Free Republic

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - The Albuquerque Police Department has turned to the want ads for snitches. An ad this week in the alternative newspaper The Alibi asks "people who hang out with crooks" to do part-time work for the police. It reads in part: "Make some extra cash! Drug use and criminal record OK."

It was an unspeakable nightmare. As Andre Daniels was held at gunpoint outside his San Francisco housing project apartment early one morning three years ago, his wife was sexually assaulted inside their home while their two children slept. Daniels, then 31, was determined to seek justice for his family. So he did what is often considered unthinkable in a community hostile to "snitching." He helped the police. Then he made another fateful decision: He spurned the burdens of the city's witness protection and relocation program. He figured he would simply move his family to safety a few miles away to...

BOSTON -- When NewsCenter 5 showed a controversial T-shirt to Mayor Thomas Menino, he was so upset he called for the boycott of the store selling it. NewsCenter 5's Jorge Quiroga reported that the T-shirt's slogan, "Stop Snitchin'," is street slang for, "Don't cooperate with police."

<p>But perched in his rig at a truck stop near Jessup, Md., George Freeman shook his pony-tailed head at a proposed terrorism informant network that would rely on millions of American workers to feed the government tips on suspicious activity.</p> <p>"It's going to be overused and abused, especially with people so nervous as it is," said Freeman, 45, who hauls produce cross-country. "You're going to have people running every which way looking for terrorists and their 15 minutes of glory."</p>