"Sovereign citizen" both chilling and ironic

[MamaJunebug]

Sovereign citizen has government help in eviction plot

Given the discussion on Alecia Faith Pennington's possible "sovereign citizen" parents over on QFOS, my Ears perked up at the TV news reader's mention of "sovereign citizen."

TLDR version: a woman declares herself Queen of the moorish nation and decides that a huge home is rightfully her own.

Here's the deliciously ironic part: she uses "the evil government" to attempt to evict the rightful owners -- and the chilling, ironic part?-- the government dutifully does her bidding and inundates the owners with paperwork challenging them to prove their rights To Their Own Home!

Posting here instead of in Faith's topic on QFOS to keep from topic-jacking.

My takeaway: "sovereign citizens" are a threat and a menace. Whether they are self-anointed queens or CPAs who fancy themselves above the law.

[NachosFlandersStyle]

Oh, these guys are WAY more than CPAs and self-appointed queens. I fell way down the rabbit hole after seeing this in the Pennington Point thread. The SPLC has a bunch of material on the subject; the movement is a direct descendant of the white supremacist militia movements that produced Timothy McVeigh and Randy Weaver. They are also behind the murder of Dr. Tiller and the shooting of two Arkansas police officers in 2010.

And if you read their own materials they sound like the ramblings of a schizophrenic. (Google 'embassy of heaven' and check out their website.) These are people who straight-up believe that the government is trying to put tracking devices in their heads. They have a theory that the gold fringe you see on ceremonial American flags is unconstitutional and that any office that displays it is part of an UN-American shadow government.

In other words, if you were to really press the Penningtons on why they think their kids shouldn't have ID, you might hit a deep vein of crazy that would put even their current WTFery to shame.

[SoSoNosy]

That happened close to where I live, too! The woman actually took possession of the house and the police had to intervene pretty strictly. She tried it on another house, but didn't succeed.

[Tesseract]

:pink-shock:

Wow. Thanks for thread and the link. Another crazy I never knew existed.

[mirele]

The Fogbow forum, which got started to track "birthers"* in 2009, more recently added sovereign citizens to its focus. Many of the Fogbow denizens are current or former attorneys. Here's a link to the "Sovereign Citizens, Militias and Common Law Grand Juries" forum:

http://thefogbow.com/forum/forum/72-sov ... nd-juries/

(not breaking because the Fogbow's motto is "Falsehoods Unchallenged Only Fester And Grow")

Mostly the discussion surrounds court cases. Imprisoned creationist evangelist Kent Hovind is one of the people discussed. There are a number of others, enough to keep a reader busy for a while. I would like some more evidence that the Penningtons are sovereign citizens so that a topic can be opened over there.

*birther = people who believe Obama is not a natural born citizen, thus not qualified to be president.

[whoviana]

*birther = people who believe Obama is not a natural born citizen, thus not qualified to be president.

If Obama is not a natural born citizen who doesn't qualify to be a president, then what do these people think their children are with NO birth certificates to prove that they exist at all, let alone that they are US citizens?

[mirele]

I wouldn't say their thinking is all thst consistent. I also think birtherism is a cover for "we can't have that black man un our White House."

[whoviana]

Consistent? The first thing I read about them contradicted the second thing I read about them.

[Grimalkin]

Not to mention the fact that I am pretty certain that his mom being an American citizen makes him a natural born citizen no matter where he was born.

I heard on a discussion Mitt Romney's dad was born in Mexico and tried to run for president. It was never an issue. I could be wrong.

[happy atheist]

sovereign-citizenship.net/-l9NKD9AGXXu07GdYYbPpAr-/01_intro.html

This is an incoherent self-published book about how to become a sovereign citizen. You can order a CD from this guy, which has all the paperwork you need. You get to go to the post office and have a postal employee sign your magic piece of paper, and then you can mail yourself to other countries. That way you don't need a passport.

15 ~ Making the Claim of Your Life

Government Agencies are practicing ADMIRALTY enforcement of MARITIME COMMERCIAL LAW (Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution) so they must abide by their maritime commercial rules of procedure; the UNIFORM COMMERCIAL CODE.

On the highs seas (under maritime law), when you bring a vessel into port (the court) you must present a CHARTER VESSEL CLAIM for your cargo to the port authority (the judge).

In this case, the claim for your cargo is a CLAIM FOR YOUR LIFE: That your body is your vessel and that your cargo is your life.

Follow the instructions here very carefully to make a TRUTHFUL LANGUAGE CLAIM with facts and witnesses in support of your identity.

Here's how to properly build your CLAIM FOR THE LIFE:

First you must understand that in proper English any name in all capital letters means that that person is either DEAD or a CORPORATION and if you are reading this, you are neither.

You must get your name right like this:First-Middle:Last Two proper nouns in support of each other, a Fact.

Place a photo of yourself on the CLAIM and enter your name.

Place a color Title 4 flag in the upper left-hand corner.

Bring a lancet or pin, photo id, inkpad, twenty dollars, and two witnesses to the post office with the CLAIM. Let the Postmaster know that you are making a legal document for identification purposes. (Remember to smile and be nice) and ask him/her if she would be willing to reference your ID and verify that you are the person by placing his autograph on the CLAIM (remember to say thank you). Next, Have all of your witnesses sign.

From the Postmaster, purchase a one-dollar U.S. Postage stamp and affix it to the upper right-hand corner of the CLAIM and ask him/her to cancel it. (if you get a funny look, say that you are mailing it to yourself, GENERAL DELIVERY and you just need to record the date that you did that)

Next explain that to associate the life with the claim you must affix a tiny sample of your DNA on the page and put one small drop of your blood on the page.

Put your right thumb print on the page.

Tell the postmaster that you want send this REGISTERED MAIL, RETURN-RECEIPT. He will hand you the card and you mail it to yourself,: First-Middle: Last, General Delivery, Your Town. From: exactly the same.

Write the RETURN-RECEIPT number on the top of the CLAIM and make 5 color copies.

Place a copy of your CLAIM in the envelope and seal it.

Pay the FEE for the SERVICE and tell the Postmaster that you are here to pick up your mail.

Say thank you, have a nice day. Aren't public servants useful?

When this is done you will be relieved because your Sovereignty will then be internationally documented by the UNITED STATES POST OFFICE.

This government issued ID proves beyond a reasonable doubt that you are a SOVEREIGN LIFEBIRTH-PARTY WITH THE TITLE 4 FLAG and is more powerful than a passport.

If a Judge, D.A., policeman or jailer assumes that you are a CORPORATE FRANCHISEE (vessel of the United States) and that you are subject to their merchant laws you have proof that you are a living, breathing, thinking human and can walk right on over to the mailbox with your own two legs, file an application for MAIL-FRAUD (fine $1 million) with the Postal Service, and attach it to the record.

Mailing Yourself Across the Border

This is where the UNIVERSAL POSTA UNION WORKER'S TREATY comes into effect.

Customs agents, cops, judges, stenographers, court clerks are all postal clerks under the “Universal postal worker’s treaty” have the authority and obligation to date-stamp documents for the mailing. So, you can put a stamp for the country you wish to travel in on your CLAIM FOR THE LIFE and have the customs agent cancel the stamp at the border, thereby mailing your package(self) into the country.

And here's how to cause trouble with the cops when you're speeding. Which somehow is a good thing that proves something?

What is CONSENT?

Simply put, consent means to allow. Like saying, “O.k. you can search my car but you won't find anything."

Here's a real life example:

My family and I were traveling across Oklahoma in a Three-cylinder Geo Metro.

We had stopped to help a turtle that had been struck on 1-40.Goin' down the road feelin' bad for this Turtle whose shell was busted open, some Roofus Okie Deppity Sherruf pulls us over for two over the recommended highway velocity.

