Some years ago, a little company in Vermont, Precision Grinding, entered into a contract with the Soviet Union to sell equipment that would enable the Soviets to manufacture extremely precise, smooth, ball bearings that, when placed in nuclear missile guidance systems, would greatly enhance the ability of a missile to achieve a virtual bullseye on its target. This is an important goal in any military scenario, but especially important in striking hardened targets like underground silos which cannot be destroyed except by a direct hit.

Until this technology became available to the Soviets the United States was believed to be willing to ride out a first strike knowing that its retaliatory capacity would remain intact. We would not have to launch on warning because our missiles would remain safe. In order to overcome this new technological advance of the Soviet Union we had to spend hundreds of billions of dollars.

The executives of the company in Vermont made a few million dollars in profit and that cost the rest of us hundreds of billions, hardly a situation we would like to see again. Of course, as technology becomes ever more sophisticated we WILL see this situation again, and again, in many different guises as long as the American way of greed continues to take precedence over good old traditional American common sense.

Companies frequently come up with products that end up doing more harm than good, but because there is a big profit involved, they just plain don't care. The City of Chula Vista, Ca., a suburb of San Diego recently agreed to test a new product that enables the police to end car chases by remotely disabling the electronics of the vehicle being chased. According to USA Today, the "car-stopper" sends an electrical charge that disables a vehicle's electronics and shuts off its engines.

Sounds good, but, of course, police departments aren't going to be the only ones interested in obtaining and using this device. Once its abilities and properties become well known, a variety of criminals will want to add it to their arsenal.

The most obvious criminal application would be to use it to disable pursuing police vehicles in order to aid the criminal's getaway. Needless to say, not every city in America will have this device and the criminals who obtain it through theft or bribery, or even manufacturing one from scratch, will then target THOSE cities for a crime spree knowing any pursuit will end in police defeat.

A less obvious criminal application will be in this country and lawless places like Mexico where kidnapping for profit is a lucrative business. At the moment, many politicians and wealthy individuals and corporate executives who may be targets of a kidnapping plot have only to worry about being grabbed in the traditional manner. For example, many have taken lessons in evasive driving to avoid being run off the road or otherwise stopped and captured by the kidnappers. This driving technique, however, is dependent for its success on the ability to keep moving, and ability that will end when the kidnapper employees this "car-stopper."

Since many ransoms involve millions of dollars, an investment of a few hundred thousand to a corrupt police officer, the kind who takes payoffs from drug dealers and organized crime, will obtain this fool proof "kidnappers helper," and the art of kidnapping will be changed forever.

Kidnappings will increase, ransoms will go higher, tragedies will ensue, and the makers of this device will get rich.

The least obvious criminal threat will come from political terrorists who want to target certain individuals for death. A "car-stopper" that can disable the electronics of a car can also do the same thing to. at least, a small private airplane. The terrorist need merely wait near the end of an airport runway and when the target plane passes overhead, switch on this device and cause a fiery crash. Very simple and effective and no witnesses will realize what happened so the perpetrator will make a clean getaway.