An IMC reporter called in to tell me that the police, earlier in the protest, were using noise weapons to push people back. These things were mounted on the handlebars of police bicycles.

People shouted "turn them off, turn them off" until, finally, the police turned off the noisemakers.

At its peak, the march had around 1,000 people at the Westwood Federal building.

Here are some articles about sonic weapons:

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001741.html

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/03/03/sonic.weapon.ap/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_weaponry

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4857417

In addition to gas masks, now remember to bring ear plugs when you go out to protest.

Imagine 30 of these little fuckers mounted on cop bicycles it was high pitched and REALLY LOUD. There was no need for the LAPD to use them. The crowd was peaceful and in no way threatening the police.

I think that they just wanted to test them. All they succeeded in doing was to piss off people. Protesters held their ground and chanted “TURN THEM OFF, TURN THEM OFF”. For awhile there was a brief noise war as protesters with whistles, a saxophone and chants faced off against the police and their sonic assault. Police did turn them off after awhile. And people then chanted SHAME, SHAME.

I don't know what they expected us to do, or what kind of "intel" (snicker) they thought they had, but they were decked out and deployed like they were about to face the Iraqi insurgency or something. Massive numbers, riot gear, flying motorcycle squads, unmarked cars galore, SUVs with running boards on the side for officers to stand on, and all of them zooming back and forth along Wilshire Boulevard all day long with sirens squealing. Man, that must have cost somebody (us) a lot of money.

Also it was really cute how they had squads of between ten and twenty motorcycle units, and sometimes a car or two, following each little detachment of protesters on the sidewalk heading from Figueroa to Alvarado. The group I was walking with stopped in its tracks a few times just to make the cops stop, which corked up traffic and gave drivers more time to read our signs. It wasn't so cute when a few of the motorcycle cops deliberately knocked up against some people while squeezing between a traffic island and the crowd, as the procession moved from Alvarado to Normandie.

And then, every now and again you'd see an individual cop say or do something genuinely helpful or at least non-mean, so who knows? And the mountain bike ballet that the bicycle cops performed for us every ten or twenty minutes during the afternoon was certainly a joy to watch. Is this what they do now instead of bagpipes and drum-and-bugle corps? They ought to consider incorporating some trackstands, bunny-hops, and prolonged wheelies into their routine.

A peaceful, diplomatic protest is far more of a threat than a violent one. So guess what, police endeavor to provoke violence.

Oh really? How so?

This long page has lots of advice:

http://www.entnet.org/healthinfo/hearing/noise_hearing.cfm

Note that they say cotton or wadded tissue cuts the energy by only 7dB. That's still ok in my book, if you're hearing a very loud wall of sound. It could cut something from 95dB to 88dB.

Hearing, like teeth, only get worse with age. Preserve what you've got.

cigarette butts work.
Ear plugs are also cheap and they cut the noise by 45 db.

You can buy walkman-like headphones that produce sound waves synchronized such that they cancel out an external sound. These devices are not very expensive and they are designed to work against monotonous sounds (like jet engines). If the sound used by the police is monotonous, these might work much better than ear plugs.

Also, if anyone's hearing was damaged or if anyone suffered pain as a result of the sonic attacks, they may wish to get a lawyer and sue the police for assault, since the police attack was unprovoked. You should treat these weapons the same way you would treat clubs.

>You can buy walkman-like headphones that produce sound waves synchronized such that they cancel out an external sound.

noise canceling is only effective for lower frequency sounds that aren't too loud

the shrill scream of these mechanical sirens is way too high and loud

earplugs or muffs are the only effective means - although paper/cotton plugs work poorly dry, they work quite well wet.

so a good countermeasure is to take a piece of tissue paper and wet it then stick it in your ears

sometimes I have to do this when I forget my earplugs as emergency poor-man's earplugs, but rarely as I carry several spares normally

I have a special earphone that fits completely in my ear which functions as a good earplug as well - I usually listen to music (a MuVo) but you can use it as an amplified listener (I took a watch radio and removed and modified the radio part, first adjusting the de-emphasis, made it much louder and added a tiny volume control, then a switch and tiny microphone)

so I can say it's a hearing aid and prove it if questioned

the listener will allow you to hear normally but it can't handle loud sounds and so limits them to a safe level - better ones have dynamic compression so they don't distort..

