How safe would I feel in the WPP? How many people that work for the WPP have access to the relocation records?
If I had a mob bounty on my head, I don’t think I would feel safe at all. I mean it is fine moving me to Arkansas and changing my name etc. but if someone at the WPP is a little careless or gets into a gambling debt, couldn’t that info find its way into the possession of Johnny Icepick and his minions?
From what I’ve read, most of the problems with the WPP are caused by the participants. It isn’t that easy to ditch all your old habits and acquaintances.
http://www.usmarshals.gov/witsec/index.html
This is interesting: Start Snitching: Inside the Witness Protection Program - ABC News
According to the WPP, no person who enters the program and follows the rules has ever been harmed. The ones that end up getting whacked are those who refuse to sever all contact with their former nefarious scofflaws or the old neighborhood in general.
There’s a great HowStuffWorks article that goes into some detail on the program:
If you cannot leave your previous life behind — and that means all of your previous life — you will be the problem that may very get you killed.
The Witness Protection Plan confers immortality? How do I get in on this deal? 
Killed, not died. Boredom is the biggest killer, I hear.
And for an object lesson of what happens when you don’t follow the rules, see this Philadelphia Inquirer story:
And if you’re talking about the mob as it is today, well, you wouldn’t have much to worry about without the WPP. They haven’t been scary for 20 years.
From the Philidelphia Inquirer story:
Leaving your old life behind is not as simple as it sounds. If your grandmother was on her deathbed, would you refuse to visit her? Would you be willing to skip her funeral, without even sending a card?
Maxim magazine had an article a few years ago about a guy who was in the WPP. It sounded like a very lonely, miserable life. He talked about spending Christmas alone in his apartment, with the only present he had being one he’d bought for himself.
Not as safe as you were before you posted this …
I find that a bunch of BS. sure you would have to forget about people but who says you cant meet new people and make new friends?
The old time Sicilian mafia isn’t what it used to be. Look at Henry Hill, wandering around LA and Las Vegas openly, and he hasn’t been whacked yet. If anyone really wanted to get him, it would be simple.
Not to be a threadshitter, but do you think that the US Marshals would admit it if they lost a witness? Of course whatever happened was the witness’s fault. Admitting otherwise would interfere with the primary goal of the system, which is to obtain testimony aginst whoever they decided was a bigger fish.
Well, if I were in the witness protection program, I’d probably be pretty paranoid about meeting new people.
It would be a little suspicious to go asking around for Christmases to hit up every year, wouldn’t it? Don’t they give the witnesses background stories to tell their new acquaintances? “I moved here to be closer to my family” starts sounding a little weird when you’re begging to be let in on someone’s Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas morning a few months later.
The Washington Post ran a feature a few years ago about the WPP. A lot of people in it aren’t criminals. They interviewed one guy who dropped out of it who worked for what he thought was a legit business and when he found out it was a mob front, he testified against his bosses. He dropped out of the program partly because he felt like he was always treated like a criminal by the marshal service and not like a citizen who had done the right thing.
you bamn dastard!! I was coming in here to post exactly that!! 
But that cover story wouldn’t make sense would it? I think a more typical cover story would be “My parents are both dead and I moved here to get away from the memories.” or something like that.
I’m not sure my question has been answered though. How many people have access to the relocation records. Are these records held in Fort Knox 
or some other secure location?
Maybe I’ve wached too much Sopranos and Goodfellas but the bad guys always have their ‘connections’ in the local PD.
I’m especially amazed that the PD in the ‘relocation location’ are told about their new neighbor.