Correction: The Tax Scam Artist's Lie .. The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was not properly ratified, thus the federal income tax laws are unconstitutional. ..
IRS, the LAW .. Anti-Tax Law Evasion Schemes - Law and Arguments (Section IV)
IV. Constitutional Amendment Claims
A. Contention: Federal income taxes constitute a "taking" of property without due process of law, violating the Fifth Amendment.
Some assert that the collection of federal income taxes constitutes a "taking" of property without due process of law, in violation of the Fifth Amendment. Thus, any attempt by the Internal Revenue Service to collect federal income taxes owed by a taxpayer is unconstitutional.
The Law: The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that a person shall not be "deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law . . . ." The U.S. Supreme Court stated in Brushaber v. Union Pacific R.R., 240 U.S. 1, 24 (1916), that "it is . . . well settled that [the Fifth Amendment] is not a limitation upon the taxing power conferred upon Congress by the Constitution; in other words, that the Constitution does not conflict with itself by conferring upon the one hand a taxing power, and taking the same power away on the other by limitations of the due process clause." Further, the Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of the summary administrative procedures contained in the Internal Revenue Code against due process challenges, on the basis that a post-collection remedy (e.g., a tax refund suit) exists and is sufficient to satisfy the requirements of constitutional due process. Phillips v. Commissioner, 283 U.S. 589, 595-97 (1931).
The Internal Revenue Code provides methods to ensure due process to taxpayers:
(1) The "refund method," set forth in section 7422(e) and 28 U.S.C. §§ 1341 and 1346(a), where a taxpayer must pay the full amount of the tax and then sue in a federal district court or in the United States Court of Federal Claims for a refund; and (2) The "deficiency method," set forth in section 6213(a), where a taxpayer may, without paying the contested tax, petition the United States Tax Court to redetermine a tax deficiency asserted by the IRS. Courts have found that both methods provide constitutional due process.
In recent years, Congress passed new laws providing further protection for taxpayers' due process rights in collection matters. In the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, Pub. L. 105-206, § 3401, 112 Stat. 685, 746, Congress enacted new sections 6320 (pertaining to liens) and 6330 (pertaining to levies) establishing collection due process rights for taxpayers, effective for collection actions after January 19, 1999.
* Generally, the IRS must provide taxpayers notice and an opportunity for an administrative appeals hearing upon the filing of a notice of federal tax lien (section 6320) and prior to levy (section 6330). * Taxpayers also have the right to seek judicial review of the IRS's determination in these due process proceedings. I.R.C. § 6330(d). These reviews can extend to the merits of the underlying tax liability, if the taxpayer has not previously received the opportunity for review of the merits, e.g., did not receive a notice of deficiency. I.R.C. § 6330(c)(2)(B). However, the Tax Court has indicated that it will impose sanctions pursuant to section 6673 against taxpayers who seek judicial relief based upon frivolous or groundless positions.
Relevant Case Law: Flora v. United States, 362 U.S. 145, 175 (1960) - The court held that a taxpayer must pay the full tax assessment before being able to file a refund suit in district court, noting that a person has the right to appeal an assessment to the Tax Court "without paying a cent."
Schiff v. United States, 919 F.2d 830 (2 d Cir. 1990) - The court rejected a due process claim where the taxpayer chose not to avail himself of the opportunity to appeal a deficiency notice to the Tax Court.
Goza v. Commissioner, 114 T.C. 176 (2000) - The court rejected the taxpayer's attempt to use the judicial review process as a forum to contest the underlying tax liability, since the taxpayer had an opportunity to dispute that liability after receiving the statutory notice of deficiency.
Pierson v. Commissioner, 115 T.C. 576, 581 (2000) - The court considered imposing sanctions against the taxpayer, but decided against doing so, stating, "we regard this case as fair warning to those taxpayers who, in the future, institute or maintain a lien or levy action primarily for delay or whose position in such a proceeding is frivolous or groundless."
Davis v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2001-87, 81 T.C.M. (CCH) 1503 (2001) - The court imposed a $4,000 penalty for frivolous and groundless arguments, after warning that the taxpayer could be penalized for presenting them.
B. Contention: Taxpayers do not have to file returns or provide financial information because of the protection against self-incrimination found in the Fifth Amendment.
Some argue that taxpayers may refuse to file federal income tax returns, or may submit tax returns on which they refuse to provide any financial information, because they believe that their Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination will be violated.
The Law: There is no constitutional right to refuse to file an income tax return on the ground that it violates the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. In United States v. Sullivan, 274 U.S. 259, 264 (1927), the U.S. Supreme Court stated that the taxpayer "could not draw a conjurer's circle around the whole matter by his own declaration that to write any word upon the government blank would bring him into danger of the law." The failure to comply with the filing and reporting requirements of the federal tax laws will not be excused based upon blanket assertions of the constitutional privilege against compelled self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment.
Relevant Case Law: United States v. Schiff, 612 F.2d 73, 83 (2 d Cir. 1979) - The court said that "the Fifth Amendment privilege does not immunize all witnesses from testifying. Only those who assert as to each particular question that the answer to that question would tend to incriminate them are protected . . . [T]he questions in the income tax return are neutral on their face . . . [h]ence privilege may not be claimed against all disclosure on an income tax return."
United States v. Brown, 600 F.2d 248, 252 (10 th Cir. 1979) - Noting that the Supreme Court had established "that the self-incrimination privilege can be employed to protect the taxpayer from revealing the information as to an illegal source of income, but does not protect him from disclosing the amount of his income," the court said Brown made "an illegal effort to stretch the Fifth Amendment to include a taxpayer who wishes to avoid filing a return."
United States v. Neff, 615 F.2d 1235, 1241 (9 th Cir.), cert. denied, 447 U.S. 925 (1980) - The court affirmed a failure to file conviction, noting that the taxpayer "did not show that his response to the tax form questions would have been self-incriminating. He cannot, therefore, prevail on his Fifth Amendment claim."
United States v. Daly, 481 F.2d 28, 30 (8 th Cir.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1064 (1973) - The court affirmed a failure to file conviction, rejecting the taxpayer's Fifth Amendment claim because of his "error in . . . his blanket refusal to answer any questions on the returns relating to his income or expenses."
Sochia v. Commissioner, 23 F.3d 941 (5 th Cir. 1994), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1153 (1995) - The court affirmed tax assessments and penalties for failure to file returns, failure to pay taxes, and filing a frivolous return. The court also imposed sanctions for pursuing a frivolous case. The taxpayers had failed to provide any information on their tax return about income and expenses, instead claiming a Fifth Amendment privilege on each line calling for financial information.
C. Contention: Compelled compliance with the federal income tax laws is a form of servitude in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment.
This argument asserts that the compelled compliance with federal tax laws is a form of servitude in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment.
The Law: The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits slavery within the United States, as well as the imposition of involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime of which a person shall have been duly convicted. In Porth v. Brodrick, 214 F.2d 925, 926 (10 th Cir. 1954), the Court of Appeals stated that "if the requirements of the tax laws were to be classed as servitude, they would not be the kind of involuntary servitude referred to in the Thirteenth Amendment." Courts have consistently found arguments that taxation constitutes a form of involuntary servitude to be frivolous.
Relevant Case Law: Porth v. Brodrick, 214 F.2d 925, 926 (10 th Cir. 1954) - The court described the taxpayer's Thirteenth and Sixteenth Amendment claims as "clearly unsubstantial and without merit," as well as "far-fetched and frivolous."
United States v. Drefke, 707 F.2d 978, 983 (8 th Cir. 1983) - The court affirmed Drefke's failure to file conviction, rejecting his claim that the Thirteenth Amendment prohibited his imprisonment because that amendment "is inapplicable where involuntary servitude is imposed as punishment for a crime."
Ginter v. Southern, 611 F.2d 1226 (8 th Cir. 1979) - The court rejected the taxpayer's claim that the Internal Revenue Code results in involuntary servitude in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment.
Kasey v. Commissioner, 457 F.2d 369 (9 th Cir. 1972) - The court rejected as without merit the argument that the requirements to keep records and to prepare and file tax returns violated the Kaseys' Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and amount to involuntary servitude prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment.
D. Contention: The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was not properly ratified, thus the federal income tax laws are unconstitutional.
This argument is based on the premise that all federal income tax laws are unconstitutional because the Sixteenth Amendment was not officially ratified, or because the State of Ohio was not properly a state at the time of ratification. This argument has survived over time because proponents mistakenly believe that the courts have refused to address this issue.
The Law: The Sixteenth Amendment provides that Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes on income, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration. U.S. Const. Amend. XVI. The Sixteenth Amendment was ratified by forty states, including Ohio, and issued by proclamation in 1913. Shortly thereafter, two other states also ratified the Amendment. Under Article V of the Constitution, only three-fourths of the states are needed to ratify an Amendment. There were enough states ratifying the Sixteenth Amendment even without Ohio to complete the number needed for ratification. Furthermore, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the income tax laws enacted subsequent to ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment in Brushaber v. Union Pacific R.R., 240 U.S. 1 (1916). Since that time, the courts have consistently upheld the constitutionality of the federal income tax.
Relevant Case Law: Miller v. United States, 868 F.2d 236, 241 (7 th Cir. 1989) (per curiam) - The court stated, "We find it hard to understand why the long and unbroken line of cases upholding the constitutionality of the Sixteenth Amendment generally, Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad Company . . . and those specifically rejecting the argument advanced in The Law That Never Was, have not persuaded Miller and his compatriots to seek a more effective forum for airing their attack on the federal income tax structure." The court imposed sanctions on them for having advanced a "patently frivolous" position.
United States v. Stahl, 792 F.2d 1438, 1441 (9 th Cir. 1986), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1036 (1987) - Stating that "the Secretary of State's certification under authority of Congress that the Sixteenth Amendment has been ratified by the requisite number of states and has become part of the Constitution is conclusive upon the courts," the court upheld Stahl's conviction for failure to file returns and for making a false statement.
Knoblauch v. Commissioner, 749 F.2d 200, 201 (5 th Cir. 1984), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 830 (1986) - The court rejected the contention that the Sixteenth Amendment was not constitutionally adopted as "totally without merit" and imposed monetary sanctions against Knoblauch based on the frivolousness of his appeal. "Every court that has considered this argument has rejected it," the court observed.
United States v. Foster, 789 F.2d 457 (7 th Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 883 (1986) - The court affirmed Foster's conviction for tax evasion, failing to file a return, and filing a false W-4 statement, rejecting his claim that the Sixteenth Amendment was never properly ratified.
E. Contention: The Sixteenth Amendment does not authorize a direct non-apportioned federal income tax on United States citizens.
Some assert that the Sixteenth Amendment does not authorize a direct non-apportioned income tax and thus, U.S. citizens and residents are not subject to federal income tax laws.
The Law: The courts have both implicitly and explicitly recognized that the Sixteenth Amendment authorizes a non-apportioned direct income tax on United States citizens and that the federal tax laws as applied are valid. In United States v. Collins, 920 F.2d 619, 629 (10 th Cir. 1990), cert. denied, 500 U.S. 920 (1991), the court cited Brushaber v. Union Pac. R.R., 240 U.S. 1, 12-19 (1916), and noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that the "Sixteenth Amendment authorizes a direct nonapportioned tax upon United States citizens throughout the nation."
Relevant Case Law: In re Becraft, 885 F.2d 547 (9 th Cir. 1989) - The court affirmed a failure to file conviction, rejecting the taxpayer's frivolous position that the Sixteenth Amendment does not authorize a direct non-apportioned income tax.
Lovell v. United States, 755 F.2d 517, 518 (7 th Cir. 1984) - The court rejected the argument that the Constitution prohibits imposition of a direct tax without apportionment, and upheld the district court's frivolous return penalty assessment and the award of attorneys' fees to the government "because [the taxpayers'] legal position was patently frivolous." The appeals court imposed additional sanctions for pursuing "frivolous arguments in bad faith."
Broughton v. United States, 632 F.2d 706 (8 th Cir. 1980) - The court rejected a refund suit, stating that the Sixteenth Amendment authorizes imposition of an income tax without apportionment among the states.
Note: This page contains one or more references to the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), Treasury Regulations, court cases, or other official tax guidance. References to these legal authorities are included for the convenience of those who would like to read the technical reference material. To access the applicable IRC sections, Treasury Regulations, or other official tax guidance, visit the Tax Code, Regulations, and Official Guidance .. http://www.irs.gov/Tax-Professionals/Tax-Code,-Regulations-and-Official-Guidance .. \ page. To access any Tax Court case opinions issued after September 24, 1995, visit the Opinions Search .. http://apps.irs.gov/app/scripts/exit.jsp?dest=http://www.ustaxcourt.gov/UstcInOp/asp/HistoricOptions.asp .. page of the United States Tax Court.
In an era when Barack Obama, a president viewed as radically liberal by the extreme right, prepares to seek a second term, an anti-government movement poses an increasing threat to law enforcement and government workers, according to the FBI.
These self-described sovereign citizen extremists believe they live outside the law -- that they are purer souls caught in a corrupt governmental and societal scheme that they equate with tyranny. Resisting this evil is a duty to God, justifying any actions -- even violent ones -- they believe they must take.
In Alaska, it's unknown how many sovereign citizens belong to the Fairbanks-based Alaska Peacemakers Militia. Its jailed leader, Schaeffer Cox, once bragged he had a force of 3,500 people at the ready. He warned local law enforcement and the courts that his militia had them outmanned and outgunned.
But after his indictment on federal weapons and conspiracy charges stemming from an alleged plot to kill judges and law enforcement officers, conversations recorded by a militia infiltrator show Cox and his handful of known followers readily admit his boasted ranks were a bluff.
Cox and others arrested with him deny any wrongdoing. But they don't shy away from expressing what they believe. And because of that, lawyers for some of the defendants claim the Feds are conducting what amounts to a witch hunt against the Peacemakers because they are known sovereign citizens.
There is no doubt law enforcement has grown more vigilant in recent years, but "we are not investigating an ideology," says Kathleen Wright, a special agent at the FBI's Washington, D.C., headquarters. "We are not interested in people who believe in the ideology. It's only when they step over the line, commit a crime, that we have the potential to get involved."
The Anti-Defamation League describes the sovereign citizen movement as a sister to the militia movement, yet notes both are growing and there is often cross-over between the two. And while the sovereign movement has origins in white supremacy, many younger followers have broken away from racism, as had Cox and his group, according to a trusted member of the Alaska Peacemakers Militia. Instead, they're angry about a host of perceived sociopolitical corruptions: a court system gone awry, stolen wealth, oppressive debt, abortion rights, impending societal collapse.
It is against this backdrop that America's first black president will ask voters to send him back to the White House in November. But his skin color may have much less to do with the disdain "sovereign nations" have for him than his political views, if history is any indication.
"My personal gut tells me it is less about race and more about the economy and a liberal president, and all the big government that comes along with having a Democrat in office," says Steven Chermak, an associate professor of criminology at Michigan State University and the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terror.
'Germinating in the mainstream'
The uptick in today's sovereign extremism parallels a similar surge experienced when another Democrat was elected to the presidency, in 1992.
Both Obama and former President Bill Clinton have been seen as antitheses of Republican presidents who preceded them, viewed by detractors as symbols of a big and evil government, contributors to America's social ills. While political candidates have the potential to agitate unhappy citizens, candidates from any end of the spectrum can inspire ire, as long as they belong to the system that extremists loathe.
