to be used for international border management, prisoner transfer and other security situations. Ruwaldt also wrote, "it is conceivable to envision a use to improve airline security, on passenger planes."

The company has suggested in the past that the device could not only contain airline passengers' personal information and track their whereabouts, but could have the ability to render each passenger "completely immobile for several minutes."

The device on which Ruwaldt based his request, innocuously called "The EMD Safety Bracelet," uses electro-muscular disruption to incapacitate dangerous passengers once a security problem is identified upon an aircraft. A video -- which the company said was not produced by them -- promotes the device and was, until recently, available at the the company's website.

The video draws a clear line from their product to airline security, opening with news reports of the terrorist attack on 9/11 and identifying problems with current safety precautions.

"The technology is only as good as the people using it," says the narrator of the video.

The video disparages the use of armed marshals on airplanes, and instead advocates putting flight attendants in a security role. The company later explained details of the operation of the device in a press release titled, Clearing Up Misconceptions About The EMD Safety Bracelet:

"The steward/stewardess will have a laser activator that can activate any bracelet as needed by simply pointing the laser at the bracelet - that laser dot only needs to be within 10 inches of the bracelet to activate it."

The video narrator says wearing the bracelet is "a small inconvenience." The video ends with a confident appraisal of passengers' willingness to submit to Big Brother:

"Many if not most passengers would happily opt for the extra security of the EMD safety bracelet."

There is an immediacy in Ruwaldt's letter to the company. The undated letter begins by expressing interest in technologies introduced by the company in a July 2006 meeting with the Department of Homeland Security, and ends with urgency:

"Most of the organizing for this program/project will happen within the next month ..."

One of the patent-holders of the device explained the idea to a reporter at Information Week:

"I like to call it the next generation of Taser," said co-inventor Per Hahne, "theirs being a one-shot deal and mine being a multiple-shot deal."

According to Amnesty International, dozens of Americans are killed by police Tasers every year. The company addressed the differences between Tasers and their device, noting their product is cheaper and effective at greater distances. They say there are no long-term effects from their device (only bruising and lacerations are mentioned), but their testing has only been done on cadavers.

The Washington Times reporter who wrote the original story, Jeffrey Denning, is a "private security specialist" and U.S. Army Reservist who just returned from his last tour of duty in Iraq, according to his blog. While the credibility and provenance of this story have been questioned, we at BuzzFlash would not be shocked if President George W. Bush's Homeland Security Department were looking into the production of such a device.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT