Letter to President Obama #12| Subject: Spy Satellites, Stalkers, and Voyager 1 and 2

Letter to President Obama #12| Subject: Spy Satellites, Stalkers, and Voyager 1 & 2

Dear President Obama,

I’m writing because I have a few concerns about personal privacy. To be sure, modern technology poses a serious threat to personal privacy, as we live in an era of widespread handheld electronics, vastly strengthened government power, and the proliferation of readily-available personal information on the Internet.

I’m particularly concerned about spy satellites. It’s not the technology that concerns me that much. I mean, sure, we need to keep an eye on other countries; I’m more concerned about the technicians themselves. For instance, what if one of the spy satellite technicians really was into shoes? Really into shoes. Now I know what you’re thinking, sure, our shoe-obsessed spy satellite technician might have stopped that shoe-bomber guy a little sooner, but I doubt it. He was inside most of the time, and we don’t have x-ray spy satellites, do we? If so, we should probably tell doctors, or at least the writers for Grey’s Anatomy and all those doctor-type shows, as that’d make a cool subplot.

And please don’t think I’m making all this foot fetish stalker stuff up. This actually happened to me, Mr. President. My mother gave me a pair of Minnesota Twins socks, and I mentioned them on a YouTube video. Immediately thereafter I got half a dozen comments, the worst of all came from Hot4UrFeet. Do not friend him on Facebook or Myspace, whatever you do.

Of course we can expect that the spy satellites would be used unprofessionally now and again. This probably happens with all military equipment. I’m sure tanks are taken on joyrides and the occasional M-16 is brought home to scare the neighbors from time to time. So I’m pretty sure that certain non-essential areas would always be under a high degree of surveillance—Daytona Beach at Spring Break, New Orleans in February and March—and so on. But that’s to be expected.

What I mean is—giving someone the world’s largest telephoto lens means you’re giving them a lot of power; I wouldn’t give that power to several of my uncles, that’s for sure. Even a benign hobby might hinder our national security. If one of the satellite technicians was a really avid birder, they might spend half a day zooming in on birds. This might make for a great picture (and a great idea for a birding calendar—Birds from Space!), but birds aren’t terrorists, Mr. President.

I’m just concerned that we vet our applicants properly.

In addition, I understand that in the late 1970s, we sent along two golden records on the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft. These records featured pictures, music, and basic information about humans and our solar system, all of which were encoded in a universal, easy-to-understand format that’d be simple for any advanced civilization to access.

In effect, this is the equivalent of sending a mix-tape along with an invitation to come over for snacks at our house. But Mr. President, what if our alien houseguests aren’t omnivorous bipedals like ourselves. What if they are large raptor-like-things that prefer to eat medium-to-large sized mammals (us) or worse, small mammals (our pets)! And what if some of them go by the name of Horus?

Now I don’t think this might happen, but it’s my job to ask the questions nobody’s asking.

Thank you, and take care.

Sincerely,

Brett Ortler

This is letter #12 to President Obama. Brett's writing one a day. And yep, he's sending them.