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What Happens When You Enter the Witness Protection Program?
- wyager 11y agoFascinating. Is the property (cars, houses, etc.) of those put in WITSEC escheated?
- DavidAdams 11y agoI would imagine that the relocated family's durable assets would be seized by the government and sold, with the proceeds going through a sort of legal laundering and being made available to them post-relocation.
- peteretep 11y ago> A staged photo of U.S. Marshals protecting a witness srsly.
- trentmb 11y agoI can't imagine being in a position where I need WP- obviously I couldn't claim where I went to school anymore, would I also need to absolve my claims to my skillset? Would I have to give up working in my industry, my assorted message board accounts?
- rohansingh 11y ago> The program also works with doctors and school administrators to transfer medical records and report cards; Shur recounts that he refused several requests to improve a child’s grades.
- trentmb 11y agoSorry, I failed to retain that passage when reading. Does this apply to college/university?
- ghaff 11y agoYes, pretty much. You have a new identity.
- roel_v 11y agoWell it seems to me that for a sizable portion of the WP target audience, hiding their prestigious academic pedigree isn't the most pressing issue on their minds. Likewise, in my wholly amateur opinion on the matter, the whole point of WP seems to be that they have to give up their claims to their skill sets - even if they are considered within their professional circles to be world-class, say, body-disposal experts; or have critically acclaimed skills in devising methods to transfer illegal narcotics across international borders.
- trentmb 11y agoCartels and other criminal organizations aren't in the stone age- they regularly and routinely abduct, if not blackmail, professionals that suit their purposes. I get it- you're trying to paint a privileged vs un-privileged picture despite my admission I'm lucky enough to have received an education.
- roel_v 11y agoWell, no, that's not what I meant - I was merely jesting about my hunch that the majority of people in WP are 'high level' criminals rather than the tech guy or accountant. Of course there are a few like that, and yes, they'd probably have to find another job - or at least re-establish credentials in the field from 0.
- spitfire 11y agoI would think the accountant would be exactly the sort of person who would be in witness protection. I know the Mexican cartels are now abducting microwave transmission and cell network technicians to run their comms networks. No doubt it'll be microsat experts next (less trudging around).
- TeMPOraL 11y agoI wonder when the cartels will start running rocket companies. Or startup accelerators.
- rodgerd 11y agoThe rehab part of the story is fascinating: a very low recidivism rate amongst people who have been, by definition, career criminals.
- twblalock 11y agoI think a lot of people feel trapped in a life of crime by their past, and in the case of the mafia, by most of their friends and family. If they can get a new past and new surroundings, they may take advantage of the chance to live differently. This is a version of the same argument that people make about rehabilitation generally: people with a felony conviction find it difficult to get good honest work, and many revert to living and hanging out with the same kind of people who got them in trouble in the first place. Witness protection is an extreme version of what most rehabilitation advocates are suggesting: an opportunity to start with a clean slate (i.e. no felony record that hurts employment), and avoiding bad influences from one's past. The results of witness protection seem to validate these arguments.
- johnchristopher 11y agoI'd say the consequences for violating the witness protection program contract play a huge role in enforcing its respect.
- WhitneyLand 11y agoNitpick, but "by definition" career criminals is incorrect. They are by definition witnesses, 5% or so of whom have done nothing wrong.
- teambob 11y agoIf you commit a crime on witness protection you would be cut loose. Then the mob can come and tidy up. Being killed by a mobster is probably pretty good motivation to not commit crimes.
- kom107 11y agoReminded me of this article (link below with TL;DR). So we have two strong examples of how changing environment can reduce crime and improve lives. Perhaps we should change our current educational and judicial policies? TL;DR: after hurricaine Katrina, many people who relocated from the lowest-income, highest-crime areas in New Orleans (and many of whom had previous convictions) improved their circumstances--reduced recidivism, higher standards of living, etc. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/24/starting-over-dept-of-social-studies-malcolm-gladwell http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/24/starting-over-d...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- jevinskie 11y ago> Since the government refuses to provide a fake credit history, witnesses also struggle to secure products and services when companies demand financial information. Uh, if an adversary has large scale access to credit history (how hard is that to obtain?), couldn't they mine the data for their target and find them?
- peteretep 11y agoI suspect it's a blanked credit history.
