Combating Terrorism With High-tech Gear

Under an Acme Gadget Division banner, Ryland Fleet enticed passersby to consider his product, a .30-caliber machine gun mounted atop a vehicle and fired by the driver using a joystick.

“You don’t buy it because you need it,” explained Fleet, who wears all black and machine-tools his weapons at home in the Virginia woods. “You buy it because you might.”

America’s post-Sept. 11 fear of terrorist attacks not only spawned the $55-billion-a-year Homeland Security Department, it also fueled a domestic defense boom for survivalists, backyard inventors and small businesses that scrambled beside major contractors for sales to local, state and federal agencies.

About 650 mostly small vendors peddled their sometimes-bewildering wares to government officials at a federally funded exhibition for three days last week at a regional airport here in rural Virginia in one of the nation’s largest such trade shows. The event’s slogan: “Fighting terrorism with commercial technology.”

“This is designed not just for overseas applications,” said Carl White, a spokesman for the fair, which was not open to the public. “It’s for the local courthouse, or prison, or any other state or local asset vulnerable to terrorism.”

To weed out so-called dreamware — gizmos that look good on “24″ but don’t actually work — only companies with proven technology were invited to exhibit.

Scott Stuckey’s giant loudspeakers can direct ear-piercing sirens at approaching targets. He said his San Diego-based company, American Technology Corp., just sold a set to the Maersk Alabama, the cargo ship attacked by pirates last month off Somalia. Other shipping companies, airports and nuclear power plants are customers as well, he said.

“Inside 100 meters, it approaches the threshold of pain,” Stuckey said, giving a brief demonstration that caused other vendors to cover their ears and shout at him.

Fair organizers barred what Ryan Alles called “the pots-and-pans, shoe-insert and T-shirt stands” that he sees at lesser trade shows. His company sells $1,500 kits that he says can help people escape burning high-rise buildings. In case of fire, clip a pulley onto a bracket on the wall outside, climb into a flame-resistant bag that looks like a huge silver cocoon, push off and lower away on a rope.

via Combating terrorism with high-tech gear – Los Angeles Times.

Homeland Security Products

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