"To the extent that sovereign citizens don't believe the government is legitimate, (elections) keep complaints about the government on the front pages," says Brian Levin .. http://criminaljustice.csusb.edu/facultystaff/levin.htm , a criminologist, civil rights attorney and professor who studies extremism and hate crime and serves as director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
"The militia movement had its genesis with Ruby Ridge, which happened under the Bush administration. Certainly they don't like leftwing folks, but anyone that is participating in the political mainstream can be in their crosshairs," Levin adds.
Sovereign citizens rely on their historic and religious beliefs to align themselves with the philosophies and ethics of the founding fathers, men fueled by spiritual passion who sought a society free from the oppressive grip of an entitled royalty. In this fledgling new society, people would be free to define themselves and pursue their own relationship with God.
In modern America, however, sovereigns believe government has warped into a malicious form of tyranny, enslaving Americans who are duped in believing they are free. Reclaiming or asserting freedom is viewed nothing less than righteous, holy war. Many sovereign citizens will fight peacefully. But some seek gun battles, bombings and other lethal means to further the war, and religious zealots are the most difficult to deter.
"The whole basis of the sovereign citizen movement is that you do not need to be validated by the present government to have your rights. You have them on your own, you operate on your own authority," Levin says. "This is something that has been going on for a long time."
While the conspiracy theories on which many sovereign beliefs are centered have withstood decades of iterations, there are differences between groups active now and those seen in the Clinton era.
For starters, more Americans rely on the Internet.
Indeed, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was barely a preteen when Clinton took office in the early 1990s, and the social network wouldn't be invented until a few years after Clinton left the White House. YouTube came of age about the same time. Social networking has allowed outsiders to connect and spread their message, as well as help them readily infuse the political process with new ideas, new voices and agendas.
"We are seeing fragments that come out of the extremist movement actually germinating in the mainstream," says Levin, citing the tea party as an example.
Ironically, although the newest generation of sovereign citizens is connected through social networking, the movement is actually more splintered than in past decades, he says. Gone are the two main "glues" that helped sovereigns coalesce in the 1990s: major violent events and major players.
"You have fewer charismatic leaders in today's movement. But you don't really have a catalyst of a violent event to really galvanize people, like Waco or Ruby Ridge," he says.
In 2009, Schaeffer Cox was on a speaker's junket, and the self-made militia leader from Fairbanks, Alaska, was a rising star among people fed up with the Feds. From Chicago to Missoula, Mont., he spoke at liberty rallies, protests and seminars. He was both forthright and brazen. Part showman, part preacher, he was a man with a message: "This is war! .. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4JZJ1lJx0E "
But even Cox doesn't make the cut as a "major player," according to Levin.
"There are plenty of charismatic people who can fill a garage. I'm talking about the old clan leaders who could actually foment a national movement. We don't have that," Levin says.
The Anti-Defamation League estimates there may be hundreds of thousands of sovereign citizens within the U.S. Of those, Levin believes only a tiny fraction has the potential to be radicalized. Instead, most in the extremist movement are all talk, using their shared views as ways to bond.
Still, the Anti-Defamation League, FBI and the Southern Poverty Law Center have all reported a rising trend in deadly violence embraced by sovereign citizens.
'A buffet of conspiracies'
Crime trends among sovereign citizens include mortgage scams, fraudulent liens, tax evasion and failing to obtain official licenses and permits. They also will reject or deny birth certificates and Social Security cards, driver's licenses and license plates, believing them to be documents the U.S. uses to control and monitor them.
Regional groups of sovereign citizens reject government authority and may instead attempt to engage local, state and federal governments as foreign dignitaries, self-appointed commanders and ambassadors of other republics or assemblies. They are preparing for government collapse, ready to install their own government to fill the void, keep order and defend their families and neighborhoods, principles Schaeffer Cox espouses.
The rhetoric of sovereign citizens is often long-winded and enmeshed in elaborate conspiracy theories. Many reject tax collection, and will use a bizarre style of complex legal language to file liens, reject court proceedings and warn of their own impending criminal actions -- arrests of judges, sheriffs, etc. -- if local government authorities don't get off their back. To the FBI and groups that monitor violence, these voluminous filings amount to "paper terrorism" that can clog court systems and ruin people's credit reports.
Many sovereigns boast big about their firepower, government takeovers, and train like soldiers for some looming threat. Much of the rhetoric is protected as free speech. But talking about takeovers and making direct threats accompanied by taking steps to carry them out are not the same thing.
The challenge for law enforcement is to foretell who will take the leap. Extremists who act spontaneously and on their own may be the most troublesome of all.
What worries law enforcement is how much more strain it takes to provoke an already-lawless sovereign to violent action. Because this "tipping point" is difficult to ascertain, the FBI is taking a broad, closer look at criminals who also subscribe to sovereign citizen ideology, says Wright, the FBI special agent.
It may be a tall order.
Among the nation's major social and political institutions, there is a great disenfranchisement, Levin says, causing sovereigns to undertake an "idiosyncratic heaping" from the "buffet of conspiracies about what's gone wrong and the illegitimacy of government."
"There are a lot of unhappy people out there. The hard thing is, you have the atmospherics, the anger pointing that direction. The question is, is there someone out there -- a lone wolf or a small cell -- that has the capability of doing something," Levin says.
With access to weaponry and know-how, the threat is possibly greater today than in the past. But Levin says the question remains: "Are those who are most unstable able to operationally take advantage of it?"
