Talking to the Administration is so difficult that this hacker has tried with a handwritten letter, quixotic language and sealing wax.

Jaime Gómez – Obregón is an old acquaintance of Genbeta for his tireless activity in favor of transparency in the public sector. Thus, we have seen him create a tool to read the BOE better (or study it), has created a website to monitor the irregular donations of Juan Carlos I and has also managed to download Treasury data that the web design kept away from the view of its visitors. But Dealing with the Administration sometimes requires enormous doses of patienceboth for tasks and send them a simple invoice to request improvements for citizens.

Without going any further, it has been offering its services to the Cantabrian Administration for many weeks to renew the portal of the regional Official Gazette with open development and carried out publicly on GitHub. The only thing he has received so far is silence in response. So, tired of addressing himself in public, in private (to a high official in the Cantabrian government, the hacker claims) and of using his social networks with mention of the corresponding Administration, he has decided try it with a lot of sarcasm and dedication the old waythat is, like someone who sent a letter a few centuries ago.

Because in fact, that is what he has done: say the same thing as had previously requested in the form of a handwritten letter sent with sealing wax through postal mail (no messenger on horseback or falcon). Several weeks ago, Gómez – Obregón counted that one of the projects he had in mind was a renewed website for the BOC Cantabria, but he was disappointed: on the one hand, because it is too local a project (but replicable in other places), but also for not having received any response:

This disappoints me, to be honest, because it is something for which I have a passion and a real desire. But It seems that there is no one on the other side, or that there is no interest in the institution.

So you’ve armed yourself with a pen, a good thick paper and a lot of creativity to get the same message to you in a different way. And if the digital portal of the Official Gazette of Cantabria has not been updated for 13 years, why not challenge them in an even more archaic way? In this case, with a letter addressed to María Isabel Urrutia de los Mozos, the Minister of the Presidency, Justice, Security and Administrative Simplification according to the BOC.

In it he tells him that ‘The digital portal of the Official Gazette of the Kingdom is in a state of obsolescence and abandonment, and this person who humbly writes to you has ideas and experiences that can serve to renew it and thus provide a better service to the people.‘.

Letter from Jaime Gómez – Obregón. Source: X

The hacker continues to rely on that classic language that is greatly reminiscent of great classics of Hispanic literature such as ‘La Celestina’ or ‘Don Quixote de la Mancha’ and his limited success trying to contact them to offer them his proposal through different means. With a pompous closing formula, Don Jaime Gómez – Obregón implores him again a reply’by the channel and herald of his most august preference‘. Will he have better luck this time?

Cover | Assembly with portrait of Rosa Ponce de Portocarrero, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commonspicture of Alessio Fiorentino in Unsplash and capture of the BOC

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