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Laser Painting Could Lead to 25-Year Prison Term
lowy writes "According to this USA Today article, a New Jersey man was charged under federal anti-terrorism laws with shining a laser beam at a jet flying over his home. The Feds arrested him after he flashed a police helicopter searching for the source of the beam. He now faces up to 25 years in prison under Patriot Act charges." It seems to be happening around the country, as our earlier post makes clear.
here
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Wired article http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,66173, 00.html?tw=wn_tophead_6
The slashdot story is missing the link. No comment about the editor who posted it.
another site says:
Red laser pointers have grown cheap and ubiquitous, but unfortunately, they are not very effective as sky pointers. In contrast, green laser pointers are very effective because of the eye's greater sensitivity to the 532 nanometer green light. Under dark sky conditions, the beam from a 5 milliwatt green laser pointer creates a dramatic impression, and the beam apparently extends for more than a kilometer. Any bright light source, ranging from light pollution induced sky glow to a crescent moon, will reduce the apparent brightness of the SkyPointer(TM) although the beam will usually remain visible. The light pollution acts in such a way that people closer to you will still see the beam, whereas those further away may have difficulty.
Very easy...using a green laser pointer, where you can actually see the beam, it's very easy to point out stars and planets etc etc. It's used as a pointing device out of doors.
They work quite well too so there's no "it's that star...no no, that one next to the bright on there...no, down further....see it?" With the pointer you just follow the beam upwards. A green lasers beam is quite visible.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Salon published a letter to the editor today regarding their prior story about the potential for lasers being used to blind pilots. In the letter the physicist argues that to use a laser properly for this task would require expensive and large equipment, at least two men, and good site selection. Basically, much cheaper and deadlier weapons are available to the motivated terrorist than lasers. The article and letter in reply are worth a read... --M
I know the /. article did not provide a link to the actual article, but you're making some rather strong incorrect statements. I did RTFA and (A) the laser light entered the cockpit and temporarily blinded both the pilot and the co-pilot. Apparently either the angle of laser relative to the cockpit was such that it went in, or else there was some unlucky refraction/reflection. (B) There was no concern that this represented someone pointing a gun at the plane, there was concern that terrorists were trying to blind pilots to cause them to crash. Although the investigators did state that they do not believe the actions of the suspect in this case to be terrorist.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
The man who was arrested was caught because he shined the same green laser into the cockpit of a helicopter that was surveying the area to discover the origin of the laser that temporarily blinded the pilots of the airliner. They were able to find his location because of this, and incidentally he blamed the helicopter lasing on his daughter. So here we have not just poor judgement or a one-time prank, but a guy who was shining a very bright laser (according to article it was used to test fiber optic cables) at pretty much anything that flew overhead. If he had just done it once he likely would have never been caught and it could be written off as poor judgement.
Because of this I think his sentence should be more than just a slap on the wrist, definitely some heavy fines, maybe a few years jail time depending on what motives they discover for his actions. However, if it turns out he was just a jerk, or an idiot, or whatever and wasn't trying to bring down aircraft, then the maximum 25 year sentence is definitely too long. What I fear is that to make an example of him and to stop others who seem to think lasing planes is a fun idea (reports from multiple other airports of similar events) is that the government will hit him with the max or near max penalty.
I have to wonder, making examples of criminals or not, how some judges can justify these extreme jail sentences? The criminal learns his lesson for sure, but is effectively never given the chance to apply that lesson. In 25 years the man will be so old as to almost be ready for social security, and with a criminal record he'll be lucky if greeter at Walmart is even available to him. What the system has done now is taken an otherwise productive (granted rather stupid for his actions) member of society, burned a ton of taxpayer $$ on him for 25 years, then released him to be a further drain on the system.
At what point will someone - the american people, congress, other judges - say enough is enough and start setting limits on jail sentences to times that make sense? If this guy is guilty of nothing more than the airline equivalent of chucking rocks over the freeway as a dumb prank then I'm pretty sure 5 to 10 years in the fed pen will be quite enough to ensure he doesn't shine a laser anywhere again. Even 5 years is a sizable chunk of someone's life, and prison is no fun place to spend it, plus getting one's life back on track after such a sentence will be hard enough. It's time to stop this "War on X" mentality that the justice system has taken and give non-violent offenders a chance to learn from their actions and apply those lessons in their lifetime instead of overcrowding prisons and sucking up taxpayer dollars.
Anyway, this rant is mostly concerned with if this guy turns out to be just a beavis/butthead type who got his hands on a laser and gets the 25 yrs. If he gets a more appropriate sentence length, or if his actions were in fact malicious then I guess this rant is moot. But there seems to be a trend in our courts to just throw people away forever, which in the end really doesn't teach a very long lesson since those people never get out to tell others to not follow their example.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
Actually, the charge was Reckless Disregard for Human Life. Its just that Terrorism and Patriot Act make for wicked headlines.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
What is the danger of crashing a plane from a laser underneath it?
If you're directly underneath, there isn't much danger. He was not directly underneath the plane. He was able to paint the cockpit window with his laser. The diffusion of light on that window temporarily blinded the captain and copilot.
Wouldn't it require hitting the pilot and the co-pilot in the eye while simulteaneously something goes wrong on the plane that the on board computer can't fix?