Why do sovereign citizens turn violent?
It was a deadly confrontation in June 2010 with a father and son who had declared themselves to be sovereign citizens that signaled to the FBI that the ante had just been upped. Jerry Kane and his 16-year-old son fired upon officers .. http://abcnews.go.com/WN/deadly-arkansas-shooting-sovereign-citizens-jerry-kane-joseph/story?id=11065285#.TynqMVxukWQ .. during a traffic stop, killing two of them. The Kanes were later killed in a gun fight with police as they tried to flee.
"We were already taking a look at criminal activity committed by those who espouse sovereign citizen ideology. When the Kane shooting happened, it was sort of the crux for us that said 'Yes, we need to take a closer look,'" Wright said.
In the 49th state, the FBI was secretly investigating the Alaska Peacemakers Militia at least dating back to mid-2010. Was Schaeffer Cox -- the boyish-looking, spiritually inspired orator from the group -- on his way to bringing about a violent event before he was arrested in March last year?
Cox had been part of the movement for several years. In 2009, he attended a convention called Continental Congress 2009 .. http://cc2009.us/ , which appears to be a modern incarnation of a previous 3rd Continental Congress .. http://www.start.umd.edu/start/data_collections/tops/terrorist_organization_profile.asp?id=3419 , identified by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism as a "right-wing reactionary" terrorist organization. Cox went to CC2009 as an Alaska delegate and was a featured speaker. He also appeared at events in Illinois, Idaho and Montana in support of militias, presenting his lengthy speech "The Solution."
He became active with several groups, including the Interior Alaska Conservative Coalition, the pro-gun rights 2nd Amendment Task Force, the Alaska Peacemakers Militia, the Liberty Bell Network, the "Several States of the USA," and local and national chapters of the Assembly Post.
When he was charged with possession of a concealed weapon at a crime scene -- Cox had gone to the site to be a watchful eye as police served a search warrant on a Liberty Bell member -- he disputed the charges and the proceedings. Things eventually got so out of hand that Cox had convened a "common law court" at a local Denny's, where a jury of like-minded sovereigns acquitted him of all charges. When he later missed a state court date in the case, an arrest warrant was issued for him and Cox went into hiding.
Convinced the government was after him, prosecutors say Cox had convinced his cohorts to commit to a plan of resistance. He pledged he wouldn't go down gently. The group stockpiled weapons while Cox made an out-of-state escape plan. He clothed himself and his wife in bulletproof vests, and readied his men to take on anyone who might come their way. A defense plan known as "2-4-1" was developed -- for every militia member captured or killed, the militia would do the same to twice as many members of law enforcement. The group had researched home addresses on officers, and openly threatened state and federal judges.
Cox also claimed the state was using another tactic to get at him -- the Office of Children's Services.
He feared the state would try to take his child, and he feared arrest. He was and remains convinced the government was out to stop him at any cost to silence his outspoken anti-government views.
According to analysts of the sovereign movement, these are among the stressors that have in recent years provoked otherwise peaceful sovereigns to commit acts of violence. Threats to one's family or of incarceration, along with tax problems or financial woes, can become clarion calls to resist government.
Government agents are on the lookout, something sovereign citizens seem keenly aware of. And cases like Cox's -- where a member is jailed and charged -- fuels their "government is corrupt" beliefs. But while Cox's case is among the more recent involving sovereigns accused of deadly plots around the nation, it remains to be seen whether more will surface during the 2012 presidential election.
"I do think an election year brings out people and brings out the worst in people. But there also has to be some kind of defining, significant event, like a Waco," says terror expert Steven Chermak. "In this particular case, if (Cox) was going to go down shooting, it could have been one of those events. But law enforcement has pretty much wised up about how to bring these guys in."
To the editor - Published 8:35 pm, Tuesday, April 24, 2012
I was glad to see Ann McGuiness' letter regarding the Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk board member ("School board must take action," April 9). I am surprised there hasn't been more feedback on this story ("A 'sovereign citizen' at the reins," March 25). I am outraged as a fellow taxpayer that someone who doesn't pay his taxes gets to make decisions on how the rest of our tax dollars are spent.
I would suggest anyone who wants to proclaim himself a sovereign citizen should live as a sovereign. A dictionary definition of sovereign says: "an autonomous state." Further definition of autonomous says: "capable of existing independently of the whole."
Fine, let them live independently from the whole of taxpaying society. That definition would relegate them to what property they may own and whatever resources that land allows for sustenance.
Police, fire services, postal service, a school system's building, lights and heat would not be available to them. Food and fuel would not come to them nor would they go out to get supplies as they would be traveling roads supported by tax dollars. They would lose their right to vote, as our elected officials are supported by tax dollars. I find it laughable that sovereign citizens use our tax-supported court system to file suits against others.
When you examine the impossibility of living a truly sovereign life, you see that it appears to be little more than a scam to avoid the responsibilities non-sovereign citizens carry every day.
Jailed Sovereign Citizen Convicted For Tax Fraud, After IRS Mails $327K Refund To Prison
Jillian Rayfield January 31, 2012, 5:39 AM 6639
A prison inmate in upstate New York was convicted on 11 counts of tax fraud after he filed — and partially received — tax returns worth around $890 million, using techniques he says he learned off of a sovereign citizen website.
