Sovereign Citizen Movement & "Paper Terrorism"

In Talledega County, Alabama, a recent story in The Daily Home contained this excerpt describing how those who subscribe to the Sovereign Citizen movement have been known to engage in "paper terrorism" and create chaos in the real estate title recording system:

• According to Southern Poverty Law Center spokesman Mark Potok, sovereign citizens organizations [...] began proliferating in the 1990s. They are closely related to the common law courts movement, Potok said.

• “These people believe that the government controls them through the way they write their names and things along those lines,” he said. “They often practice what is referred to as ‘paper terrorism’ by filing liens on their enemies’ property, bizarre tax documents and Uniform Commercial Code forms that don’t really mean anything. The beliefs of the different sovereign groups vary, but a lot of them buy into the ‘redemption scam.’ They believe that if you file the correct documents, in the right order, with the right words you can redeem your ‘government account,’ which could be worth anywhere from $60,000 to $20 million. They believe government is inherently wicked, and that they have been enslaved, but if they spell their names with colons and dashes and file the right paperwork they can be set free. Of course, all of that is nonsense. Their beliefs have no foundation in any law at all, let alone the laws of the United States.”

• In addition to harassing their enemies with bogus liens and fake court documents, some sovereign citizens also have been involved in stealing houses by filing pseudo-legal documents on foreclosed houses. Copies of these fake documents are frequently pasted onto the windows of these houses, Potok said.

For the story, see 2 arrested on felony warrants from South Carolina.

Go here for other posts on rackets involving so-called sovereign claims.