"Might it be used secretly during interrogations to torture suspected terrorists into cooperating?"

Now this is really funny.
Interrogators around the world use electricity, either cattle prods or regular wall AC, to torture suspects.
Should the World renounce use of electricity, to prevent its misuse ?

"Is it torture if it only creates a sensation of pain, but leaves no marks and no long-term damage? I would say yes.

You mean like a John Kerry speech?

I don't believe it. I don't believe in magic rays that cause excruciating pain that goes away instantly.

I wonder, would wrapping yourself in aluminum foil is any sort of defense?

No, not to become a baked potato, but as a Faraday cage. If so, then maybe the tinfoil brigade were right about the Black Helicopters, too.

Believe it.

It's just a big microwave emmitter. The moisture in the top layers of the target's skin heats up, just like a frozen burrito, and it's like touching a hot lightbulb.

Also like a hot lightbulb, once you stop touching it, (or move out of the ray), voila.

Harry,
Who said anything about magic?

My daughter used to believe that trees made the wind blow. She knew that if you waved your hands, it made the air move. She saw trees moving, and felt the wind, ergo, trees made the wind blow. You couldn't ask her to believe some magical, invisible force called "atmospheric pressure" could make the wind blow, could you?

I've felt an invisible force that made my muscles tense up. It's called electricity. I wouldn't put it past the DoD to come up with something (who knows what, some type of microwave radiation maybe) that could cause the effects described.

Harry:

We know the only thing you take on faith is Natural Selection, but there's a great story in it for you--have them use it on you & then write about it.

Raoul:

Actually, yes, that would work. Mesh with less than 1mm spacing would work, too, as would anything damp at least an inch thick.

I can't wait until anarchist protestors at various world organization meetings are clomping around in make-shift tinfoil suits.

I dunno about you guys, but I've touched a hot light bulb before, and the pain did not go away when I moved my hand.

The Directed Energy Directorate has a lab here and I write about it from time to time.

Harry:

Go for it! We'll post the story.

Perhaps the microwaves directly stimulate the nerves without an intervening medium such as water under the skin. As Harry says, if you touch a lightbulb the skin still burns even after pulling away, partially due to such things as heat capacitance of the tissue (i.e., water).

If the beam affects the target's skin does this mean that the exposed skin is necessary for effective use of the weapon?

Just wondering.

Harry: Looks like 3 seconds is the time to beat. You da man!

Millimeter waves, unlike microwaves, are absorbed by very small volumes of water, so they only penetrate the top few millimeters of flesh. (Microwaves would go well into the interior of the body.) They heat it up just like microwaves however.

Clothing would reduce the intensity but not eliminate it unless it was conducting or wet.

Imagine the havoc if a bunch of guys dressed like the Ghostbusters (with backpacks and all) showed up at a loony leftist rally and started waving their emitters around. One flash-bang would cause thousands to start running.

Would it work on squirrels, grackles, amardillos, ...in-laws.

I want one. 2nd admendment and all that.

h-man:

Actually, you can find plans on the internet involving the guts of a microwave oven and an aluminum drainpipe. Those would be microwaves, rather than millimeter waves, and thus a bit more dangerous (especially if you've assembled it from an old microwave and a drainpipe...)

This topic and the comments are a lot of fun. It sounds as though there might be complaints that the device should not be used because, like the old Chemical Mace, it has unproven side effects. Personally, for serious crows control I would prefer the proven side effects on an AC-130.
Seriously, however, it sounds great. Not we need some device that causes things like car bombs to "spontaneously" detonate, the way they always seem to in Israel these days. . . Hmmmmm.,

This would be a good weapon for police actions and hostage situations, but in a war where you are faced with ideologically driven masses, you won't win the war with them. You win the war when you kill enough of the enemy to change the minds of the rest. After you zap the terrorists, what do you do with them?

Zap them again? And then again.