Havana Syndrome, Long Live Brody.

[Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many]

we need freedom to keep working

On 2/17/23, Gunnar Larson <g at xny.io> wrote:
> Where are the logs?
>
> LET CYPHERPUNKS EVERYWHERE KNOW BRODY LARSON HAS A SUPREME COURT DECISION
> ON HAVANA SYNDROME:
> https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/havana-syndrome-part-2-how-a-dogs-brain-may-help-solve-the-mystery-of-canadian-diplomats-cuban-nightmare
> .
>
> LONG LIVE BRODY.
>
> What a great dog.
>
> ------
>
> Judge Robert Sweet rejected the argument, ruling, “This is force, and the
> kind that could be used excessively.”
>
> The de Blasio administration appealed the decision, but in 2018 the 2nd
> Circuit affirmed it, forcefully rejecting the City’s argument that
> subjecting people to dangerously loud sound isn’t a use of force. “Even
> though sound waves are a novel method for deploying force,” the court wrote
> in its opinion, “the effect of an LRAD’s area denial function is familiar:
> pain and incapacitation.”
>
> The 2nd Circuit also reaffirmed that just because there isn’t case law
> governing a new technology for hurting people, that doesn’t give police a
> blank check to use that technology however they want. “Novel technology,”
> the court wrote, “does not entitle an officer to qualified immunity.”
>
> Still unwilling to concede the point, the de Blasio administration
> petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 to overturn the lower courts’
> rulings, but the court declined to hear the request.
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 12, 2023, 8:49 AM Gunnar Larson <g at xny.io> wrote:
>
>>
>> https://gothamist.com/news/city-settles-lawsuit-protesters-who-accused-nypd-firing-sound-cannon-them
>>
>>
>> The City has agreed to pay $748,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by Black
>> Lives Matter protesters who said the NYPD illegally targeted
>> demonstrators
>> with Long Range Acoustic Devices [LRAD] in 2014. Under the settlement,
>> the
>> NYPD will also ban the use of the LRAD’s powerful “deterrent tone” and,
>> for
>> the first time, generate a written policy governing the use of the
>> devices.
>>
>> The suit stems from a demonstration in December of that year, when a
>> group
>> was marching in midtown Manhattan to protest a grand jury’s refusal to
>> indict the officer who killed Staten Island resident Eric Garner using a
>> banned chokehold. As part of an effort to disperse the crowd, two police
>> officers repeatedly used the powerful tone generated by their LRAD. Some
>> of
>> the journalists and protesters who were in close range at the time
>> complained afterwards of pain, ringing in their ears, and migraines that
>> lasted for days afterwards.
>>
>> The LRAD was initially developed for the U.S. Navy after terrorists
>> attacked the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, using a small boat laden with
>> explosives.
>> Like its successors, the original LRAD served a dual function, on the one
>> hand serving as a public-address system capable of communicating
>> ship-to-ship over very long distances, and on the other hand capable of
>> creating a cone of noise so loud and painful that it could deter anyone
>> from approaching.
>>
>> Police forces soon realized these dual functions could be used in
>> policing
>> protests, and began adding them to their arsenals. The NYPD used its
>> first
>> LRAD to address protesters during the 2004 Republican National
>> Convention,
>> though it wouldn’t begin regularly deploying LRADs to protests until
>> 2014.
>> Less frequently, police have also used the device’s piercing sound-weapon
>> function against protesters. The NYPD devices are capable of producing
>> sound as loud as 137 decibels, well over the threshold that can cause
>> pain
>> and lasting damage to human ears.
>>
>> In 2012, Captain Anthony Raganella, the commander of the NYPD’s Disorder
>> Control Unit, requested the department replace his unit’s LRADs with new
>> models: a truck-mounted 500X LRAD at $23,000, and two handheld 100X LRADs
>> at $7,680 each. (The request was included in a larger proposal that
>> included $30,000 for pepper spray and pepper-ball weapons, thousands more
>> for rubber pellet grenades and chemical irritant grenades, and $16,000
>> for
>> orange crowd-control netting.) In an internal email explaining to the
