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Technology Stocks : ATCO -- Breakthrough in Sound Reproduction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lee Barrineau who wrote (345)	5/6/1998 12:22:00 PM
From: Urlman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2062

Here's some more "mishagas" from the military Acoustical Weapons Nonlethal acoustical weapons also range from the mundane to the extraordinary as described below. High-intensity Sound. High-intensity sound sets the ear drum in motion. These vibrations cause the inner ear to initiate nerve impulses that the brain registers as sound.64 The inner ear regulates the spatial orientation of the body. If the ear is subjected to high-intensity sound, the individual may experience imbalance.65 Low-frequency, high-intensity sound may cause other organs to resonate, causing a number of physiological results, including death.66 The British use high-intensity sound as a means of riot control in Northern Ireland. The Curdler is a device that emits a high "shrieking noise at irregular intervals."67 The sound is emitted at levels lower than the pain threshold. The assessment of high-intensity sound as a legal weapon must be reviewed in terms of "unnecessary suffering." If the acoustical weapon emits sounds below the pain threshold, then unnecessary suffering is not an issue. If the sound does inflict pain, the suffering must be balanced against military necessity. It may be lawful to use high-intensity sound against an attacking force, although some of the attackers may experience dis-orientation, pain, or even death. As noted earlier when discussing the legality of blinding soldiers, it is permissible to injure a combatant even with a wound that may incapacitate the soldier for a period exceeding the term of the hostilities. Combatants have been rendered deaf from conventional warfare, or have even been disoriented from the confusion of the battle. The use of high-intensity sound as a weapon to disorient, or to cause pain or death, does not constitute unnecessary suffering. However, acoustical weapons run the risk of being an indiscriminate weapon. The release of highintensity sound would impose the same degree of damage on the noncombatant as the combatant. It may be used only in circumstances in which the damage to noncombatants is merely incidental in proportion to the necessity of the military objective. Infrasound. This is a powerful ultralow frequency (ULF) sonic weapon that can penetrate buildings and vehicles and can be directional and tunable. As a weapon infrasound, lowfrequency sound entails the same concerns as highintensity sound. After being exposed to highintensity infrasound, a subject suffers from disorientation and reduced ability to perform simple sensorymotor tasks.68 At elevated levels, experimental animals cease breathing temporarily.69 The principles and findings regarding highintensity sound would apply to infrasound. The suffering would be no greater than that experienced by conventional weapons. The suffering must be proportionate to the military objectives. The sound must be applied so that damage to noncombatants is incidental in light of the military objective. Unfortunately, large banks of speakers are required to provide directionality, and the power demands are enormous.70 Area denial is a very plausible mission for such a device as the level of pain or damage increases predictably as range decreases. Sonic Bullets. These are packets of sonic energy that are propelled toward the target. The Russians apparently have a portable device that can propel a 10-Hertz (Hz) sonic packet the size of a baseball hundreds of yards. When employed against humans, the energy can be selected to result in nonlethal or lethal damage.71 The sonic bullet uses direct sonic energy. If the energy can be controlled so that it is used only against lawful combatants, the concerns surrounding acoustical weapons may be reduced or eliminated. Deference Tones. These are sophisticated arrays that can project a voice or other sound to a particular location. The resulting sound can only be heard at that particular location.72 Deference tones, a means of projecting sound, would not directly cause injury upon the enemy. Its use must be in accordance with the constraints of the law of armed conflict. For example, if the tone is generating a sound such as an SOS signal, the enemy has an obligation to respond to that sound. If the SOS sound is used to lure the enemy to a place where they will be ambushed, such a use of the tone would be perfidious and therefore illegal. Informational Weapons Recently, a new class of nonlethal weapons has drawn considerable interest in defense circles as well as in international law. Two types of such weapons are discussed below. Voice Synthesis. This is the ability to clone a person's voice and broadcast a synthesized message to a selected audience. The propaganda value of this technique in our highly mediadependent world would be enormous. We currently have the ability to control the broadcasts of foreign radio and television stations by using orbiting platforms packed with electronic gear. In considering whether it is legal to clone a persons voice in order to gain a military advantage, it is important to determine whose voice is being cloned. In most cases, it would be realistic to expect that the voice cloned would be that of a political leader or a military officer. The cloned voice might give orders to the enemy combatant that might prove detrimental to the combatant. The combatant would most likely be under an obligation to follow these orders. That obligation, however, is owed to his own chain of command and is not under the law of armed conflict. Treacherous acts, those which abuse an obligation to be truthful under the law of armed conflict, are illegal. But if there is no obligation to be truthful under the law of armed conflict, then the misinformation amounts to a lawful ruse. Morris Greenspan, a prominent writer in the field of international law, notes that examples of legitimate ruses are "making use of the enemy's signals, bugle and trumpet calls, watchwords, and words of command."73 Giving orders by voice is analogous to giving orders by bugle calls or signals. Cloning a voice would not violate the law of armed conflict. SOURCE: cdsar.af.mil