No.
Pilots don't do particularly much now adays from what I understand.
They still land the plane, which is what they were doing when this idiot blinded them. They were at approx. 3000 feet as the descended for landing. The autopilot doesn't land the planes. People do.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
A typical laser will have a beam spread of 1.5 mRad.
As a rule of thumb this is about 1.5 millimeters spread to each meter
traveled. Hence at 100 meters the beam will be about 150mm wide which is
just under 6 inches in diameter. Using this formula you can calculate your
beam diameter at different distances.
Oh and semiconductor lasers have a much larger beam spread.
now, if at 100 meters if a laser can damage your eyesight 200 meters it will not. because the amount of laser light entering your eye is dropping extremely fast as the beam spreads further.
will you be "dazzled" by the bright light you see at the opening of the laser? yes, it will make it difficult for you to see who is standing behind that laser, epically if the contrast is high, I.E. completely dark room with little lighting on t he subject and a laser pointed at you. it will certainly not affect your vision at other angles.
I strongly suggest you learn about lasers, they are pretty darn fascinating, you seem to only know a very little about them but try to pass yourself off as an expert.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Laser light can be focused into a nearly parallel beam http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/miscon/miscon4.html
But it can't be done perfectly (wave nature of light prevents perfection) and it's rarely done well.
Still, 1.5 mRad sounds high to me.
For a high quality optical communication laser, it would be more like 0.0015 mRad.
Grabbing my pocket laser pointer, and a ruler, I can measure a spot of about 3mm at a distance of 1 meter, and 5 mm at a distance of about 15 meters.
Granted I could easily be off by 2mm, that's still no where near 20mm.
Measuring laser 'dot' size is a simple experiment that I urge anyone who thinks lasers don't spread to try.
-- should you believe authority without question.
and this is not an abstract mildly interesting issue of civil rights to me.
First of all, let me say that all of the above posters who wonder "what the big deal is of a laser hitting the bottom of a plane when the cockpit window is on top" are uninformed. As a pilot on final approach, the only direction I cannot see is directly behind or directly under me, but I continuously scan every other segment of the sky. Especially at night I have to let my eyes pause for a moment on each section in order to discern relative motion, as a quick scan would not allow me to detect the characteristic red/green/white nav lights + strobe of a moving aircraft above the many lights (both stationary of all color, flashing, and more slowly moving ground vehicle) below the aircraft. So a fair amount of our time on final approach is spent gazing downward, since while descending that part of the sky represents the largest risk of collision hazard. This attentive watchfulness is of course an important part of what we do, and if while looking for aircraft below us both pilots are "temporarily blinded" or worse (depending on the type of laser used) we are obviously in a very scary situation.
Secondly, this idea that pilots fly the approach on autopilot is misinformed. Yes, cruise flight and the initial segment of the approach are usually (but by no means always) performed with the assistance of an autopilot. However, the autopilot is routinely and often given manual commands in a terminal environment to comply with air traffic control instructions all the way up to the very last final intercept of the glideslope. So pilot incapacitation during any descending maneuver before that final segment poses a very real threat to people on the ground below the aircraft's path (a much larger area than the airport proper). Also, with the exception of some large airliners and very few corporate aircraft, most jets do not have autopilots approved for autolandings, so at some point during the last 200 to 1000 feet the pilot will hand fly the plane, adjusting the pitch attitude and simultaneously reducing thrust to make a smooth landing flare. This is not something I want to feel my way through without sight.
There are many reasons to not use autopilot, some flights are also operational line checks where the pilot in command is being evaluated by a check airman who expects them to hand fly the plane to demonstrate proficiency. I often fly by hand both to keep my skills sharp as well as because it is enjoyable to have the responsiveness of a very powerful jet airplane at my fingers. There is satisfaction in rolling the plane onto a perfectly aligned final approach without the autopilot's assistance.
As a group, professional pilot's take the safety of our passengers very seriously. We attend recurrent training continuously throughout our careers, and simulate almost every conceivable emergency that it is possible to contend with. However, some emergencies elude constructing nice pat standard operating procedures to deal with. Obviously if an aircraft comes apart in flight then all you can do is follow the arc of the individual parts toward the ground below. Likewise, becoming blind is a situation that we just can't train for.
Finally, I've also noticed some posts recommending using some sort of film on the windshield that would protect the pilots. This is unlikely to happen soon for several reasons. I would love to hear that such a material exists that is effective over the many frequency ranges that could conceivably be used in a laser. But even if it did exist, each aircraft has a slightly different type of construction and would require a huge amount of research and development. The price would be astronomical. As an example, the windshield of a Learjet is nearly an inch thick, is comprised of multiple layers of various materials (including different types of plastic and acrylic and a layer of gold used to heat the windshield) which have been thoroughly tested for strength, compatibil
This is relatively new. Until the 1990s, it was safe to talk to the FBI. But it no longer is.
So just keep insisting that you want your lawyer present. And you have to be very clear about it. Courts have held that "I think I should talk to a lawyer" is not sufficient to invoke the 6th amendment right to counsel. You have to make an unambiguous statement.
That's supposed to stop interrogation, but it doesn't always. Eventually, if you keep insisting, they usually give up and let you talk to a lawyer.
We're not talking about al-Queda's A-team here.