LOS ANGELES – The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Southern California today sent a letter to Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca demanding that he not employ against prisoners at the Los Angeles County jails a high-technology device employing heat rays, built for military use.

Sheriff's Department officials announced last week they intend to begin using an “Assault Intervention Device” -- developed by the Raytheon Co. that fires an invisible heat beam capable of causing unbearable pain on inmates -- at the Pitchess Detention Center's North County Correctional Facility.

“I'm extremely disappointed in the willingness of Sheriff Lee Baca to employ this weapon-like device without consulting with the ACLU, which has court-appointment responsibility to monitor the Los Angeles County jails,” said Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California. “Historically, we have found Sheriff Baca to understand that not everybody in county jail has been convicted of a crime. We have had advance discussions with Sheriff Baca about several different procedures, but we have not been consulted about this inhumane device."

The ACLU's letter dismisses claims made by Baca last week that the “Assault Intervention Device” is uniquely suited to address some of the more difficult inmate violence issues and will allow Sheriff's Department officials to intervene in disturbances involving inmates without risking injury to jail staff or inmates. The ACLU letter highlights the fact that the military incarnation of the device was briefly fielded in Afghanistan in June and then withdrawn in July without ever being used. While the device was being tested by the Air Force, a miscalibration of the device's power settings caused five airmen in its path to suffer lasting burns, including one whose injuries were so severe that he was airlifted to an off-base burn treatment center.

The ACLU's letter also cites a 2008 report by physicist and less-lethal weapons expert Dr. Juergen Altmann which says that the device has the ability to cause second and third degree burns over up to 50 percent of the body's surface and that without reliable protections against the re-triggering of the device against the same target subject, it has the potential to produce permanent injury or even death.

“There is no justification for subjecting any incarcerated population to a level of excessive force,” said Peter J. Eliasberg, Managing Attorney with the ACLU of Southern California. “The 'pain ray' was tested by the military, and the military decided not to deploy it – that's all we need to know. Moreover, given the long and troubled history of deputy violence at the Los Angeles County Jail, entrusting use of this device to deputies there is also a significant cause for concern.”

“The idea that a military weapon designed to cause intolerable pain should be used against county jail inmates is staggeringly wrongheaded,” said Margaret Winter, Associate Director of the ACLU National Prison Project. “Unnecessarily inflicting severe pain and taking such unnecessary risks with people's lives is a clear violation of the Eighth Amendment and due process clause of the U.S. Constitution.”

Los Angeles County Jail has just installed an Assault Intervention Device ''' an invisible microwave-beam weapon originally developed by the military ''' as a way to subdue inmates by focusing a microwave beam on them to make them feel "intolerable heat."

Sheriff Lee Baca unveiled this giant robot-like device at a news conference last week, noting the "The Assault Intervention Device appears uniquely suited to address some of the more difficult inmate violence issues," since it will "allow us to quickly intervene without having to enter the area and without incapacitating or injuring either combatant."

The claim that the 7 '_-foot tall high-power microwave device ''' dubbed the "Pain Ray" by the media ''' will cause no injury is highly dubious, to say the least: There is good evidence from the United States military that it is capable of inflicting not only intolerable pain, but death.

The ACLU and the ACLU of Southern California sent a letter today to Sheriff Baca, demanding an assurance that he will never use the high power microwave device against the inmates of the Los Angeles County Jails.

The device, developed by the Raytheon Company of Waltham, Mass., was dubbed the "Active Denial System" (ADS) in its original military incarnation and was mounted on trucks for "crowd control," evidently intended to be used against protesters outside American military bases. The U.S. Justice Department claimed that the device "does not cause permanent injury" ''' but that claim has been shown to be false.

In September 2006, the Secretary of the Air Force said the ADS should be used for crowd control in the U.S. to prove its harmlessness before deployment on the battlefield, or he would be "vilified" in the world press. While the device was being tested by the Air Force, however, a miscalibration of its power settings caused five airmen in its path to suffer lasting burns, including one whose injuries were so severe that he was airlifted to an off-base burn treatment center.

