[DmBarch]

There are laws about lasers near airports. The law sets up three zones, and each zone has a maximum power density. IIRC, the closest zone is two miles, and it basically says "no laser beam", then the other zones are concentric. The outer zone is, I think, 6 microwatts of laser light per square centimeter. The law is set up to protect airports from outdoor laser shows or indistrial/scientific laser use. If this guy met these guidelines, then there is "interfering with an aircraft" which includes bright lights, spotlights, searchlights, and lasers. There probably is a specific federal law that states that you can't shine a laser at an aircraft so that it bothers the pilots, but I'm not sure. Then there are state and local laws- malicious mischief is a good broad category. There are enough existing laws to convince this dude he had a lapse in judgement. I think the Patriot Act is an overkill; one that could backfire if the defense is on the ball. When I have time I'll link to a post that has the limits and distances for airports and lasers.

The distance thing puzzles me. You can live in Parsippany, or your home can be near Teterboro Airport, BUT NOT BOTH! I used to live in Parsippany and you might get in the Essex County Airport lanes, but Teterboro is too far away. Yahoo has 24 miles from the "center" of Parsippany to the Airport. Even if it was from the closest point in the township to the airport, that is still over 20 miles. Something doesn't add up on what has been released. Maybe we will get to know the exact location distance from where he was to the airport.

[DBrow]

Perhaps the media is distorting things to boost readership and hysteria.

I didn't think to look on a map, thanks for posting this! I guess "near an airport" is vague enough for them to stretch the truth.

We're going to have to find out where this guy's house is and where the planes were to make sense of this.

I suspect that all the media hype about people with brand new laser pointers has stirred the government up to DO SOMETHING to make them look competent.

Or, from the Bernaysian perspective, the government has decided to act on something and is using the media to justify its actions.

Also, many people know relatively little about lasers, consequently they cannot detect media BS. Some talking head profoundly stated that the laser incidents were made using a "military laser wavelength" or "a type of laser only used by the military" and many people on FR have repeated that without question (or Googling).