This isn't a new story, but I just heard about a new delay in sentence today on the local NPR station and had to look up the back story.
- CINCINNATI – A Kentucky accountant who spent much of six years as a fugitive hiking the Appalachian Trail pleaded guilty Friday to a wire fraud count and agreed to pay back money embezzled in an $8.7 million case.
[...]FBI agents arrested Hammes in May at an inn in Damascus, Virginia, during the annual Trail Days festival. The inn’s operator and fellow hikers say he was known by the trail name Bismarck, an affable, bushy-bearded hiker who often appeared in photos and online posts with other hikers along the more than 2,000-mile trail stretching from Georgia to Maine.
The more you read, the more bizarre it gets. The pictures are great, too. I love it. I love Kentucky.
Once you get south of I64, and west of I75, there are damn near infinite areas for a resourceful person to live off the land. Lots of meth-heads, lots of pot heads, lots of "der terk our jerbs and guns" types. You go in there with an anti-government message, keep to yourself and don't mess with people's stuff you can hide in plain site for basically ever. Some of the people I know bought 20 acres in the middle of absolutely nowhere because at 20 acres you can hunt turkey and antler-less deer without a permit, dig a well with minimal paperwork and go solar and wind with no neighbors to care about your house as long as it is built to code and not a shanty. Beautiful country, full of interesting characters that would make awesome NPC's in a weird modern day survival RPG.
Argh he got there before me, and his source is better reading. Sorry, flag.
I wonder how difficult it would be to eventually get full documentation of an alternate identity without anything to start with. Perhaps your parents were off-the-grid types, you were born in a house, and they never sought a birth certificate. Can you get the equivalent as an adult? Where would you start?
Wow. Looks like a giant pain in the ass. According to the Social Security website, you need at least a birth certificate. If you don't have one, you have to go to your local Office of Vital Statistics and apply for a "delayed birth certificate." Looks like the requirements for such vary from state to state, but according to, say, the Kansas rules, you're going to need at least two documents stating your true DOB and birthplace (list of acceptable dox on p. 2), in addition to two notarized affidavits from attending physician, midwife, parents or older relatives confirming as much. So that kind of answers your birth certificate question. If you can't get that, it looks like the SSA would also accept a religious record from before the age of five confirming birth. But it needs to be the original copy, not a photocopy. In the unlikely event that you did get a delayed birth certificate (or found an original copy of a religious record confirming your birth off the grid), you'd also need to present the SSA with proof of identity, such as a driver's license, passport, etc. But given that pretty much every state requires you to provide... a birth certificate and a Social Security card to get such an I.D., that option isn't really viable. In absence of those, you could provide and employee identification card, school identification card, health insurance card or military I.D. card. I'm not sure how many of those you could produce if you never had an SSN, though- don't think I've ever worked a job that provided me with I.D. that didn't also require all the requisite pre-hire documentation. Ooo, here's a sheet that looks like it offers some easier, more promising options. Honestly? I have no idea how you'd do any of this without forging something. Might be easier just to pay somebody shady to make you fake papers. Edit Here's an article that addresses it a bit: http://gazette.com/born-in-the-usa-without-a-shred-of-proof/article/125988
In Indiana, Kentucky, California, Texas, AKA the states I am familiar with, kids need to be in school or an approved Home Schooling program. That requires a birth certificate and proof of vaccinations/religious exemption to vaccinations. Not sure elsewhere but I'd be shocked if you could just have a kid and nobody notice. The interesting question is can you have a kid and not make it official with a paper trail? You'd have to give birth at home, never get sick, not register for school, never take welfare, never declare the kid a dependent for tax purposes, etc.
This is fascinating and I want to research it but don't have time. Quick thought -- you are a citizen if you are born on American soil, but if you never get registered anywhere, you might have to go through the pro forma process of applying for citizenship before you could get documents like license/passport.