He said that he was going to just give me a warning but he asked if I would step out of the car (what a great bargain!)

The next thing I know, I'm sitting in his passenger seat explaining to him that it is my PATRIOTIC DUTY to refuse his search of our DWELLING-HOUSE.

He then informed me that where he comes from, refusal is cause for a search with a dog. (he must not have come from any of the UNITY-STATES of OUR WORLD.)

Next, he separated me from my wife to see if we had solidarity or conflicting stories and then lied to her about the dog signaling for drugs.

Over our OBJECTION in the 104 degree heat of the Summer, pregnant Momma, kids, and a broken turtle on the side of 1-40, this D.S. rummaged through half of the contents of our DWELLING-HOUSE and finally gave up when he found the unopened package of dried henna with Hindi writing all over it and let us go with a written warning(confession/evidence of rights violation as far as I'm concerned).

Would you like it if that happened to you?

Well, that's about what I've got to say about consent.

[mrs]

Are there any good books about this movement? I believe Ruby Ridge involved SG(there are various books on the incident).

Reading the 'Bring the Stanley Kids Home' wall, I believe there a few SG's posting. Especially those posters who recommend suing the police, judge, DHS, etc.

[sockinshoe]

If Obama is not a natural born citizen who doesn't qualify to be a president, then what do these people think their children are with NO birth certificates to prove that they exist at all, let alone that they are US citizens?

Never mind Tea Party darling Ted Cruz, whose status as a natural-born American citizen was questionable and who actually held Canadian citizenship for a time (if I am not incorrect).

[mirele]

Are there any good books about this movement? I believe Ruby Ridge involved SG(there are various books on the incident).

Reading the 'Bring the Stanley Kids Home' wall, I believe there a few SG's posting. Especially those posters who recommend suing the police, judge, DHS, etc.

If there is a book, I haven't found it. I can't even think of a good overview article. It's hard to explain how whack theories which got their start with the whie supremacist Posse Comitatus somehow managed to migrate into the black community. Seriously.

[mirele]

I clicked on this article for the religious intolerance and stayed for the sovereign citizen nuttery.

BOISE -- A Boise woman is facing felony charges after police say she attacked a Jewish acquaintance, stomping on the woman's neck as part of a bizarre bid to convert her to Christianity.

(skipping the whack religious intolerance part)

Haragan was arrested Wednesday night on a felony warrant. In court Thursday, she told a judge she did not understand what she was being charged with, she did not want a public defender, and she would not hire her own lawyer.

"I am a sworn-in deputy of Ada County and I also give my oath that what I say is legal and binding," she told Judge John Hawley.

There is no record of Haragan working as a deputy in Ada County or any of the surrounding counties. Officials in Ada, Elmore, Canyon, Gem, Owyhee and Boise counties all said the woman has no affiliation with their county or sheriff's office.

Judge John Hawley decided to appoint the suspect a public defender anyway.

"These are serious charges and you really do need an attorney to assist you," he told her.

http://www.ktvb.com/story/news/crime/20 ... /23365051/

[jaynie]

Are these people connected with the detax movement (which I know exists in Canada, and which I'm pretty sure exists elsewhere too)? The bizarre reliance on maritime legality and the RANDOM capitalisation of WORDS in particular seem very familiar.

(That right there is a great conspiracy theory - in my favourite iteration, millions of people across the globe are involved in a complicated financial scam for which they will happily lie, cheat, and kill, but if you just put the right words on your tax form they'll back off, because reasons.)

[mirele]

Jaynie,

Yes, and the freemen on the land movement too. It's yet another crazy American import--sorry!

[MamaJunebug]

Pleased to see all the information provided. Knowledge is important!

Descended from the white supremacist movement this might have been, but it welcomes everybody, now -- the woman cited in the news report in the opening post is African-American.

