Now when I say, "hello Mr. Thompson", you respond with "hello"

Well if you didn't figure it out, that's a Simpsons reference, which is from an episode about the witness protection program. Now, the Massachusetts House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill yesterday to create a statewide witness protection program, and also to strengthen gun laws in an effort to end the violence that has erupted in the streets of Boston and other surrounding cities. The legislation, which passed 151 votes to 2 votes, would provide $750,000 a year to shield witnesses from intimidation, as they offer their testimony to grand juries or at criminal trials. Prosecutors can also petition a new Witness Protection Board to get witnesses into the program. The program offers witnesses: armed police escorts, surveillance, relocation, and ''reasonable" housing and living expenses. The passage by the House yesterday more or less assures that the bill will become a law in the coming weeks. The law was basically made because Boston's homicide rate reached a 10-year high in 2005, while the clearance rate, or the percentage of homicides for which a suspect is identified or arrested, has plummeted. Prosecutors and police have said they have struggled to persuade witnesses to come forward. Many people refuse out of fear of retribution to come forward, or because of the so-called "code of the street", which discourages sharing information with authorities. Alot of people are also afriad to come forward because of the recent popularity of "Stop Snitching" shirts, which are now banned in the courtroom. After the passing of the law, Phyllis Lopes of New Bedford stated, ''I'm overwhelmed, I'm emotional, I'm words you can't even find in Webster's Dictionary, that's how I feel,". Lopes became an activist against witness intimidation after her grandson was gunned down more than a year ago, and is quite happy for this law to finally happen.

In the U.S., the Witness Protection Program (also known as WITSEC) is established by the Witness Protection Act, which in turn sets out the manner in which the U.S. Attorney General may provide for the relocation and protection of a witness or potential witness of the federal or state government in an official proceeding concerning organized crime or other serious offences. The Witness Protection Program was founded in the late 1960s by Gerald Shur, when he was in the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the U.S. Department of Justice. Most witnesses in the program are protected by the U.S. Marshals Service, while protection of incarcerated witnesses is the duty of the Federal Bureau of Prisons