Laser pointed at Prime minister

[Kiwi Tinker]

From the New Zealand herald'd website

http://msn.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/ar...ectid=10589439

Trench worker loses job after aiming laser at PM

4:00AM Saturday Aug 08, 2009
By Andrew Koubaridis
Aiming a laser beam at Prime Minister John Key got a construction worker a few laughs - but he also lost his job.
The man was working on the $160 million railway trench in New Lynn, when he pointed the laser light at Mr Key on July 23.
The PM was visiting the site with Transport Minister Steven Joyce and happily accepted a T-shirt with a big red heart on it from another worker in the trench. But he was unaware a red beam was flickering over his safety vest. The Diplomatic Protection Squad was unaware of it happening but the laser light caught the attention of a safety inspector at the trench who told the man to stop.
A spokesman for Fletcher Construction, which is behind the railway trench, said the incident was "a prank by someone" who was playing around with it, but there was nothing sinister about it. He said it wasn't something that should have happened, a disciplinary process was started and "for various reasons" the man was no longer working for the company.

[JimBo]

I know laser pointers are a pain in the rectum.
I wonder why he lost his job though! Obviously he should have been working instead of fooling around, but I guess most of the workers weren't working at the time. Also what power was the pointer? If it was a legal one of say <1mW then what offence has he committed?

Just playing devil advocate.

Jim

[White-Light]

Headline could easy have been "Construction worker shot dead by Ministerial Protection Team"

[Kiwi Tinker]

Yeah, Maybe in America....lol

[Soulstorm]

Haha true true. Our cops don't even have guns!

It could likely have been a laser leveling device, some of which are probably more than 1mw..