It's everywhere, it's everywhere. But then .... so are the good people. Have hope! Stay informed.

[morri]

There was a person who proclaimed himself "king of Heligoland" no idea what happened to him though. and then there are the wackos who claim that they arent under the jurisdiction of German law because they state that the German state doesnt exist but the German Reich is still existant.

[MamaJunebug]

There was a person who proclaimed himself "king of Heligoland" no idea what happened to him though. and then there are the wackos who claim that they arent under the jurisdiction of German law because they state that the German state doesnt exist but the German Reich is still existant.

Oh. my. word.

It's everywhere!!!! :(

[nomoxian]

Not to mention the fact that I am pretty certain that his mom being an American citizen makes him a natural born citizen no matter where he was born.

I heard on a discussion Mitt Romney's dad was born in Mexico and tried to run for president. It was never an issue. I could be wrong.

According to Wiki he was born in the Mormon Mexican colonies during the Mexican Revolution, and he was a contender for the Republican seat... so I guess a Mexican is OK to be president so long as they are white.

[Cleopatra7]

Maybe I'm just being silly, but I wonder if "sovereign citizenship" will start to become more of a thing if same-sex marriage becomes universal this spring. There are already a lot of mainstream conservatives who are disengaging from society, whether in the form of separatist homeschooling, prepping, gold buggery, arms hoarding, etc. There is a trend in metro Atlanta where I live for rich whites to establish their own cities so they don't have to share their tax revenue with poorer blacks in the City of Atlanta proper. All of this suggests to me is that there is a good chunk of conservatives aren't willing to invest in an United States that is going to be majority black-brown and/or won't invest in an United States where Adam and Steve can get a marriage license in Yazoo City, Mississippi.

[Peas n carrots]

Mainstream reporting on SovCits

http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/19/politics/terror-threat-homeland-security/index.html

Washington (CNN)They're carrying out sporadic terror attacks on police, have threatened attacks on government buildings and reject government authority.

A new intelligence assessment, circulated by the Department of Homeland Security this month and reviewed by CNN, focuses on the domestic terror threat from right-wing sovereign citizen extremists and comes as the Obama administration holds a White House conference to focus efforts to fight violent extremism.

Some federal and local law enforcement groups view the domestic terror threat from sovereign citizen groups as equal to -- and in some cases greater than -- the threat from foreign Islamic terror groups, such as ISIS, that garner more public attention.​

The Homeland Security report, produced in coordination with the FBI, counts 24 violent sovereign citizen-related attacks across the U.S. since 2010.

The government says these are extremists who believe that they can ignore laws and that their individual rights are under attack in routine daily instances such as a traffic stop or being required to obey a court order.

They've lashed out against authority in incidents such as one in 2012, in which a father and son were accused of engaging in a shootout with police in Louisiana, in a confrontation that began with an officer pulling them over for a traffic violation. Two officers were killed and several others wounded in the confrontation. The men were sovereign citizen extremists who claimed police had no authority over them.

Among the findings from the Homeland Security intelligence assessment: "(Sovereign citizen) violence during 2015 will occur most frequently during routine law enforcement encounters at a suspect's home, during enforcement stops and at government offices."

The White House has fended off criticism in recent days for its reluctance to say the words "Islamist extremism," even as the conference this week almost entirely focused on helping imams and community groups to counteract the lure of groups like ISIS.

Absent from the White House conference is any focus on the domestic terror threat posed by sovereign citizens, militias and other anti-government terrorists that have carried out multiple attacks in recent years.

An administration official says the White House is focused on the threat from all terrorists, including from sovereign citizen and other domestic groups.

"I don't think it's fair to say the (White House) conference didn't address this at all," the official said, adding that President Barack Obama addressed the need to combat "violent ideologies" of all types.

An official at the Justice Department, which is leading the administration's counter-radicalization effort, says many of the tactics aimed at thwarting radical Islamic recruitment of young people can also be used to fight anti-government extremist groups.

