It has one purpose and it is protect snitches from stitches.

Instead, give them switches which is having a witness ditch his business, burn his bridges and, ok, forget this.

It protects informants from retaliation by giving them new identities and recovering it in six minutes.

Since its founding in 1971, the Witness Security Program or WITSEC has protected over 19,000 people - informants and their families - and their testimony has led to convictions 89% of the time.

Even more impressive, not one rule-abiding witness has been harmed or killed while under protection.

So how do they do it? It varies by case, but here's a standardish one:

Our witness is a bright young drug mule for the mob in, let's say, Miami - maybe his name is Sean Frank Hayes.

As a boy, he was fascinated by the logistics of the illegal drug trade, but now he's feeling guilty about kneecapping all those goons.

Police are closing in, so he rats on the boss to get some leniency.

But the mob is pretty powerful and doesn't take well to rats.

"But the rats don't run this city. We do."

Law enforcement wants to protect Sean.

So the AUSA for the Southern District of Florida sends an application to the DOJ-OEO, detailing how critical his testimony is to their case, how much danger he's in, and the THPTHNC (threat he poses to his new community).

Then the marshals interview him to ensure he knows what to expect when "you're WITSECing" and send their own recommendation along.

As a natural-born citizen, Sean's playing on easy mode.

If he were foreign-born or undocumented, ICE might sooner deport him than protect him.

So his sponsoring agency would have to fight that, get him off any watchlists, and ensure he has real documents before getting him new ones.

Also, if he were incarcerated, he'd have to submit to a polygraph.

The Attorney General approved Sean's application,

so now he's off, by playing an armored vehicle to the so-called Ellis Island for witnesses - WITSEC's safe site and orientation center - a place so secret that even though it can house up to six families at a time, they never see each other.

And WITSEC's inspectors don't know who's there besides people they're personally protecting

Even its location is secret, we know it's near DC, but that's it.

We put that pin on the Tysons Corner Mall, and the only secret there is Victoria's (Secret).

At the center, he gets medical, dental, and psychological exams and signs a memorandum of understanding, agreeing, among other things, to testify, not do crimes, and not tell anyone about his new identity - which should be super easy since it's not like he has a history of snitching or anything.

For such a massive life change, this can be a pretty short document.

This is one of them, and this is what you signed to use Roblox.

Now it's time to prep Sean's new life.

The marshals ask where he wants to go and hating cold weather and loving the zoo, he says, "San Diego".

Figuring everyone he knows knows these preferences, they send him to the cold, zoo-less town of let's say, Aspen, Colorado.

He does get to choose his new name, though.

Since you're more likely to respond to and correctly write something familiar, witnesses are encouraged to keep their first name(s) and initials, but ultimately, it's up to them.

Sean chooses this.

He gets a brand new social security card, driver's license, and birth certificate, plus documents and new school records for his two weird sons he's bringing with.

Sean also has to prove he has sole custody over said weird sons, sell his house and his business, and pay off all legal debts in his name before it stops being his name.

Now it's back in the armored car and back to the airport.

When he lands in Aspen, WITSEC takes Sean to a temporary apartment while they bring his furniture and belongings from Miami.

A process that can involve three separate moving companies to throw hit men off the scent.

WITSEC tells Aspen's law enforcement that there's a new criminal in town, but he's hopefully cool now.

To help him find a new job, WITSEC once bought a mob guy, a fish store and got a drug kingpin a spot at Walmart along with presumably staffing much of the hardened fighting force of Waffle House.

Sean gets at least 90 days of subsistence payments while he gets on his feet.

On average, about $1,150 a week depending on local living costs, but he'll get cut off if he's not actively looking for a job.

He lands a UPS gig (shout out to his delivery experience) and a condo for him and his weird sons.

He can't contact anyone from his past life unless through a secured phone line or a mail system, both of which route through WITSEC and he can't go anywhere near Miami.

Anyone who needs to reach Sean Frank Hayes has to arrange the marshals at least ten business days in advance.

And if he needs to go back to Miami for the trial, he goes under 24-hour protection and will get to the courthouse in some hitman-resistant way like the back of a mail truck.

But back in Aspen, things are pretty normal.

He has to check in with the marshals at least once a year, plus whenever he changes his address.

He can change jobs, move or leave the program if he wants to.

He can even start a modestly successful YouTube channel, as long as he doesn't show his face and stays pretty vague about his past.

Despite WITSEC's perfect success rate with rule followers like Sean, it's not all smooth sailing.

Witnesses often break the rules and go home where they get super murdered,

and some, not most but some, return to their crimey ways in their new life, which is why there's a victims' compensation fund for people who are hurt or killed by rogue witnesses.

For a while, Orange County California was a protected witness hotspot because one US marshal lived there and liked having his protectees within an hour's drive.

The problem was the witnesses realized each other were there, then started dealing drugs together.

During a particularly rough patch for the program, its own creator once said, "It is amazing no government witness has been killed, which is great until you see the full."

But all in all, WITSEC is a brilliant, complicated, hugely successful program that has helped bring some major bad guys like this to justice and some minor bad guys like me to ask...

Oh, shoot, I didn't mean to, oh, sorry guys. I gotta go.

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