Great article! I have also been studying thinking adoption and witness protection is similar but I find it to have a greater similarity to something called eminent domain which is the right of the government to seize private property (a constitutional right) for the greater public good. There have been numerous lawsuits asserting that the falsification of birth records and concealment of people's true identities and the identities of their parents violates their constitutional right to equal protection and that the withholding of identifying documents is an indicant of slavery and a violation of the 13th amendment. These attempts have failed because the court determined that the state has an interest in promoting adoption of children and that it is necessary to alter the identity of adopted persons and seal records because to do otherwise might discourage people from giving up their children for adoption. The government has a financial interest in reducing its welfare expenditure supporting poor or single parents and adoption places children in middle or upper class homes where they will be unlikely to grow up and become single parents, live a life of crime or be on welfare like their parents as adults. So to my thinking the government is enacting a sort of eminent domain on the personal identity of adopted persons to save the taxpayers money on welfare. The government 'frees' (seizes) children of the poor for adoption, severs their kinship rights, falsifies their identities and recycles adopted people into productive middle class citizens. The loss of their true identity is seen as bettering society and therefore justifies a government violation of their constitutional rights and freedoms. Adoption differs from the witness protection program in the following ways - the government gives witnesses the choice of changing their identity to protect them from being killed by criminals. The government is not offering adopted people a choice when it changes the adopted person's identity it is forcing a new identity on the person, not for their protection (because rarely is there a restraining order against their parents), but for the perceived betterment of society and the value added by a reduced welfare expenditure. Its absolutely criminal behavior on the part of the government to implement eminent domain over a person's true identity. It must me stopped.
