TORTURE: ASIAN AND GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES | JUNE-AUG 2013
a burdensome secrecy system and the lack of accountability for weapons.179 In a 2005 “for the record” email to this author, Garwin stated that has evaluated electromagnetic weapons for the US Defense Department several times, but “there are always ‘compartments’ to which even people with high-level security clearances do not have access.”180 Garwin cited the official EMR bioffects policy to unequivocally dismiss the possibility of EMR weapons that could target and control the brain.181 The EMR bioeffects policy seems to reach to the highest levels of US government. Perhaps the clearest example that EMR bioeffects are disregarded in mainstream neuroscience is the following. In 2001, a group of experts including Professor Kenneth Foster, wrote an article in the IEEE Spectrum, an academic electronic engineering journal: “Such technology [new rat implant technology capable of transmitting signals to a rat’s brain from a distance] had nothing to do with the fantasies of mind control by electromagnetic fields, long a staple of science fiction and lately of conspiracy theory Web sites.”182 Today, most neuroscientists are convinced that EMR bioeffects on the brain are fringe science. In 2004, The Lancet obituary for Adey described his research showing that brain 179 Richard Garwin, Independent Task Force, Nonlethal weapons and capabilities, CFR, 2004. Available at http://www.cfr.org/defensetechnology/nonlethal-weapons-capabilities/ p6793. 180 Richard Garwin, email communication to Cheryl Welsh, 2005. On file with author. 181 Ibid. 182 Kenneth Foster, et al., Bioethics and the brain, IEEE Spectrum, June 2003, 34. Available at http:// www.eng.ucy.ac.cy/cpitris/courses/ece001/ notes/IEEEarticles/Bioethics%20and%20the%20 Brain%20-%20June%202003.pdf.
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tissue is sensitive to EMR. The obituary noted that some rejected Adey’s controversial research by citing the EMR bioeffects policy, such as Foster, one of the authors of the IEEE Spectrum article above. However, others have confirmed Adey’s research and the writer of the obituary opined that Adey’s controversial research will someday prove to be true.183 Foster may argue that the US government’s EMR bioeffects policy has nothing to do with neuroscience, however, in light of the evidence presented in this paper, it can be argued that this would appear to be an example of the EMR bioeffects policy utilized as a US government cover story spread by experts. Foster’s conclusions omit two main facts; first, the decades of highly politicized EMR bioeffects research; and secondly, the decades of US government monopoly over unclassified and classified EMR bioeffects research; this combination resulted in the nearly complete restriction of EMR bioeffects research. As explained above, EMR bioeffects seem to have a role in brain functions, however the unclassified research remains rudimentary in its development. In 2007, the official USAF science policy stated that its EMR bioeffects policy is that there are no non-thermal effects of microwaves.184 At the same time, Dennis Bushnell, chief scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center, has described microwave attacks against the human brain as part of future warfare in a 2001 presentation to the National Defense Industrial Association about “Future Strategic Issues.”185 Recently the prestigious science journal Nature admonished the USAF in an opinion editorial for classifying EMR bioeffects research and 183 Ivan Oransky, Obituary: William Ross Adey, Lancet, Volume 364, July 17, 2004. Available at http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2804%2916699-3/fulltext. 184 Weinberger, n. 6 above. 185 Ibid.