I wear an earplug in one ear and my earpiece in the other..

Cotton, tissue paper, etc. won't cut it. They may help a little (a very little) if you didn't bring earplugs, but...bring earplugs. Try to get the lightweight, tapered ones like these these; they should be available at any hardware or industrial supply store. Get the kind without little cords or strings attached, because they just get caught on things and pull your earplugs out.

About $30 for a box of 200 pair--a lifetime supply for you and a couple of friends, if this is all you use them for.

They antagonize the crowd as a child would a sibling to provoke a violent response. Thus supplying reasons to arrest people. These extremes shouldn't be used against peaceful protestors, its damned near violation of the crowds right to protest.

By Bruce V. Bigelow
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
November 9, 2005

Woody Norris has given new meaning to the term "Horn of Africa."

Pirates who attacked a luxury cruise ship off the eastern coast of Africa on Saturday were repelled at least partly by a nonlethal acoustic weapon the Poway inventor developed for American Technology Corp.

"We don't have the details, except that it was an LRAD that they used," said Robert Putnam, a spokesman for the San Diego company. Norris developed the LRAD, or Long-Range Acoustic Device, for military use as a hailing and warning device, Putnam said.

The disk-shaped transmitter can emit an ear-splitting warning noise akin to a fire alarm as well as jackhammer-like pulses that can travel nearly two-thirds of a mile. At the limit of its range, the sound produced by the LRAD, is roughly 95 decibels – equivalent to standing a few feet away from a speeding subway train or chain saw.

Like a bullhorn, the device can be used to issue a verbal challenge to someone more than 1,600 feet away. An innovative design enables the LRAD to focus its acoustic energy within a relatively narrow 30-degree beam that acts like a "sound tunnel."

Putnam said he did not know if the ship's crew issued a verbal challenge to the pirates before the LRAD blared more punishing, high-intensity sounds.

The crew also fended off the attackers with water hoses as the cruise ship Seabourn Spirit changed course and moved away, using its wake to thwart the pirates' small boats. The 10,000-ton ship is seven decks high and 439 feet long, with a cruising speed of 16 knots, or just 18.4 miles per hour.

The attack occurred about 100 miles off the coast of Somalia, after the Spirit rounded the Horn of Africa on a 16-day cruise from Alexandria, Egypt, to Mombasa, Kenya. The cruise liner was carrying 151 passengers and a crew of 161.

As two small motorboats approached the Spirit, pirates began firing rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns at the ship, operated by Miami-based Seabourn Cruise Line, a Carnival Corp. subsidiary. No passengers were injured, and just one crew member was wounded.

Bruce Good, a Seabourn spokesman, yesterday declined to confirm that the Spirit used the acoustic device to dishearten the pirates, saying the company does not discuss its security practices. He had discussed those details the previous day, however, in accounts published by The Miami Herald and the Associated Press.

Attacks on cruise ships are rare, according to Michael Crye, president of the International Council of Cruise Lines, an industry lobbying group. He told the Associated Press this was the first incident since Palestinian terrorists hijacked the Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean in 1985 and killed a wheelchair-bound American.

Cruise lines usually are reluctant to disuss their security precautions, saying they fear such information could help other pirates or terrorists plot future attacks. They also worry that disclosing such details could discourage business, as passenger bookings for Mediterranean cruises declined sharply after the Achille Laro incident.

What may be baleful publicity for the cruise line, however, was viewed as a bonanza at American Technology.

"This type of event over the weekend gives us a chance to show what we've accomplished and say, 'Yes there is a need for this type of product and technology,' " Putnam said.

Norris began tinkering with the LRAD technology at the military's request following the Oct. 12, 2000, attack on the U.S. destroyer Cole by a suicide bomber in a small boat in a port in Yemen.

Since the company began selling the device in mid-2003, Putnam estimated that more than 1,000 units have been sold to the U.S. Army, Navy and Marines. He estimated that about 300 LRADs are being used by military forces in Iraq at security checkpoints and to occasionally disrupt and drive insurgents out of buildings.

A basic LRAD measures 33 inches across and weighs 45 pounds. The cost ranges from $20,000 to $30,000 apiece.

