“The best deterrent that we have against acts of terrorism is to find out who is conspiring, who has the material, where they are getting it, who they are talking to, and what are their plans. In order to do that, in order to interdict the terrorists before they set off their weapon, you have to have that kind of intelligence-gathering capability, but it runs smack into our constitutional protections of privacy. And it’s a tension which will continue to exist in every free society – the reconciliation of the need for liberty and the need for law and order….that once these weapons start to be exploded people will say, “Protect us. We’re willing to give up some of our liberties and some of our freedoms, but you must protect us.” And that is what will lead us into this 21st century, this kind of Constitutional tension of how much protection can we provide and still preserve essential liberties.”
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE WILLIAM S. COHEN, DEFENSE VIEWPOINT, DECEMBER 1, 1998
“One can envision the development of electromagnetic energy sources, the output of which can be pulsed, shaped, and focused, that can couple with the human body in a fashion that will allow one to prevent voluntary muscular movements, control emotions (and thus actions), produce sleep, transmit suggestions, interfere with both short-term and long-term memory, produce an experience set, and delete an experience set. It would also appear possible to create high fidelity speech in the human body, raising the possibility of covert suggestion and psychological direction…Thus, it may be possible to ‘talk’ to selected adversaries in a fashion that would be most disturbing to them.”
UNITED STATES AIR FORCE SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD, NEW WORLD VISTAS: AIR AND SPACE POWER FOR THE 21ST CENTURY