A 2008 report by noted physicist and less-lethal weapons expert Joergan Altmann explained that the ADS device's microwave beam heats the skin without lasting harm only if the beam is switched off immediately once a temperature of 122 F. is reached ''' and then only if the beam is not retriggered. Dr. Altmann noted:

The power and duration of emission for one trigger event is controlled by a software program. Model calculations show that with the highest power setting, second- and third-degree burns with complete dermal necrosis will occur after less than 2 seconds. Even with a lower setting of power or duration there is the possibility for the operator to re-trigger immediately. ''_ As a consequence, the ADS provides the technical possibility to produce burns of second and third degree.

Further, the Altmann report said, the possibility of retriggering on the same subject puts avoidance of burns at the discretion of the weapons operator: "Without a technical device that reliably prevents retriggering on the same target subject, the ADS has a potential to produce permanent injury or death."

The notion that a military weapon intended to cause intolerable pain ''' and so capable of causing lethal injury when used for crowd control ''' should now be used against county jail inmates is staggeringly wrongheaded. It is all the more disturbing that the use of the Pain Ray is being entrusted to the deputies of L.A. County Jail, where the long-troubled history of deputy violence, retaliation and abuse against inmates, as well as a subculture of falsification of official records, has been documented by the ACLU in its role as court-appointed monitor of the jails in the federal litigation Rutherford v. Block.

Moreover, inmates at the jail ''' most of whom are not convicted, but awaiting trial ''' will not be the only potential victims of this Star Wars technology's domestic use. We could all get burned. The Justice Department's National Justice Institute specifically developed the smaller, portable version of the microwave weapon ''' the device that Sheriff Baca is now preparing to deploy against detainees in L.A. County Jail ''' for use in the homeland, and not only by corrections officials against unruly inmates, but by law enforcement officers for civilian "crowd control."

Since shortly after Naji Hamdan, an American citizen, was arrested and held incommunicado in the United Arab Emirates in 2008, the ACLU of Southern California has been working to obtain the truth about why the U.A.E. held, tortured, and charged Mr. Hamdan as part of the U.S.'s controversial "proxy detention" program.

Today, the ACLU of Southern California filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Los Angeles seeking to require U.S. national security agencies to release this information.

Proxy detention is the practice of the U.S. government using foreign allies to detain and interrogate terror suspects. The ACLU believes Mr. Hamdan is one of hundreds of people whom the United Nations and human rights organizations estimate the U.S. has subjected to this practice. Under proxy detention, the U.S. can subject individuals to indefinite detention, interrogation, and torture without accountability.

Mr. Hamdan spent his first three months in captivity in a secret prison somewhere in Abu Dhabi - held in solitary confinement, stripped and left in refrigerated rooms. Forced to confess under torture to a shifting array of accusations, he was released after more than a year following intervention by the ACLU and others.

In January 2009, the ACLU of Southern California filed a Freedom of Information Act request to the CIA, FBI and other intelligence agencies seeking information about the U.S. government's role in Mr. Hamdan's detention, interrogation and torture in the U.A.E.

Our request fell on deaf ears, so today, the ACLU of Southern California and the law firm of Traber & Voorhees filed a lawsuit to enforce that FOIA request.

While it is no secret that the government has increasingly relied on the cooperation of foreign governments for secret national security detentions, the details of the program remain shrouded in secrecy. The American public needs to know whether the U.S. government was responsible for Mr. Hamdan's unexplained detention and for handing him over to be tortured. Mr. Hamdan has previously stated that he heard the voice of an individual speaking unmistakably American English during one of his interrogation sessions.

Mr. Hamdan's nightmare marked the culmination of a decade of surveillance by the FBI, beginning two years before 9/11, when FBI agents would frequently visit his home and his workplace for questioning, and also question his relatives and associates. Federal agents also routinely stopped him for questioning at the airport. FBI agents scrutinized his business and his financial transactions. Agents from the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office even flew to Abu Dhabi to question Mr. Hamdan after he moved to the U.A.E.

Despite the years of surveillance, the U.S. government apparently never found evidence of criminal activity. Mr. Hamdan has never been charged with a crime under U.S. law.