- rdl 11y agoAlso they don't really need a credit history if they're given housing/car to start, and cash for secured accounts.
- nommm-nommm 11y agoCredit history affects you in many non-credit ways.
- grecy 11y agoI moved to North America, which means I had "no credit rating" which is the same as the worst possible. It was annoying for a couple of things - Had to put down a $1000 deposit to get a $1000 credit card - Had to put down a $400 deposit to get a cheap cell phone That's it. What else were you thinking it impacts?
- roflchoppa 11y agodon't be a snitch......
- roflchoppa 11y agoall dem down votes. you better get some WP m8.
- rdl 11y agoA funny thing is I think >50% of them end up in Port Roberts, WA. It's an exclave of the US and relies on transiting Canadian border security, which generally prohibits felons from entering Canada, for communication with the rest of the US. As a result, most of the potential hitters from the mob, who are convicted felons, are less likely to be able to pass through, and they're also less likely to be able to easily bring weapons (although it's not that hard -- it's more that you'll get a bit of protection against casual interaction.) WITSEC as well as international intelligence ops are suffering badly from searchable Internet histories, as well as biometrics at borders.
- scintill76 11y agoPoint Roberts? "Point Roberts also has a small airport and a large marina for air and water access; these two facilities allow direct access to the rest of Washington state without the need to enter Canada." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Roberts,_Washington#Transportation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Roberts,_Washington#Tran... I suppose it might be harder for hitmen to stay low-profile when entering by boat or plane instead of car, but I'd think it's not really going to stop them. It's neat to learn about the place, anyway.
- YZF 11y agoHave you ever been to Point Roberts? There's a big marina with lots of traffic. It's a very small community so you'd stick out. Many retirees. Lots of dual citizens. The US/Canada border isn't really as secure as you think mostly because it's not possible to seal such a long border. A big city is probably an easier place to keep a low profile. I don't think there's a big advantage compared to any other random place. As long as your new identity is solid you're probably safe. If someone wants to get you at any cost and they know where you are this probably won't stop them. Anyways, it is a neat place and you can often see killer whales from the beach.
- abandonliberty 11y ago> The US/Canada border isn't really as secure as you think I accidentally crossed it when out for a run one day. Only realized it much later. Also: Last time I was there they didn't have a sheriff anymore, so the only visible law presence was the border guards.
- hawkice 11y agoAm I the only person who is thinking... okay, if I am the mob, I'll hack hundreds of these underfunded school districts, and watch for kids with identical grades who transfer in, whose parents have no credit history, and where the (without loss of generality) father's name is Eric (for families I'd just use the intersection of all their first initials)? That's _plenty_ of information, and you add in that the fake identities will keep the same age for children and same-ish age for the adults, and I'd bet my bottom dollar it's uniquely identifying. Surely these days they give them a digital presence, including a same-ish-credit-rating-different-details credit history. That's just too much to leave out in 2015.
- PhilWright 11y agoI don't think the mob has the skills to perform an operation on this scale for an uncertain payoff. They might be willing to pay someone else for information about someone they happen to be interested in. But a fishing expedition that is outside their area of expertise. Not likely.
- icelancer 11y agoIt's also just WAY too much work to kill an informant using that method, unless it's a big time boss. In which case they'd use other ways to try and skip trace them instead of setting up an enormous botnet of hacked school networks, which doesn't sound trivial whatsoever. This is the mob, not a black hat hacker shop with billions of dollars to spend on SIGINT.
- plonh 11y agoYou think mobsters can't learn black hat infosec?
- comex 11y agoIf someone did do that, I think we'd probably know about it. The chance of getting caught hacking a school district like that is tiny - but accumulate hundreds of tiny chances and detection is almost certain. If you're good and/or committed enough to maintain hundreds of covert hacking operations, though, there are likely better options. How about deploying facial recognition at scale on the Internet? I hear they're pretty awful compared to humans at identifying people from limited data, such as a few grainy surveillance photos... but if you already know who you're looking for and have many high resolution photos of them, it would only take one good shot of them in their new life to be uploaded to the Internet - maybe in the background of someone else's photo, or even a frame of a nice HD video - and I suspect computers would be up to the task of making the match.
- known 11y agoHope what I see in Hollywood movies is not true;