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Comment by rafram | Hacker News Reader

This program specifically fines businesses with fleets of commercial vehicles (delivery trucks, buses, et cetera) for illegal idling, and escalates the fines for repeat offenders. You can't report random individuals, nor would I really want to build an app for that. The point is to get businesses to stop polluting.

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Okay, that makes it a little less dystopian.

But you make money off people snitching.

And you're setting the stage for something far worse, imo.

I see where you’re coming from, but the alternatives are either that the law isn’t enforced, or the state ramps up its own surveillance, which is more dystopian to me.

I see this as in the same vein as SEC whistleblower awards, which I’ve never heard described as dystopian. Businesses just don’t have the same expectation of privacy that individuals do.

I mean, the law not being enforced is wayyyyyyyyy less dystopian than this app and the numerous other ones like it that are bound to spring up.

I'd rather live in truck fumes than a hyper-automated snitch surveillance state.

you have like 50 comments in this thread whining about the law and desperately wanting businesses (not private individuals!) to idle their trucks next to schools.

maybe take a break man. not healthy.

Is it still "snitching" if the reporter, as the person breathing the unnecessarily polluted air, is a victim of the crime?

Yes.

Being about businesses only and no individuals makes all the difference in the world. Otherwise it should be seen as dystopian also the fact that you can call the police on your neighborhood because "you heard noises".

I bet that the friction in the submission process was deliberately added to avoid abuses, but maybe it's just incompetence. Depending on the reason, this app can be either good or against the spirit of the rule.

it normalizes the process and app though, and reinforces reporting your neighbors to the government. Not something I like to see. It's one thing to report domestic abuse or a crack house; another to report someone double-parked for a couple of seconds or an idling truck via "a simple click on your phone, thank you citizen"

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