FBI offering $10,000 reward to catch people pointing lasers at planes

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FBI offering $10,000 reward to catch people pointing lasers at planes
(Image credit: Thinkstock)

The FBI is cracking down on people pointing laser pointers toward aircraft — and it wants your help. On Tuesday, the agency announced that it's expanding a program that offers a $10,000 reward to people who offer information leading to arrests for the illegal activity.

Officials are cracking down on a growing threat of "lasing," the act of people pointing handheld lasers toward a plane's cockpit. The beam, which can travel more than a mile, illuminates the cockpit and can temporarily blind the pilots. Although no crashes have been linked to "lasing," some pilots have required medical attention because of it. The number of reports have increased from 384 in 2006 to nearly 4,000 in 2013.

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Jordan Valinsky is the lead writer for Speed Reads. Before joining The Week, he wrote for New York Observer's tech blog, Betabeat, and tracked the intersection between popular culture and the internet for The Daily Dot. He graduated with a degree in online journalism from Ohio University.