Roll up, roll up! See the Amazing ABC “Fact-Check” gymnastics! Watch your taxes at work as left-wing activists double-back-flip while whistling lies through their teeth! They can do anything!
Except tell you the straight truth…
As I reported recently, there are concerns that police may have used devices like long-range acoustic devices (LRADs), aka “sonic disrupters” and even Active Denial Systems (ADS), aka, “Heat Rays” on Freedom Convoy protesters in Canberra. On the final day of the protests, many began noticing odd symptoms like ringing ears, headaches, exhaustion, anxiety and feelings of anger. Others reported unusually severe sunburn, including blistered lips.
Under questioning by Senator Malcolm Roberts, Australian Federal Police confirmed the presence of LRADs, but refused to state whether they’d been used. A video circulating on social media purportedly shows dangerously high radiofrequency signals in the area.
Enter the ABC, to distract, dissemble and double-speak.
A spokesman for ACT Policing confirmed to Fact Check via email that LRADs were deployed during the protests.
But while the devices are known to cause harm (they are often referred to as non-lethal weapons), claims made by Canberra protesters that the use of the devices caused them to feel ill are likely incorrect.
As I constantly warn, always assume that “fact checkers” are trying to bullshit you.
Like this, for instance:
The video implies that the ill effects caused by the LRADs were being felt by the crowd despite the devices being inaudible.
But that’s exactly how LRADs work. “Even sounds that humans can’t hear can cause ill effects,” writes a Howstuffworks article. “Research links ultrasound, which can penetrate and heat living tissue, with ailments such as dizziness, balance disturbances, tinnitus — a persistent ringing in the ears — and fatigue.”
In other words, precisely what the Canberra protesters reported.
Here come the lies and double-speak.
But James Parker, an associate professor at Melbourne University who is the director of a research program titled “Law, Sound and the International”, told Fact Check that’s not how LRADs work.
And then he goes on to explain that that’s exactly how they work.
Dr Parker explained that the devices could be used in two ways: to issue voice commands or to emit “an incredibly high pitched and painful” alert tone capable of causing ear damage.
Asked whether the devices could be used to “attack” the protesters without being audible, Dr Parker replied: “I don’t think there’s any evidence whatsoever of the LRAD being used for secret, stealth, sub-audible attacks.”
Note, here, that he’s not actually answering the question. The question wasn’t have they been used in such a way, but could they be?
A question he ends up admitting that the answer is “yes”:
He added that the most effective way to cause harm using sound was through high-pitched frequencies broadcast extremely loudly.
ABC Australia
This is what more than a billion dollars a year of our taxes buys us: non-stop lies and misinformation from a so-called “fact-checker”.
I can only say again: always assume a “fact-checker” is trying to bullshit you. Because they almost always are.