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A weird and fascinating little tale from Wired‘s Danger Room:
Active Denial has long been considered the “Holy Grail” of crowd control, for its ability to penetrate just a 64th of an inch underneath the skin, and inspire people to move — fast — from the pain that ensued. To Active Denial’s boosters, that made the largely non-lethal weapon safer, more humane alternative to the M-16. But this counterinsurgency is, in many ways, a battle of perceptions. The system’s tactical advantages are far outweighed by the strategically-massive propaganda boost that the pain ray would’ve given the Taliban.