How Easy is it to Find Someone?

Very easy. It can be cheap or expensive. Your preparation will affect your outcome.

Think for a moment about what you need to become "invisible" in the United States today. There are easy ways to create a temporary false identity. Illegal immigrants do this trick every day on street corners in Los Angeles. But to live in a normal community more than a few months at a time, you need to create a paper trail that will stand up to examination by folks who can trace where you've lived for at least seven years. If you can't pay for that kind of deep cover, then there are a lot of things you can never do again:

• You can't work at a regular job with your wages reported to the IRS.
• You can't afford to be sick, because you may not be able to get health insurance.
• You can't send your kids to a public school.
• You can't marry or divorce legally.
• You can't own a car or have a drivers' license in your own name.
• You can't own property in your own name.
• You can't accept an inheritance.
• You can't borrow money, except from somebody in the same situation you are.
• You can't have a credit card or a Federally insured bank account.
• You can't take anybody else to court or even to the police if they harm you.

Any of these actions may require a social security number or cause the creation of a paper trail which a professional can use to find you. It is much harder to go underground now than it was in the 1960's. There are too many databases with your name and numbers in them. The more outwardly successful you are, the more numbers will trail you. Nobody living a normal life in an industrialized country today is hard to find.