The Sovereign Citizen Movement Gains Traction

The fringe extremist front known as the sovereign citizen movement in the US rarely seems to pique the kind of mainstream media scrutiny that the proposed construction of a mosque near the site of the World Trade center in New York receives, but the threat they pose is real and their membership is growing.


Pictured left, Joe Zane, 16, lies dead after he and his father, Jerry were shot by police officers shortly after the two sovereign citizens killed Brandon Paudert and Bill Evans, two West Memphis, Arkansas police officers on May 20th.

Sovereign citizen activists Jerry Kane and his 16 year-old son Joe were pulled over in a routine traffic stop by Paudert and Evans and minutes later were shot and killed by Joe when he jumped out of the passenger seat of their white minivan and opened fire with an AK-47 assault rifle killing both officers.

NBC Nightly News ran a piece on the story and the story did make headlines across the country, but serious examination of the movement seems to have fizzled in the mainstream press.

The incident shed light on a group that lacks a central leadership, but boasts a growing membership organized into cells across the country. Who are sovereign citizens?

The FBI and the IRS have begun to monitor the sovereign citizen membership and their activities more closely.

The Anti-Defamation League Website describes the sovereign citizen movement as:
"...a loosely organized collection of groups and individuals who have adopted a right-wing anarchist ideology originating in the theories of a group called the Posse Comitatus in the 1970s. Its adherents believe that virtually all existing government in the United States is illegitimate and they seek to "restore" an idealized, minimalist government that never actually existed."

In its fall 2010 intelligence Report the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) raises the alarm about the sovereign citizen movement, detailing the murders of the Arkansas police officers as well as the bizarre array of activities of sovereign citizens.

Sovereign citizens believe themselves to be members of separate sovereign entities and hence are not subject to state or federal laws. Some beliefs seem harmless, but in this post-911 era are actually extremely dangerous.

They don't think they should be required to carry drivers licenses, social security cards or identification of any kind. They hold "courts" where they issue arrest warrants for police officers and judges; and even sanction violence against members of government and private citizens.

Most famously, sovereign citizens believe they are not bound to pay taxes and have developed a strange array of seminars, court filings, letters and protests to avoid doing so. I'd never heard about sovereign citizens until actor Wesley Snipes emerged as a advocate of the groups beliefs and I blogged about it here on culturegeist.

I believe the Constitution gives all Americans the right to believe what they want and to protest; but any group that advocates the execution of law police officers is a danger to us all.

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