Ronald Williams, dubbed the “jailhouse CPA” by the Syracuse Post-Standard .. http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2012/01/how_jailhouse_cpa_ronald_willi.html , was convicted last Thursday in District Court in New York of 11 counts of filing false claims for tax refunds, and on one additional count for assisting another prisoner in doing the same.
According to court documents, Williams filed tax returns in the spring of 2007, claiming that he earned half a million dollars in 2006 — during a time when he was incarcerated. The IRS sent him a refund check for $327,456 in April of 2007 — c/o the Camp Gabriels Correctional Facility in upstate New York.
The check was intercepted by employees of the state Department of Corrections, who notified the IRS criminal investigation division in mid April of that year. “Thereafter, the IRS re-reviewed the filing by defendant Williams and determined that his filing was false, fictitious and/or fraudulent. Defendant Williams was logged into the IRS system as a frivolous filer,” according to court documents.
Over the next few years, Williams filed a total of eleven other tax returns asking for similarly exorbitant refunds, one even going as high as $2 million. In that case, Williams claimed his source of income was a “Penal/Prison Bond,” and asked for the same amount as a refund. In another, he asked for $293 million and listed “Export Trade Agent” as his occupation.
“Williams, a likely by-product of having been issued a refund check in the amount of $327,456.04, became known throughout the correctional facility for his tax scheme,” court documents say. “As a result, the defendant assisted numerous other inmates with preparing their own income tax returns seeking refunds.”
One inmate filed a fraudulent tax return with Williams’ help that asked for a refund of over $60 million. In exchange, the inmate gave Williams stamps and canned food, Marnie Eisenstadt of the Post-Standard reports.
In 2008, Williams was questioned, and “admitted that he prepared other inmates tax returns. A search of [his] belongings revealed numerous tax forms, social security numbers, ID numbers, and duplicate tax forms,” according to court documents.
Williams” attorney claimed that he had filed the returns after an article on the site “The America’s Bulletin,” a sovereign citizen website that puts out “Prison Packets” to instruct prisoners how to get themselves out of prison.
In 2009, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported on .. http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2009/spring/return-of-the-sovereigns .. the rise in sovereign citizen filings from prisoners, and identified America’s Bulletin as disseminating the practice: ------ America’s Bulletin sells “The Prison Packet” to inmates for $22. A green, spiral-bound notebook, “The Prison Packet” reformulates sovereign-citizen theories for inmates, focusing on a nonexistent set of “prison bonds” that supposedly underwrite inmates’ incarceration. By filing a blizzard of liens and complaints, the notebook promises, inmates can not only free themselves, but also walk away with hundreds of thousands of dollars. (Although outgoing prisoner mail is usually monitored, sovereign-citizen literature often slips by officials because the dense and often incomprehensible jargon they contain doesn’t register as glaringly extremist.) ------ Williams, who was first imprisoned when he was 18, had been serving a sentence for possession of stolen property — namely a “tractor-trailer full of canned beans off a Buffalo street,” according to the Post-Standard.
His sentencing for the new convictions will be in May, when he will face up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250 thousand for each count.
.. seems the Sovereign Citizen's movement's (yup, it is a movement') of relatively isolated individuals “The Prison Packet” didn't offer Roger Williams very sound pseudo-legal advice ..
There has been a growing popularity, as of late, among conspiracy theorists regarding the Freeman Movement in the United States as well as a few countries throughout the world.
If you haven’t heard of this theory, you’ll likely be better off. For those who’ve read about it, or become influenced by it, however, either believe that it’s nonsense, or a very solid confirmation of legal slavery…In essence you either completely buy into it, or your don’t.
For those who’ve never heard of this movement, I’ve provided a brief description of what they believe. It requires some very extreme and dangerous methods that could land you in prison for fraud or a very tense stand-off with federal officers (which is exactly what has happened in the past). For those unfamiliar with this very strange and overwhelming conspiracy theory, I’ll try to explain it in a way that doesn’t make one’s head spin.
In short, the Freemen believe that The United States (along with several other countries) is operating under Admiralty/Maritime Law (which is used for Shipping, Banks and Corporations) as opposed to Civil Law (which is used for our countries’ citizens). The apparent proof that they claim to have of this, is the corporate status of the United States (more on that later) the gold fringe on our American Flag and the pseudo-legal definition of a person all somehow put our country under admiralty jurisdiction.
Another misconception is that Common Laws are the only real laws that Freemen have to obey. They are convinced that statutes are not laws and therefore, do not need to be obeyed.
The theory, in a nutshell, suggests that we are owned and operated as a bankrupt nation; by the IMF and that our income taxes are (not only unconstitutional) actually paying tribute to the Queen of England. Furthermore, they believe that our birth certificates render us as property of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, INC. because any legal document with your name in all capital letters (i.e.: JOHN DOE) represents a loss of personal liberty and submission to another’s will.
The theory claims that your name in all capital letters represents a “corporation” (aka legal person), whereas your name in lower case lettering represents a “natural person” (you). One of the arguments a freeman will tell you is that you are not a person, but you have a person, or more specifically you have a corporation. This is partially true, but we’ll explain how this is misinterpreted in the second half.
Essentially, they believe that if you agree to allow your birth certificate to represent you (which contains your name in all capital letters) then you agree to forfeiting your constitutional rights and therefore have willingly accepting the status of a corporation, which (again, according to the theory) reduces your rights to that of a debt slave.
