Tonight's 60 Minutes on CBS News had a segment from David Martin (cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=3897986n) discussing a "ray gun" - some sort of directed energy beam - that the Pentagon is testing for possible use as a non-lethal weapon. I had previously seen a clip on Youtube (link), which only features the part where Martin is being subjected to its effects.

The full segment mostly concentrated - and in effect sold - its use as a weapon against protesters in foreign environments, mainly Iraq. It did discuss possible domestic use, but it didn't discuss any of the ramifications of that and whether domestic use of a weapon designed for the military is a threat to our civil liberties.

And, the full segment features something quite interesting that, had I been there, would have at least caused me to do a bit of a double-take. The part that shows the beam being tested on several "demonstrators" (presumably soldiers dressed as civilians) featured some interesting signs, such as "Love for All" and "World Peace".

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but "world peace" is probably not on too many "Rage Boy" signs, nor on those in Iraq, nor on those in other hot spots around the globe. In fact, about the only place you'd see a sign like that is in the U.S, Canada, Europe, and Australia/New Zealand. Those are generally the places where the protesters are the most peaceful and least likely to, for instance, use IEDs.

The idea for the signs had to have come from somewhere, indicating that using the "ray gun" against relatively peaceful domestic protesters or in other domestic situations is one of the goals, rather than simply using it in highly dangerous foreign situations. Obviously we're going to need someone besides a stooge like David Martin to look into that side of things.