>> NYPD
>> grants unit the necessity of his request, Raganella cited the threat
>> posed
>> by the Animal Liberation Front, the Earth Liberation Front, and People
>> for
>> the Ethical Treatment of Animals. “The requested equipment would be used
>> to
>> train and ensure the readiness of the Department to respond to any civil
>> unrest caused by these terrorist groups,” Raganella wrote.
>>
>> Today’s settlement brings final resolution to a landmark case first filed
>> five years ago, but the City’s legal defeat dates back to a judge’s 2017
>> ruling. The de Blasio administration had argued that police couldn’t be
>> held liable for excessive force in using an LRAD because they never
>> actually touched anybody. “The officers' creation of a sound that
>> plaintiffs happened to hear cannot be considered 'physical contact,’”
>> City
>> lawyers claimed. “the LRAD is not an instrumentality of force, but a
>> communication device.”
>>
>> Judge Robert Sweet rejected the argument, ruling, “This is force, and the
>> kind that could be used excessively.”
>>
>> The de Blasio administration appealed the decision, but in 2018 the 2nd
>> Circuit affirmed it, forcefully rejecting the City’s argument that
>> subjecting people to dangerously loud sound isn’t a use of force. “Even
>> though sound waves are a novel method for deploying force,” the court
>> wrote
>> in its opinion, “the effect of an LRAD’s area denial function is
>> familiar:
>> pain and incapacitation.”
>>
>> The 2nd Circuit also reaffirmed that just because there isn’t case law
>> governing a new technology for hurting people, that doesn’t give police a
>> blank check to use that technology however they want. “Novel technology,”
>> the court wrote, “does not entitle an officer to qualified immunity.”
>>
>> Still unwilling to concede the point, the de Blasio administration
>> petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 to overturn the lower courts’
>> rulings, but the court declined to hear the request.
>>
>> Notwithstanding courts’ repeated findings that the deployment of LRADs
>> could constitute use of force, current NYPD training takes pains to
>> assert
>> that the LRAD is not a weapon. “The LRAD is not any of these,” reads one
>> slide from an LRAD training program for the Disorder Control Unit: “Sound
>> Cannon; Sound Gun; Wave Gun; Sonic Weapons; Active Denial System.”
>>
>> “The tone does not create a sonic wave, blast or have the ability to
>> cause
>> physical injury like a weapon,” one training presentation reads,
>> explaining
>> that NYPD officers may use the tone “to help gain attention of
>> individuals”
>> in bursts of up to three seconds separated by at least a second.
>>
>> In settling the suit, the City does not concede that police officers
>> using
>> the LRAD broke any laws or violated anyone’s rights.
>>
>> But under the terms of the settlement, the NYPD commits to update its
>> administrative guide and its officer training to ban the use of the
>> deterrent tone altogether, and require police using LRADs to “make
>> reasonable efforts to maintain minimum safe distances between the LRAD
>> and
>> all persons within its cone of sound.” Officers who fail to do so “may be
>> subject to such further discipline as deemed appropriate.”
>>
>> The City will also pay the five plaintiffs in the case a total of
>> $98,000,
>> as well as $650,000 in fees for their lawyers, Gideon Oliver, Elena
>> Cohen,
>> and Michael Decker, all affiliated with the National Lawyers Guild.
>>
>> Annika Edrei, the lead plaintiff in the case, was a journalism student in
>> 2014 when she found herself caught in the LRAD’s cone of sound, and
>> suffered migraines for a week afterwards. The experience, she said,
>> discouraged her from attending protests for years. “I actually gave up on
>> a
>> major part of my photography career,” she said. Speaking of the
>> settlement,
>> she said, “I hope that protesters in the future are more protected
>> because
>> of our actions.”
>>
>> “The City could have and should have decided to make policy change and
>> pay
>> our clients for their injuries much earlier,” said Oliver. “But instead
>> of
>> doing that, they fought tooth and nail for years in this case, and so in
>> addition to damages and policy change, the city has to pay attorneys’
>> fees
>> that are much higher than they would have been.”
>>
>