While groups like ISIS and al Qaeda garner the most attention, for many local cops, the danger is closer to home.

A survey last year of state and local law enforcement officers listed sovereign citizen terrorists, ahead of foreign Islamists, and domestic militia groups as the top domestic terror threat.

The survey was part of a study produced by the University of Maryland's National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism.

In 2013, a man who held anti-government views carried out a shooting attack on three Transportation Security Administration employees at Los Angeles International Airport, killing one TSA officer. Last year, a couple killed two police officers and a bystander at a Las Vegas Walmart store.

Mark Potok, senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said that by some estimates, there are as many as 300,000 people involved in some way with sovereign citizen extremism. Perhaps 100,000 people form a core of the movement, he said.

The federal government's focus on the domestic groups waxes and wanes, Potok said, in part because the threat from foreign groups like al Qaeda and its affiliates.

Potok says sovereign citizen groups have attracted support because of poor economic conditions. Some groups travel the country pitching their ideology as a way to help homeowners escape foreclosure or get out of debt, by simply ignoring the courts and bankruptcy law.

The Homeland Security report's focus on right-wing terrorists is a subject that garnered political controversy for the Obama administration in the past. In 2009, a Homeland Security report on possible recruitment of military veterans by right-wing militia groups prompted an outcry from veterans groups.

The report was produced by staff members during the Bush administration but wasn't published until then Homeland Security Janet Napolitano had taken office. Napolitano criticized her own agency for the report.

[mirele]

This is a GREAT story about a sovereign citizen representing himself in federal court. The judge is Richard Posner, who normally hears appellate cases (and writes kick-ass opinions, go look up what he wrote about gay marriage in a recent case). Seriously, there's a whole ball of Sovereign Citizen cray-cray going on here.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/d ... tml#page=1

When a non-lawyer defends himself in a criminal trial, questions of competence arise

By Tara Kadioglu

Daily Southtown

Trials and Arbitration Internal Revenue Service

Calumet City resident Hakeem El Bey began an opening statement on his own behalf Monday by calling the jury selection "fictitious" and talking about Pope Francis.

"I'm representing myself because I don't get involved in fiction," El Bey told jurors. "I don't consent to the jury selection itself. It's fictitious."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathryn Malizia objected to the presiding judge, Richard Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, who sometimes chooses to preside over trials like El Bey's, at the district court level.

El Bey was exercising his Sixth Amendment right to be pro se, or represent himself in court. He was convicted on Wednesday of two counts of mail fraud and six counts of filing false claims, and faces up to 20 years in prison.

The prosecution argued that between 2006 and 2010 El Bey defrauded the Internal Revenue Service for $1.8 million in tax refunds, received $600,000 of this amount by the Internal Revenue Service's admitted mistake and spent a little less than the amount he received on six cars, a house in Calumet City and several other miscellaneous expenses.

Criminal defendants — unlike parties to a civil case — have the constitutional right to an attorney, including court-appointed counsel. But El Bey refused to be represented by anyone other than himself.

At the end of the trial, Posner acknowledged El Bey's "vigorous" pro se defense and the fact that the trial had been challenging for the defendant, who has no formal legal training.

Before and during the three-day trial, El Bey made various inaccurate or irrelevant statements on his own behalf, including that he owes no taxes because he is a "sovereign citizen" and citizen of the Cherokee nation, when he is in fact a U.S. citizen.

Prosecutors introduced evidence Tuesday that El Bey, an African-American born Frederick Wade Johnson, described himself as "Moorish-American."

El Bey declined to be interviewed, but a 2012 YouTube video referring to him as "Moorpheus" suggests he is a devout follower of the Moorish Science Temple of America, a religious group that formed in the 1920s. The organization's website advocates "correcting" one's last name to variations of "El Bey," and some Moorish Science followers have spoken in the media about considering themselves "sovereign citizens" not subject to U.S. laws.

