  Recently, the laser experiments BMV and GammeV, searching for light shining
through walls, have published data and calculated new limits on the allowed
masses and couplings for axion-like particles. In this note we point out that
these experiments can serve to constrain a much wider variety of hidden-sector
particles such as, e.g., minicharged particles and hidden-sector photons. The
new experiments improve the existing bounds from the older BFRT experiment by a
factor of two. Moreover, we use the new PVLAS constraints on a possible
rotation and ellipticity of light after it has passed through a strong magnetic
field to constrain pure minicharged particle models. For masses <~0.05 eV, the
charge is now restricted to be less than (3-4)x10^(-7) times the electron
electric charge. This is the best laboratory bound and comparable to bounds
inferred from the energy spectrum of the cosmic microwave background.
