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FWIW: these have been reported to be in active use against the Portland protesters. It's so frustrating that HN chooses the gadget puff piece to push to the to
by newacct583 6y ago
FWIW: these have been reported to be in active use against the Portland protesters. It's so frustrating that HN chooses the gadget puff piece to push to the top of the front page instead of the actual deployed weapons.
Most especially because the much-lower-power pocket laser pointers have been cited by the white house directly as having "permanently blinded" federal agents. (Consumer red/green lasers are extraordinarily unlikely to cause permanent blindness, that's why they're available to consumers. You'd have to hold them on the same spot in your retina for minutes to kill cells thermally, the frequency won't do it alone.)
Edit: yes, folks, I'm talking about laser pointers. Obviously these things are poorly regulated and folks can get all kinds of crazy dangerous things online. There's zero evidence that any of them are in use by protesters in Portland. There's some shots of kids with clicky pointers.
- LatteLazy 6y agoFyi, lasers aren't safe/dangerous because of their power output but because they are so perfectly parallel. The human eye takes diverging light and turns in into a parallel beam to make images. The same lense takes a parallel beam and makes it focus onto a spot. Focusing to a near zero sized spot makes even very low powers blindingly bright... The same is true for the sun (enormous distance means near parallel rays).
- hprotagonist 6y agosee also LRADs :(
- valuearb 6y agoRTFA: It’s not the same, the Navy laser has a distance control that disables it if it’s close enough to damage someone’s eyesight. It’s only usable at long distances.
- hajile 6y agoDiffusion rates are highly dependent on a lot of environmental factors. I doubt they can predict enough of these with enough reliability to ensure they are not causing damage. Finally, there's zero evidence that laser light sufficient to blind temporarily isn't also sufficient to cause permanent damage.
- rimjongun 6y agoThat’s literally made up. Countless studies are there for the googling.
- hajile 6y agoThe Red Cross has held this position for decades. The human eye (depending on the person) magnifies light 100,000-500,000 times. The inverse square law means that only minor variations in distance can have large differences in effective light (yes, laser irradiance conforms to this law of physics). As the ICRC points out, the levels to "temporarily blind" are extremely close to the levels that cause permanent eye damage. Handheld rangefinders can and do make mistakes. Safety level ratings are based on a 0.25 second blink response. If the laser misjudges range for just that short of a time because there's an obstacle, unintentional electronic interference, or even incidental atmospheric reflection, the laser output could cause permanent injury. Corneal reflex and fatigue. Not a lot of research there, but there are indications that while blinking increases in general, corneal reflexes decline which would drastically increase effective exposure. Fatigue is definitely something associated with combat. Finally, this is NOT theoretical. The military has admitted to injuries to their own troops from its use proving it happens. They would NEVER willingly admit if an enemy were blinded as that would open them up to an international incident and lawsuits. https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/misc/57jmcz.htm https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/misc/57jmcz.... https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328516-400-should-police-and-coastguards-use-laser-dazzlers/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328516-400-should-p... https://www.longdom.org/open-access/chorioretinal-injury-caused-by-presumed-laser-dazzler-2161-1076-4-191.pdf https://www.longdom.org/open-access/chorioretinal-injury-cau...
- xendo 6y agoAny sources on either of the claims? I know nothing about portland, but you can buy 5W lasers which can easily burn through stuff.
- tozeur 6y agoYou can easily buy class 3 and 4 lasers which can permanently damage your eyes. I have one for astrophotography alignment. So yes, the protestors are definitely using harmful lasers, as well as the police I’m sure. https://www.laserpointerpro.com/attribute/class_class-iiib-lasers_113 https://www.laserpointerpro.com/attribute/class_class-iiib-l...
- Loughla 6y agoGood Christ, some of those lasers are just amazingly strong.
- detaro 6y agoIf by "consumer" you mean the things sold for presentations, given away as advertising gifts (red ones), then yes. If you mean ones you can easily buy online, they can be quite scary power-wise. (And green ones are an infrared laser sent into a frequency-doubling crystal. A well-made one is well-aligned and has a filter stopping stray IR. A bad one might just pump out a bunch of IR too, without anyone knowing)
- cwhiz 6y agoYou can buy or build a laser that can cause permanent blindness. There is ample evidence of protesters using lasers. Where is your evidence of federal agents using lasers?
- refurb 6y agoUsed against Portland protestors? From the videos I've seen, it's the "protestors" using them against the police. https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1286914458032332800 https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1286914458032332800
- newacct583 6y agoThat's exactly the point. It's the same thing. But it's a cool weapon gadget presented here, when it's a horrifying atrocity that demands tear gas and brutality when used by the "other side". It's this weaponization of "bothsidesism" that I'm having trouble with. We've got an almost 100% peaceful protest of hippies going on every night for two months, but what posters here want to talk about is the fancy anti-riot gear being used against them.
- rimjongun 6y agoI think to call it almost 100% peaceful is not meeting us in good faith. That’s simply nowhere approaching the truth.
- newacct583 6y agoWhat's your estimate then? I mean... I'm here in Portland. I can drive right by downtown (drove straight through Ground Zero at main and 3rd just this morning). I see the hippies. I don't see violence. Show me the violence. Tell me why I need to support tear gassing these kids every night for two months. No one will. But I see people vote up these posts about "yay lasers!" instead. I'm out of patience here. I can see with my own eyes who the bad guys are, so can you, and yet... "look! lasers!"
- DuskStar 6y agoWell, "no violence that I have personally seen during the day" doesn't really have any relevance to "is there violence during the night" - and all the police brutality / protester violence / arson etc videos I've seen from Portland have been at night.