Following a brief dispute over El Bey's opening comments, Posner called the first of many sidebars in the trial to more intimately address numerous issues raised by El Bey and prosecutors.

"We have a problem," Posner told jurors after the meeting, pointing out that while El Bey has the right to represent himself, jurors needed to ignore the defendant's statements about the pope — not out of any "disrespect to the pope or Roman Catholicism," but because El Bey's statements simply have "no status in American law."

Throughout the trial a court-appointed attorney, Jenner & Block's Gabriel Fuentes, served as standby counsel for El Bey, to ensure him a fair trial.

Posner warned in his pre-trial orders that El Bey would forfeit his right to represent himself if he continued making "utterly irrelevant, patently inaccurate, and sometimes unintelligible contentions into this case," referring to the defendant's pre-trial attempts to rely on irrelevant laws such as the Rules of Civil Procedure, the Uniform Commercial Code, admiralty and maritime law and the Stamp Act.

El Bey asked the prosecution's first witness, Kristy Morgan, a witness coordinator for the Internal Revenue Service, if paying taxes was voluntary. Morgan replied that while one may choose to not pay taxes, there are penalties for not doing so.

Just as El Bey tried to argue that Morgan was contradicting herself and said "let me break it down for you," Posner stopped him.

He first reminded El Bey that he cannot testify for the witness, but can only ask questions. He then emphasized to the jury that El Bey had no place suggesting that paying taxes is optional.

"Look, paying taxes is not voluntary: If you don't pay taxes, you go to jail," Posner said. "I'm going to kick you out if you keep on with this nonsense."

Only 0.3 percent of felony defendants represent themselves in U.S. district court, according to a report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Malizia and her co-counsel, Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Hotaling, declined to be interviewed, but Bob Glaves, executive director of the Chicago Bar Foundation, said it is extremely rare for a criminal defendant to waive the right to court-appointed counsel.

"With the right to represent oneself comes that obligation to follow the rules — that's why we go to law school and get trained as lawyers to do that," Glaves said. "There's very few people, there's very few lawyers who would even do that."

Richard Schoenstedt, chief judge at the Will County Courthouse, agreed with Glaves that it is unusual to see self-representation in a criminal case. But he also said he has seen several such cases come his way in his 10 years on the felony bench, before his current appointment.

"I've had several trials where the defendant insists on representing themselves, and it never seems to end up well for the pro se defendant," he said.

But Schoenstedt acknowledged the constitutional right to represent oneself, regardless of what judges may think is best for the defendant:

"Every judge wants criminal defendants to have counsel," he said. "Even though [defendants] think they can represent themselves, they can't. Lawyers go through a lot of education and experience for that."

El Bey, who argued that he never intended to file false returns, cross-examined only a few of the witnesses against him, including getting up merely to say hello to one of them and causing some jurors to snicker.

Schoenstedt pointed out that jurors experience "a certain amount of frustration" when they hear from pro se defendants, who he said often invoke irrelevant or off-the-wall statements.

"They're emotional," he said. "They can't separate their emotions from the legal arguments they need to make. It also makes cases go on longer. I don't think the pro se litigant is doing themselves any favor."

But in order to manage a functional trial, a judge does have discretion to discipline a pro se defendant in contempt in the same manner he might discipline an attorney who is out of line in court, Glaves said.

El Bey did not ultimately prevent himself from exercising his right to self-representation.

Posner said El Bey's sentencing date would be May 27 at the earliest.

He strongly advised El Bey to have a lawyer during the sentencing process, reminding him that he could appoint representation if El Bey couldn't afford it.

"This process is extremely complicated, for which I apologize on behalf of the judiciary," Posner told El Bey. "You want to have as lenient a sentence as possible."

Tara Kadioglu is a freelance reporter. She worked from 2007 to 2008 as chief research assistant to Judge Richard Posner in an academic capacity.