Many Freemen see the moment when the United States chose to abandon the gold standard in 1933 as the beginning of the end. They believe that our country pledged its own citizens as collateral (via a birth certificate) in order to pay off their debts in exchange for currency. Apparently, the government sets up a Straw Man (via your birth certificate) with a bank account in your name holding up to 630,000 dollars per new born citizen.
They also express that through various, complex legal steps utilizing UCC (Uniform Commercial Code, a code that governs international trade laws) a citizen can file a notarized Claim of Right and a UCC-1 financing statement in a court of law and gain access to the money in this account. This is what’s referred to as capturing your Straw Man.
These very strange and confusing theories originate from the Redemption Movement, which was founded by Roger Elvick who was using this very same method as a means for tax evasion. Sadly, there have been many others that have followed in his footsteps directly to the big house.
Where, might you ask, did the freemen get these ideas from? It’s not one hundred percent certain, but the most logical conclusion would be the following:
In Ancient Roman methods of establishing legal capacity, there we’re three categorizations of status within this method of law.
Capitus Diminutio Minima (i.e.: John Doe) - The mildest loss of liberties that occur when ones familial relations have been legally changed, either for personal or legal reasons.
Capitus Dimuntio Media (i.e.: John DOE) - Is a medium loss of liberty which apparently represents a loss of family and citizenship, but not ones actual, personal liberties.
Capitus Diminutio Maxima (i.e.: JOHN DOE) - Is the one that Freemen get stuck on the most. It represents (again, according to the theory), a total loss of familial status, citizenship and personal liberties.
This has all been widely misrepresented as to how our laws in the United States actually work. Freemen are convinced that we render ourselves as corporate owned property and are submitting to the will of another by responding to any document that has our name in all capital letters.
Here are just a few of the fundamental flaws in typicial Freeman logic that need pointing out:
1. A UCC-1 financing statement is simply a form for small businesses when they need to establish security loans. Although one could possibly establish themselves as a creditor, putting ones name in capitol letters has absolutely no effect on ones status or sovereignty and could very well get you in serious trouble with the courts.
2. Your Birth Certificate is not a tradable commodity on the stock market. Occasionally, you can look up the red number on the back of your certificate and find one that matches, but this is not associated with you or your name in any way. It is simply a coincidence, based on the fact that the stock market generates so many new mutual fund numbers, there is bound to be several matches that would lead any paranoid person with a confirmation bias, to believe the worst. This is why it is key to remain critical of these things.
3. The United States of America has a corporation but it does not exist as one. The corporate status was created in order to represent an entity that couldn’t normally be brought to court. Afterall, you can’t summon the entire United States of America to court. That would make for quite the crowded court room. Hence the creation of this corporation. Ironically, this was done to make the legal process easier and it is for those who choose to understand it legitimately.
5. The gold fringe on our American flag does not represent a country under admiralty jurisdiction and is quite often not even found on many of our official flags (as it was never mandated by any congressional or presidential authorization). Granted you will see this from time to time, but it doesn’t represent anything and there is no legitimate source to the contrary. In fact, According to a CRS Report for Congress dated August 23rd. 2004: The placing of a fringe on the flag is optional with the person or organization, and no Act of Congress or Executive Order either requires or prohibits the practice…It is recognized only as an honorable enrichment.
6. The legal definition of a court, according the Cornell University Law School: “Court” means any court created by the Congress of the United States. Even according to the very rhetoric of the Freemen movement, anything created by congress is considered constitutional. By its own legal definition, the court system for the United States is quite legitimate and has nothing to do with admiralty or maritime law, in its full capacity. However, in cases of U.S. maritime/admiralty disputes (regarding anything that falls under admiralty jurisdiction) a federal court does hear these cases, but they rarely have a jury and are still subject to the state laws of whichever state that federal court resides in. Again, state laws are completely constitutional by definition.
7. In no way does any ancient Roman Law, unless somehow incorporated into our statutes, effect one’s legal name or legal capacity and there is no evidence to suggest otherwise.
As obviously flawed as this theory is, there have been Freeman Movements popping up all over the world recently, including Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and most historically it would seem, the United States.
Sadly there have been some serious tragedies that have resulted from people who have taken this rhetoric to its most dangerous extremes. This ideology and mindset has led to some rather ugly events of isolationism and even terrorism on some occasions.
Some of these incidents include:
The Montana Freemen Incident: Several Montana Freemen had a stand off with the FBI in 1995 regarding a foreclosure on their property. The FBI stood down momentarily, in order to re-asses a more non-violent plan of action, due to the recent Waco Siege. After an 81 day negotiation process, 14 of the freemen finally surrendered and we’re brought up on charges.
The Militia Movement: A group responsible for inspiring and spreading many of these ideas. Many of the stereotypical conspiracy theories .. http://www.examiner.com/topic/conspiracy-theories .. one hears regarding survivalism, anti-government, tax protestation, sovereign citizenship and common law are perpetuated by this group. They’ve also been known to have ties to white supremacist and anti-Semitic groups.
The Oklahoma City Bombing: Both Timothy McVey and Terry Nichols were former members of the Michigan Militia and we’re inspired by the very same freeman based rhetoric that was being spread. This was also a retaliatory strike in response to the Waco and Ruby Ridge Sieges that took place a couple of years prior. They considered the government to be responsible for using unnecessary tyranny and violence against their fellow patriots and considered terrorism an appropriate response.
