http://www.indystar.com/articles/7/228242-2897-047.html

Nonlethal weapons testing has own perils

By Benjamin Harvey
Columbia News Service
March 11, 2005


NEW YORK – When scientists at the Kirtland Air Force Research
Laboratory in Albuquerque, N.M., were ready to test their newest
weapon, they put a spokesman in a doorway and shot him in the back.

They were testing the next big thing in nonlethal weapons technology.
After 11 years of research and $51 million – $9 million of it for
human-effects testing – the Active Denial System could be fitted to
military Humvees by the end of the year.

The energy beam from the Active Denial System – like a weaponized
microwave – instantly heats water beneath a target's skin to 130
degrees Fahrenheit. That's 26 degrees hotter than the maximum
temperature recommended for hot tubs by the U.S. Consumer Product
Safety Commission.

Test subjects say being actively denied feels like having your entire
body wrapped around a light bulb; no one has been able to stand it
for more than three seconds. "I was one of the dummies who
volunteered," said Richard Garcia, a spokesman for the Directed
Energy Directorate at Kirtland Air Force Base.

Revolutionary idea

Nonlethal weapons could soon revolutionize the way battles are fought
and law enforcement operates. But first, researchers must clear the
high hurdle of human testing phases and win the confidence of a
skeptical public.

After more than 70 deaths following the use of Tasers, the
electroshock guns used by police departments across the country, that
could be difficult. Human rights group Amnesty International wants to
suspend Taser sales, which reached $67.7 million last year.

Nevertheless, volunteers for nonlethal weapons – almost all of them
personally involved in the projects – sign up to be fried by
superhot beams, stunned by lasers, pounded with blunt impact
munitions, assaulted by piercing noises, momentarily blinded by light
flashes and stink-bombed.

The technology behind many nonlethal weapons is so novel, however,
that guidelines for human testing have only recently been
established, said Glenn Schwaery, director of the University of New
Hampshire's Department of Defense-funded Non-Lethal Technology
Innovation Center. That means that testers are carefully inventing
rules as they go – and then testing new weapons on themselves and
their colleagues.

Much of the testing goes on in secret at private labs or is
classified, and critics complain the government has taken a "trust
us" attitude to nonlethal weapons research. Numerous new government-
initiated oversight boards have been set up, but there's not a lot of
third-party access.

"Obviously, there are programs that we work on that are in the black
world," said Lawrence Fallow, director of public affairs for the
Human Systems Wing at Brooks City Base in San Antonio, Texas, where
weapons studies are being carried out. "But that's true of (emerging
technologies in) universities as well," he said.

This secrecy has left advocacy groups, including the Sunshine
Project, an anti-biological and chemical weapons group based in
Austin, Texas; Amnesty International; and Human Rights Watch,
clamoring for the right to see and independently analyze the data.

"We just want an understanding of how the tests are done and how they
affect people," said Mark Garlasco, a former intelligence officer at
the Pentagon and now a senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch.

Animal-rights groups also are interested. Goats were used to test the
Active Denial System, though military spokespeople say none was
harmed, and pigs have been used for other tests, including ongoing
studies on Tasers.

PETA against testing

Christopher Ford, a spokesman for People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals, said PETA used the Freedom of Information Act to request
data. "This is something we're definitely looking into," he said,
"and PETA is going to take a much more active role in getting these
kinds of studies stopped."

But military and law enforcement personnel insist the studies are
essential. Most nonlethal weapons centers were established after U.S.
soldiers came home from a humanitarian mission to hand out food in
Somalia in 1995. The mission turned into a bloody battle, and many
who came back, including former Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Central
Command Anthony Zinni, demanded options other than guns to make such
situations less deadly.

Marine Capt. Daniel McSweeney, spokesman for the military's Joint
Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, said the Active Denial System is
ideal for deterring enemies without needlessly killing civilians –
especially in situations like Iraq, where the two aren't easy to tell
apart.

Human-rights groups offer qualified support for this goal. "We're
very happy the military has developed weapons not meant to kill
people," Garlasco said. "The bottom line is that we want the testing
declassified."

"Nothing sinister"

But Dr. Nicholas Nicholas, lead scientist at the Institute for
Non-Lethal Defense Technologies, a government-affiliated research
center at Penn State University, said testing is classified primarily
to prevent potential adversaries from exploiting it. "There's nothing
ominous or sinister about it," he said.

But if the testing process is something of a mystery, it's clear that
many scientists working on these weapons test them on themselves
before anyone else.

"It would be hard for me to ask someone to do something and explain
what they're going to feel if I didn't do it myself," said Dr.
Theodore Chan of the University of California-San Diego, who had
himself shot in the face with pepper spray before shooting it at
others for a study sponsored by the Department of Justice.