Q: Mr. Federal Way, I heard a Federal Way resident is using a drone to spy on his neighbor. Is this true?
A: Gotta love the times we live in now, where neighbors can use the latest technology to spy on one another. Back in my day, if you wanted to creep on someone, it was much more work. Not that Mr. Federal Way has ever done something like that.
Yes it is true that in our city, a woman reported to police that she was being harassed by a neighbor with his drone, which is a remote controlled pilotless aircraft. Apparently she had repeatedly asked him to stop, but he would not comply. After reading the article in the Mirror, Mr. Federal Way thought to himself, why would someone spy on this nice lady? Mr. Federal Way believes the man is bored and is entertained by her reaction to it. Maybe if the woman decided to fight back in a similar manner, she could get the guy to lose interest or at least amuse herself.
Mr. Federal Way suggests she stake herself in front of his home with large binoculars and spy on him too. And if he comes out to complain say, “I’ll stop if you will.” Perhaps the woman could shock her nosey neighbor by covering her windows with random posters, such as celebrity standup posters. Imagine the man’s surprise when he flies his drone over her house and instead of seeing her, he sees a standup poster of one of the Twilight vampires or Dwayne Johnson. Mr. Federal Way is a believer of “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”
Q: Mr. Federal Way, have you heard about the controversy with Sony Pictures Entertainment employees getting their emails hacked?
A: Mr. Federal Way has been following this, as this news made him re-check his emails and examine himself. As a person who likes to remain discreet and anonymous, Mr. Federal Way can’t imagine how the employees felt when they realized their personal information was exposed and doesn’t blame the two employees that decided to sue Sony for not properly protecting their personal information.
When the group, identifying itself as Guardians of Peace, shut down Sony’s computer system and released company documents, employees’ sensitive information such as their names, Social Security numbers, former addresses and other information was made public. Over the past few weeks, the hackers have also leaked a mountain of embarrassing email correspondence involving Sony executives — to the point that the company has asked the media to stop publishing excerpts from the once-private messages.
Now being a sort of member of the media himself, Mr. Federal Way wonders if the media should listen to Sony’s request. It’s the media’s responsibility to alert the public of what is going on around them and to serve as watchdogs of entities. Reporters often use documents that are given to them by others and consider themselves responsible for exposing documents that are revealing and public to their readers.
However, Mr. Federal Way believes is it important to consider how newsworthy the documents are. What they reveal is private employee information and emails between employees to each other. In no way do these documents affect the public except that they are probably entertaining and funny. But that’s what Mr. Federal Way believes separates the real reporters from the paparazzi; the fact that real reporters write about relevant issues affecting the public and the paparazzi is there to entertain its readers with gossip and celebrity news. As Dean Baquet, The Times’s executive editor pointed out in an editorial, “These aren’t the Pentagon Papers. And these aren’t Wikileaks.”
Mr. Federal Way says: media, let’s laugh this away and go find some breaking news.
Q: Mr. Federal Way, what are you doing for Christmas?
A: None of your business.
