Pentagon attacked for `pulse' gun that inflicts long-distance pain
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   Independent, The (London), Mar 5, 2005 by Andrew Buncombe

   THE PENTAGON is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop a
   new "energy pulse" weapon that can deliver a jolt of excruciating pain
   from  more  than  a mile away. Researchers have expressed outrage that
   work used to control pain is now being used to develop such a weapon.

   The weapons being developed in Florida involve so-called Pulsed Energy
   Projectiles  (PEPs),  which fire a laser pulse that in turn generate a
   burst  of  expanding  plasma  when it hits something solid. It has the
   power  to cause temporary paralysis and could knock a person off their
   feet.

   But  documents  uncovered  by  the  Sunshine  Project, a biotechnology
   watchdog, also reveal that the same technology could be used to kill a
   person.

   One  document, a contract between the Office of Naval Research and the
   University  of  Florida  in  Gainesville,  where the research is being
   carried  out,  is  headlined  "Sensory consequences of electromagnetic
   pulses emitted by laser-induced plasmas".

   It says: "The full capability of these directed energy weapons systems
   are  still being explored. At their current stage of development, each
   system  has  clear  lethal  and non-lethal capacities ... Our research
   will  examine  the  feasibility  of PEP as a new generation non-lethal
   weapon."
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   A  2003  review  of  non-lethal weapons by the US Naval Studies Board,
   which  advises the Navy and Marine Corps, said PEPs produced "pain and
   temporary  paralysis"  in tests on animals. It is understood that this
   was  achieved  by  producing  an electromagnetic pulse produced by the
   expanding plasma, which triggered impulses in nerve cells.

   The  new $500,000 (pounds 250,000) study looks to optimise this effect
   and  discover  how  to  generate  a  pulse which triggers pain neurons
   without  damaging  tissue.  The  contract  adds:  "Pain  is  a primary
   component  of  all  non-lethal  weapons.  Pain  can distract and deter
   individuals, resulting in voluntary imobilsation or flight."

   A  Marine Corps spokesman, Captain Dan McSweeney, said last night that
   the primary aim of the research was not to develop a weapon capable of
   creating extreme pain, but to provide military commanders with greater
   combat  flexibility.  He  said  that  given  the  increasingly complex
   situations  US  troops  were  operating in, such as Iraq, where it was
   often   difficult   to  distinguish  insurgents  from  civilians,  the
   non-lethal weapons could provide a "more humane" option.

   "There  has  been  a  lot  in  the  press that this is about producing
   something  that  could  be  used for torture. I fully refute that," he
   said.

   "Could  any  of  these  systems be used for torture? I cannot rule out
   that they could, but in the same way that a glass of water or a combat
   boot  or  a  pen  could  be.  We  are totally against the use of these
   systems for torture."

   But  researchers  have  expressed outrage that work originally done to
   help understand how to relieve pain was now being used to produce such
   a weapon.

   "I  am  deeply  concerned about the ethical aspects of this research,"
   Andrew  Rice, a consultant in pain medicine at Chelsea and Westminster
   hospital  in  London, told New Scientist magazine. "Even if the use of
   severe  pain can be justified as a restraining measure, which I do not
   believe  it  can, the long-term physical and psychological effects are
   unknown."