SeeClickFix: Grassroots Domestic Spying

10/6/2011

We just received an email from a reader in Maine about SeeClickFix, a private service being sold to city governments to make it easier for citizens to report problems in their area...for the Common Good in your Communitarian State. Designed to allow users to report neighborhood problems by using their mobile phone or computer, SeeClickFix is free for you to use, but your government pays a fee of between $1,200 to $20,000 a year. Right now you'll use it for non-emergency reports to the Building Code Enforcement Unit, the Police Department, or the Public Works Department, but who knows what you'll be reporting after you've been conditioned to spy. For those of you who like to collect brownie points for being a good german, there's a loyalty program---you get points every time you report something! And what are these redeemable for? We don't know! Appointment to boards and commissions? Certificates from your mayor? Deputizing you? Well, not you---your anonymous accuser. Smile! You're being spied on by your neighbor! Some of the cities who are using SeeClickFix for reporting are Oakland, CA, Richmond, VA, Bangor, ME, and...your town?

SeeClickFix: The new Spy app paid for with your tax dollars

3 Comments

Ben Berkowitz

10/9/2011 12:12:10 am

As the founder of this company and a Jew I greatly resent your analogy to Nazi Germany.

Content of the nature you are suggesting should be flagged and we will be removed from the site.

SeeClickFix is free for governments to use and respond to citizens. Governments only pay for services that help them manage the data and customize the tools for their benefit.

Alexander Hoffnung

10/10/2011 11:39:22 am

I am just as hesitant as the next person to have someone, especially a body as large as most governmental bodies, spy on me. BUT, this article is wildly misguided at best. The author seems to suffer from the far too common misconception that information passed through the internet is fundamentally different than information passed through a telephone line.

Citizens report to their government in part to hold the government accountable for its civic responsibilities and in part to help the government and community keep on top of such responsibilities. Reporting of this nature falls under civic duty in the large part.

Of course, any process has its potential or actual flaws, but those flaws do NOT vary by changing the mode of passing information. The resultant change in speed and ease of passing information may have effects, but this distinction is not touched on by the author leaving me strained to find content here that I can understand as anything more than reactionary.

Rosa Koire

10/12/2011 08:19:36 am

Thank you for your comments.

This company's 'service' begs the question: Don't these government agencies have staff that take complaints from the public? Why would we want another layer of public/private partnership to do the job that we pay government agencies to do? Why would we want a private company to be paid more of our tax money to collect data about us?

And, Ben, if you are Jewish one might expect you to be a sort of canary in this coal mine and reject the concept of giving points for reporting. The idea of what constitutes a crime is changing in this climate. Crimes against the 'community' may be smoking in your apartment, or not cutting your lawn, or not doing your mandatory volunteering.

We've got an app for that.

SeeClickFix: Grassroots Domestic Spying

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