acoustic

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association is to be applauded for a marginal victory in the seemingly endless fight against homegrown Winter Olympics totalitarianism. But make no mistake: it is a very marginal win, at best. The Vancouver police purchased the American Technology Corp.’s LRAD-500X acoustic beam generator, supposedly for use as a loudhailer at public gatherings and protests. Both the police and American Technology object to media references to the device as a “sound gun”, a “sonic cannon”, or a non-lethal weapon. But it has been used that way in the field, and the VPD has effectively conceded the point by agreeing, under BCCLA pressure, to disable a device setting that allows the LRAD to generate “powerful deterrent tones… to influence behaviour.”