By JOSEPH MALLIA Newsday (New York) Copyright 2006 Newsday, Inc.
Imagine: you're hanging out with a group of your fellow teenagers or 20-something friends outside a mall or fast-food restaurant.
Suddenly you - and your friends - hear an excruciating sound that sends you running. Older folks nearby, however, don't seem to hear the high-pitched noise.
Meet the Mosquito. It's a small electronic box, made by a British company, that emits an irritating sound generally audible only to people 25 and younger. By next month, Compound Security Systems of Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, hopes to start exporting the $900 devices to the United States.
None of the more than a dozen teens and young people interviewed yesterday was happy with the prospect of being auditorially repelled from the environs of a favored convenience store or strip mall.
"That's some phony baloney," said Tommy Pappas, 17, in the food court at the Roosevelt Field Mall. (His brother Matthew, 9, added, "I want that thing to make other kids cry.")
"It's probably against the kids' rights," said Amy Shinn, 21, of Bayside, who speculated that the Mosquito would appeal to business owners to keep kids away.
"I think that's crazy. That's abnormal," said Hanna Wee, 22, of Flushing. "Just to keep the kids away they're making those noises? Kids have freedom."
Reports from young people in Australia and Britain, two countries where the black boxes are currently marketed, describe the sound variously as a high-pitched dog whistle, a chirping sound, a mosquito buzz and "hideous."
Police on Long Island weren't receptive. "Most times kids hanging out don't pose a problem," except when drugs or alcohol are involved, said Nassau Police spokesman Det. Lt. Kevin Smith. Suffolk police wouldn't comment, but East Hampton Village police said it might violate noise statutes.
The use of such a device, especially with the complicity or encouragement of police or another government agency, raises questions about discrimination, said Ronald Collins, a legal scholar at the First Amendment Center in Arlington, Va.
Anti-loitering tactics, he said, "can't discriminate against a particular group of people, say Mormons, or people of color, or people under 25," he said.
I heard there was a ring tone created, so only kids could hear when they get a call?? anyone?
Posted by: lofu
You can find the tone if you google it (I googled "mosquito ringtone,") I have it on my laptop but I no idea how to upload it. It's pretty interesting to see who can hear it and who can't. I'm in my mid twenties and could hear it but my 20 y.o. brother couldn't.
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