These lasers are commonly used by astronomers for pointing out constellations and stars during astronomy outings. The laser is brighter than the standard cat toy lasers, but it is certainly not 40mW. Here are the typical specs for such green lasers:
Frequence: 532 nm
Output <5mW
Beam Diameter at exit: 2mm
Beam Divergence: 1.2 mrad
How the beam diameter, divergence and power factor out to the brightness of the light that was painting the cockpit of the plane and its ability to inflict harm or exceed the limits allowed by law, I don't know. I'm sure someone in this group can calculate it given the info above.
That being said, while I agree that this guy is stupid and deserves some form of punishment. I view this as one of the inevitable abuses of the Patriot Act that will become more and more common. The Patriot Act was originally sold as something that would be used to go after terrorists but in my opinion it will end up being just like RICO. RICO has become a tool to punish legitimate protesters with unpopular opinions instead a tool to go after the Mafia as it was originally sold.
I was not saying the NJ guy's laser was a 40 mw, I was saying that 40 mw handhelds are out there and available.
as for safety, FAA has a rule out, see my post 101.
A 5mW pointer has a power density of about .5 microwatts at two miles, if you take into account rapid beam spread after the Rayleigh distance. If you use linear beam divergence it's going to be maybe twice that, but unless you are in a Lser Free Zone a 5 mW pointer will always be safe, according to the FAA rules, no matter what color.
Out in the Sensitive Flight Zone you can splash around laser beams with a 100 uW power density, so away from an airport a 50 mW beam would be below the limit.