Norris had been tinkering with a related technology that focuses hypersonic sound waves into relatively narrow beams. The Pentagon was searching for an improved hailing and warning device that could be used by sentries to determine the intent of approaching individuals, vehicles and boats.

A college dropout, the 67-year-old Norris holds nearly 50 patents, including many that cover various types of acoustic technologies. Earlier this year, Norris received what he described as "the Nobel Prize of inventing," the $500,000 annual Lemelson-MIT Prize, the largest single cash award for invention in the United States.

He founded American Technology in 1980 and still serves as chairman. But over the past 25 years, the company has never posted a profit. It has an accumulated deficit of more than $49 million as of June 30, according to regulatory filings.

Norris founded the company to develop ideas he had for radio technologies, without much success. The company "was dormant" from 1987 to 1992, Putnam said. Norris revived operations in 1992 and began working on LRAD's underlying acoustic technology in 1996.

American Technology reported about $5.7 million in sales last year and expects to generate more than $10 million for the fiscal year that ended in September, Putnam said.

The company has often financed its operations by issuing additional shares of its stock. It has more than 24.2 million shares outstanding now, and officials disclosed plans last month to sell more than 4.6 million shares.

Norris also founded two other high-tech ventures in San Diego – Patriot Scientific and e.Digital Corp. – that have posted similar financial results.

Putnam, who has worked with Norris at all three companies, maintained yesterday that LRAD sales are increasing and the company's outlook is brightening.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Bruce Bigelow: (619) 293-1314; bruce.bigelow@uniontrib.com

"Palestinian terrorists hijacked the Achille Lauro"
No you're wrong.
This was a Mossad operation.
See:
The hi-jacking of the Italian cruise ship the Achille Lauro by "Palestinian terrorists" was later reliably reported by former IDF arms dealer Ari Ben-Menashe in his 1992 book, Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network, to have been ordered and funded by Mossad.

-Besides having a motive, Israel apparently had the means to attack the USS Cole. On October 19, BBC News Online reported: "Samples of explosives taken from the destroyer had been identified by US investigators as of a type available only in Israel, the USA, and two Arab countries."-
skipping down in this article...
-Former Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky told the New York based Village Voice in 1993 that Israeli intelligence may have been behind the World Trade Center bombing. Desperate to crack down on another Palestinian intifada, and draw media attention away from 400 freezing Palestinians expelled to Lebanon by Israel, Israel needed a plan to discredit the Palestinians. Ostrovsky admitted that he didn't have "a shred of evidence" to support his theory.

Besides having a motive, Israel apparently had the means to attack the USS Cole. On October 19, BBC News Online reported: "Samples of explosives taken from the destroyer had been identified by US investigators as of a type available only in Israel, the USA, and two Arab countries."

And the navy itself has cast doubt on the "facts" surrounding the bombing.

Roberto Suro and Alan Sipress of the Washington Post wrote on October 21: "the Navy now says, the apparent suicide attack took place more than 90 minutes after mooring had been completed... The revision casts doubt on previous assertions by top Navy commanders that the bombing was virtually unpreventable because the small boat blended in with harbor workboats helping the U.S. warship tie up to a fueling station in the port of Aden."
http://www.twf.org/News/Y2000/1031-Cole.html

The potential abuse of acoustic weapons by law enforment is explored in this article: http://www.angelfire.com/blog/thecrime/index.html

You mean that a former Mossad agent like Victor Ostrowsky would *deceive* us?
After all I just going from what he has said.
-Case in point, Victor Ostrowsky, a former Mossad agent writes in his book, “By Way of Deception, “ that a classic case of Mossad operations was the hijacking of the ship Achilles Lauro, which was purportedly hijacked by Palestinian fighters, and resulted in the death of a wheel chair bound passenger, Mr.Klinghofer.-
http://www.pakdef.info/forum/showthread.php?t=5500

I can't have been the only one to read this book. It's in the library.
Maybe *you* should read it.
By Way of Deception
by Victor Ostrowsky

Forty two (42) years from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) 1957 hearing loss only is the Boston, VA ENT Chief’s "the Veterans signs and symptoms of Meniere's Disease [medically known since 1861] clearly are documented in his" [USAF 1952-1956] "service record" with his "A STRESS REACTION MAY PRECIPITATE AN EPISODE (OF MENIERES DISEASE) AND CYCLES MAY REPEAT ENDLESSLY" and "THERE IS NO RELIABLE TREATMENT"; Emphasis added.[4] It is this hearing loss, persistent tinnitus with severe nausea and vertigo attacks that resulted in the loss of a third generation medical practice, business failures and unemployment.
50 YEARS LATER!

