 "Photo: John Wayne Ferguson")
Sitting on Glenn Shwaery's office desk in Kingsbury Hall is what appears to be an eighth grader's science project - a collection of metallic pipes, wooden supports and knobs that could pass for a hand-held telescope under construction.
The device is in fact a prototype for a light-emitting ray gun designed to seek out people's retinas and temporarily blind them - a tool for authorities to control unruly suspects or crowds. The invention, called the Smart Dazzler, is one of many at the Non-Lethal Technology Innovations Center at UNH, one of two hubs of the U.S. military's program of research at university campuses across the country on ways to control people without killing or seriously injuring them.
While not exactly secret, the center, overseen by Shwaery for the Department of Defense, does not go out of its way to advertise its work. Research is conducted at universities across the country including the other hub, Penn State, as well as the University of Central Florida, the University of Florida, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Seton Hall University, Old Dominion University, and others.
The non-lethal weapons program at UNH and the other universities is funded in part by a $60 million annual Department of Defense budget, according to John Keenan, a director of Science and Technology at the Pentagon's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate.
Many inventions, both under development and still on the drawing board, seem to come straight from the pages of comic books. They range from heat rays that make your skin feel like it is on fire to guns that blast deafening sounds, substances that make people fall down or hold still, and holograms that project terrifying images on a battlefield.
"We are where the initial brainstorming begins," Shwaery said. "So everything but the most bizarre ideas are up for consideration."
"Ideally, we would want a phaser that could freeze our enemies like Captain Kirk used to do on Star Trek," Keenan said. "I don't think we'll stop until we reach that point and we are certainly not there yet."
Supporters of the research, including many in law enforcement and the military, say non-lethal weapons represent a more humane approach to the business of keeping civil order and conducting war.
"If I had to choose between a hand gun and a potentially non-lethal weapon, I would take the non-lethal weapon," Tim Pirdan of the UNH's ROTC Wildcat Battalion said. "That's what it comes down to out there."
But to others, such as Elizabeth Wolff, a journalist for New Hampshire Indie Media and social justice activist, the tools developed here represent a darker reality: a tempting new set of means to assert power over people who would exercise their right to assemble and speak freely. They warn of a host of unintended consequences for public safety and health and the potential, in the wrong hands, for these weapons to apply physical torture on a wide scale. For these reasons, human rights watchdogs have pressured the military to be more open about the weapons in development.
Mark Garlasco, a former Pentagon Chief and the current military analyst for Human Rights Watch, said he has concerns about this new technology and how it is used.
"The onus is on U.S. Military to show that they are going to use these weapons properly," said Garlasco.
STUFF OF COMIC BOOKS
Many of the weapons under development in the non-lethal weapons program - on computer screens at UNH and on proving grounds around the country - sound like the stuff of fantasy. Many are designed to trip-up, annoy and repulse crowds, such as a water-based, biodegradable, slippery goo that can be used to prevent people and vehicles from crossing bridges or entering restricted zones.
"The only problem is that you'd need a lot of this stuff to cover a bridge or a pathway, and soldiers don't want to lug fifty pounds of liquid goo around," Shwaery said. "So we've thought about using a remote-controlled flying robot to carry and deploy the stuff."
The gizmo sitting on Glenn Shwaery's desk is the brainchild of UNH researchers - a weapon that Shwaery said may someday be in the hands of U.S. police and military. Like a spitting cobra, the high-powered laser is able to lock on to and follow a person's retinas to deliver a flash of light that will make its target see spots for about 30 seconds.
The Smart Dazzler has been tested for safety and will not cause permanent damage to vision, Shwaery said. Living up to its moniker, the Smart Dazzler can also adapt its flash to distance and darkness. On a pitch-black night it will not flash as brightly. It can even detect if its target is wearing sunglasses and flash more brightly to compensate.
Another device in the works is a gun that blasts sound waves. The acoustic gun, called a Long Range Audio Device, boasts a decibel level that would put even the most high-end car audio system to shame - delivering painful noise in a concentrated beam.
Researchers have worked hard to find the most irritating noises possible so that police and military can use it to deter crowds. The most offensive noise so far: a baby's cry played backwards.
Police in some districts and the Navy are outfitted with acoustic guns. But due to the fact it is still in safety testing, it is only being used as a bullhorn to communicate with other officers over long distances.
Some non-lethal devices focus on stopping cars and their drivers and could be used to prevent car chases. These weapons include expandable foam that could be shot into a vehicle and a remote control that would stop car engines with the click of a button.
In the concept stage, Shwaery said, are more outlandish weapons such as enormous holograms to incite fear in soldiers on a battlefield.
However, in a case of truth being stranger than fiction, the military is already using robots in Iraq to conduct perimeter checks to tell how many people are in a building and whether they are civilians or enemy combatants.
The center at UNH has worked on outfitting these robots with non-lethal weapons such as the Smart Dazzler.
THE PROGRAM'S BEGINNINGS
Political and military analysts say non-lethal weapons are likely to play a greater role in the post 9/11 world - where the United States is involved in many conflicts abroad with enemies who blend in with the civilian population.
Non-lethal weapons such as tear gas have been used by the U.S. Military for decades. The 1990s marked the beginning of taser and pepper spray use by U.S. law enforcement and an upsurge of interest on behalf of the military in pursuing groundbreaking, new non-lethal technology.
Support for current non-lethal weapons initiatives is credited to General Anthony Zinni, who, upon returning from chaotic combat in Somalia in 1996, advocated for advancing their research in the United States. Non-lethal weapons, he reasoned, could be used in peacekeeping settings where American soldiers needed to neutralize threats in crowds of civilians. The directors of the Pentagon agreed with Zinni's analysis and so began the Joint Non-lethal Weapons Directorate, a branch of the Department of Defense charged with researching non-lethal technology.
"They didn't want slow, evolutionary changes," Shwaery said. "They wanted revolutionary changes in technology."
In the 1990s, the Department of Defense put out a request for proposals to oversee a non-lethal weapons program. UNH answered it, and in 1999 got the role - thanks to then-Senator Robert Smith advocating for the research to come to the Granite State.
Since then, the Non-Lethal Technology Innovations Center has been the principal subcontractor for research to other universities.
Over the history of the program, Shwaery's center awarded $6.5 million in research grants to 15 academic institutions across the country. Most of the $3 million of research conducted here at UNH has been virtual testing done behind a computer screen rather than the physical development of weapons.
Though the Non-Lethal Technology Innovation Center's website lists the laboratory as closed, Shwaery is still working off of old grant money in the Kingsbury lab and said he is not worried about the future of the program. He is currently in talks with UNH to iron out a new contract to keep the lab open.
"It has been a very successful program and the Pentagon has no plans to stop this research anytime soon," said Shwaery. "We have a good chance of getting funding from the Department of Justice, which will begin work on the law enforcement side of it."
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