I find claims of satellite weaponry of this nature to be very difficult to believe.

The reason is that I have tried to design satellite weapons along these lines, and you run into some extreme physical constraints quite quickly. One of the biggest issues is cooling the device, which is more difficult than you might imagine since space is a vacuum. Another issue is the power source, which would basically have to be a relatively large nuclear reactor with a huge capacitor to store charge. If you try to use solar power to charge the capacitor then you run into some obvious limitations with regard to refire rate and inability to charge the capacitor while the sun is eclipsed by the Earth. If you want to add active stealth capabilities or some sort of invisibility cloak then that is an additional power and cooling requirement. In short, satellite based photonic or particle beam weapons run into diminishing returns in short order with regards to their design parameters, thus necessitating a tremendous mass and volume that becomes orders of magnitude greater than the International Space Station in order to produce a viable weapon that can attack ground based targets. Did I even mention perhaps the largest problem of all? That is tracking the target and keeping a beam fixed precisely upon it. A 3 ms to 30 ms delay is expected depending upon the orbital position of the satellite, and then the targets location has to be fixed with a margin of error of 5 centimeters or less for precise targeting. That virtually necessitates a minimum of 2 tracking devices at known, fixed positions on or in the target's body (in order to detect x, y, z position). Let's not forget frequency and type of radiation chosen for the weapon itself. Microwaves and Radiowaves experience a great deal of interference at many frequencies against a target inside of a house, behind a mountain or under dense tree cover. Ultraviolet light is blocked or interferred with by virtually any solid object, including glass. This leaves only X-Rays and Gamma Rays, which are not only difficult to generate but can only be used for destructive purposes due to their ionizing effects. Even these are absorbed by concrete and other dense materials like lead. There are also Alpha Particle (Helium nucleii), Beta Particle (electron), and neutron particle beams to consider, but Alpha Particles can be blocked by paper and Beta Particles by thin sheets of metal or plastic, and all 3 types are useless for a purpose such as mind control and suited only for destructive purposes. Personally, I would be amazed if the U.S. government had more than 1 or 2 ground attack energy beam satellite weapons, if that. And their use would be restricted exclusively to high value targets, not garden variety average civilians. In all likelihood, these weapons would only be capable of killing and maiming people or destroying objects, and not influencing their thoughts or any other highly sophisticated actions.