In 2006 VA locally awarded was a 100% unemployability disability. Cited was the Social Security Administrative Law Judge 1996 early SSDI "disability benefits solely as a result of his service connected condition." Based on the veterans supplied 1995 VA "certified" records.

A VA OVERSIGHT?

In 1957 the VA Boston, MA. Regional Office requested and stamped as received the original 1952 to 1956 service records. The local VA 1957 Rating Board's 10% disability hearing loss only. Their examining physician's 1958 submission of the Board's overlooked Rating evidence to the USAF. Two (2) months later the resultant USAF SURGEON'S 1958 "Permanently" "Medically disqualified for military service".[3] Six (6) months after that a 1959 "Honorable Discharge" with "Recommended for reenlistment - Yes"!

In 1991 acting on the advice of HMO physicians the veteran went back to the VA. In 1994 a VA Criminal Investigator noted as misplaced the original VA 1957 received records. In 1995 a VA Hearing Officer "certified" the veterans retained copies as part of the disability file. The Boston, VA ENT Chief’s 1999 "the Veterans signs and symptoms of Meniere's Disease clearly are documented in his service record".[4] In 2005 the VA rediscovered the misplaced 1957 service documentation!

A 699,051X PLUS OVER PRESSURIZATION!

A 1952-1956 USAF Jet Aircraft Mechanic. A picked "volunteer" member of a special F86-D Flight Test evaluation group. An unprotected repeated exposure to its J47 jet-engines' over 699,051 afterburner sound pressure multiple. The prior to 1949 researched and developed ear muffs, flight line noise protection was not available. An exposure that resulted in an 8 day 1953 sick & dizzy (nausea & vertigo) hospitalization. After there was Aviation Cadet training. During which was the USAF Physician's 1954 Cadet Wing Commander washout exam’s, "Had some trouble with hearing while working on warm-up crew for F86-D with very high noise levels." This is an unprotected 1952-1956 PROJECT 7210, J47 jet-engine, from a 60 decibel (dB.) normal hearing base, 158 dB. to over 176 dB. Noise level.[1] An American Medical Association (AMA) 87,381 to over 699,051 sound pressure multiple (X).[2] Reassigned back to the same base and Flight Test position. A USAF Physician's 6 months after the washout exam get him off the flight line memo! Then the year later 1955 USAF Physician's do not expose to "loud acoustic trauma". The 1956 Separation from Service recorded perfect health with the 1953, 8 days sick & dizzy (nausea & vertigo) as an in-hospital "4 DAY COLD". Not known is the AMA, for each 6 dB. increase sound pressure doubles, beyond the 699,051X (at 176 dB.) unprotected afterburner over pressurization![2] In 1956 the veteran's NCOIC said go to the VA.

David H. Marshall

REFERENCES (3 & 4 available on request):

[1] USAF PROJECT 7210 "A COMPILATION OF TURBOJET NOISE DATA", BOLT BERANEK & NEWMAN, INC. CAMBRIDGE 38, MA. Sound pressure levels for all jet-engines in-service. Conducted at Wright Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) DAYTON, OHIO in 1952. 1954 logged in as the 401st report for that year published as REPORT 54-401 July 1956.

[2] American Medical Association (A.M.A.) Family Medical Guide Third Edition pages 364-366 with the for each 6 dB. increase sound pressure doubles and the 60 dB. Normal hearing noise level.

[3] USAF 6/25/58 "PERMANENTLY MEDICALLY DISQUALIFIED" and VA PHYSICIAN'S 4/3/58 "NO VESTIBULAR FUNCTION". Document Scan conversion to Word Perfect 12.

[4] BOSTON, MA. VA ENT CHIEF'S 9/15/99 "CLEARLY ARE DOCUMENTED IN HIS SERVICE RECORD." Document Scan conversion to Word Perfect 12.