I can't imagine something powered by a couple of AA batteries could cause such a problem.
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The cat toy lasers are class II red diodes running at one or two milliwatts, at most five. You can power quite a laser with AAs- the green lasers are "diode pumped solid state frequency doubled" (DPSSFD) lasers that can crank out up to 40 mW or even more, though battery life is poor.
Because the green light is much closer to the sensitivity of the eye, they will look (to the eye) to be twenty times brighter than a red laser.
So if you figure the 5mW green pointer laser has twice the power and your eye has twenty times the sensitivity, the DPSSFD laser will appear to be fourty times brighter than the red "cat toy"- capable of causing much glare and dazzle in your eye but probably not any permanent damage.
If you get one of the boosted DPSSFD pointers, the power can be 40 mW- very very bright and still running on AA cells.
I have an ultraviolet LED light that runs on two CR0232 cells (button cells) that came with a stern warning about eye damage- although the light appears to be dim to teh eye, there's apparently 500 mW of 370nm UV coming out of the LED, enough to cook my corneas if I'm not careful.
You sound knowledgeable, allow me to ask:
Does the laser that you describe have the power to project a beam that would be visible 11 miles out and at 3000 feet? If visible, can it still do damage at that range? Thanks.
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.