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Comment by jondeval | Hacker News Reader

I find this proposal problematic. There is a world of difference between reporting on a violation in your community because you're a concerned citizen, and directly incentivizing citizens to report on each other.

I'm sure you can find some small counter examples, but by and large the US has never had a history of augmenting law enforcement by way of private citizens. We are not a country of snitches.

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> I'm sure you can find some small counter examples, but by and large the US has never had a history of augmenting law enforcement by way of private citizens. We are not a country of snitches.

Well not a small counter example, but a very large organization with origins in the KKK. [0]

In fact, snitching on fellow Americans has become so common we created an internet meme when, specifically, white women of a certain social class do it. [1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens%27_Councils

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_(slang)

Actually there is a long history of this in the USA, so much so that there is a term of art for it and a Wikipedia article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_attorney_general

A similar thing was attempted in Taiwan, and some people ended up quitting their jobs & just drove around with a dash cam all day to report people. It eventually ended because fines & reports skyrocketed & people became furious.

If you ignore the law that was passed in Texas before Roe vs Wade was overturned giving private citizens the right to sue abortion providers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/09/us/abortion-law-regulatio...

What’s the difference between snitching and reporting a crime? The severity of the crime and your relationship to the offender?

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