Posse Comitatus: Several of its members have openly engaged in vigilantism against government officials, including Gordan Kahl, who shot and killed three federal marshals in two standoffs, being fatally shot during the second one. Other members of the groups have been found guilty of several crimes ranging from fraud to tax evasion, many of which mirror tactics used by the Freeman Movement today.
The Christian Identity Movement: This group was widely influenced by Gordan Kahl and his actions in Posse Comitatus. They were first discovered in 1984 when a group called “The Order” committed a string of violent crimes, most notoriously of which, was the murder of radio talk show host, Alan Berg. Other incidents include several robberies and the bombing of a theatre and Synagogue. 10 members we’re tried and convicted of racketeering, another three members received convictions of violating the civil rights of Alan Berg. Sadly, not enough evidence was found to convict any of them of murder.
Aside from these historical references, there has also been recent rise in freemen attempting to use this misinformation in court. Ranging from disobeying a court order, challenging the judge’s jurisdiction and even going so far as demanding the judge be removed from the bench for lack of qualification. In some cases they’ve made attempts to enact what’s called a “fee schedule”, whereby they attempt to charge an officer of the law up to 2,000 dollars an hour for every hour they are in custody.
None of these above methods have ever really worked and at best have landed people in jail for contempt of court, at worst, landed people in prison or the morgue for shooting at federal officers or attacking civilians. These theories (as shown from recent history) can lead to intense irrational fears, distrust in ones own friends, family, government and society and a disturbingly depressing outlook on one’s own country. Not to mention, its lies have influenced more domestic terrorism and fundamental extremism than nearly any other group in the United States in the last decade.
There’s obviously nothing wrong with being critical of your government, but it helps, from time to time, to remember that our lawmakers are just too busy making our food, water, air, housing and roads safe to use, that they just don’t have time (and never did) to create a conspiracy this elaborate and ridiculous. Ironically, I recommend to anyone who likes being a free man, to steer clear of the Freeman Movement and the dangerous lies that they spread.
This is the question that state governments and federal agencies are faced with, ever since a surge of people who consider themselves “sovereign citizens” began acting on their belief that all aspects of law and government are illegitimate. The Southern Poverty Law Center .. http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/ideology/sovereign-citizens-movement#.UZZGhStAQYQ .. estimates that in 2011 there were approximately 100,000 “hard-core” believers in sovereign citizen ideology, though it’s a tough number to nail down because the movement is so disparate. For the same reason — and because, by their nature, members of the movement don’t believe in laws — it’s also tough to draft legislation to specifically target those crimes favored by sovereign citizens.
Some of those crimes involve filing fraudulent tax returns, liens and foreclosures, frequently known as “paper terrorism.” In fact, insofar as the sovereign citizen movement has leaders, it’s in the form of so-called “gurus” who peddle materials on how to conduct these schemes. One prominent sovereign leader, Tim Turner — who refers to himself as “president” of the “Republic for the united States of America” [sic] — was recently convicted .. http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2013/March/13-tax-344.html .. for “attempting to pay taxes with fictitious financial instruments,” among other things. In addition to his own alleged tax crimes, Turner also purveyed a “series of seminars claiming he could help his clients get out of paying mortgages, credit cards and income tax bills using a series of sovereign tricks,” the SPLC .. http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/profiles/james-timothy-turner#.UZVN1ytAQYQ .. reports.
These cases sometimes take years to build, and they don’t address the problems that arise with the more common sovereign practice of filing false tax liens (charges imposed on property to ensure tax payments) against public officials, sometimes worth millions of dollars. Usually, these liens are left undiscovered until the official in question goes to take out a mortgage or a loan and finds their credit effectively ruined. Most of the time, sovereign citizens can exploit loopholes in laws that require clerks to process the filings without asking questions.
Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson, a Republican, told Salon that Indiana’s new law aims to stop two typical types of filings: harassment and “straw man” filings. Harassment filings are those used “usually for a retaliatory purpose,” Lawson said, against an elected official who has confronted the sovereign citizen in some way. In Indiana, there have been two recent harassment filings made against federal judges and one against a local mayor, amounting to millions of dollars in fraudulent liens. “Straw man filings” simply express a sovereign citizen’s contention that the government is illegitimate, and are easy to identify because they are often in all caps and interspersed with colons, make multiple references to the Bible or the Constitution, and generally contain noticeably odd language and punctuation.
In the past, Lawson explained, her office would be able to identify these fraudulent filings, but they “couldn’t question the content” and were still required to process them. At best, the filings clog up the system. At worst, they can seriously damage an official’s finances. “The most effective way to stop these filings is to do it preventively,” Lawson said.
Some states are hoping to prevent these filings in a different way — by enacting tougher penalties that could serve as a deterrent. In New York, a bill would “ensure that appropriate punishments and deterrent exist in relation to the malicious filing of false or fictitious liens against … police officers and elected officials,” by making filing them a felony. The punishment would be a fine of $10,000 per filing and up to a year in prison.
The bill, which was introduced and deferred to the state judiciary committee back in January, was pushed by Orleans County District Attorney Joe Cardone. Cardone told Salon that he had heard about a federal statute that helped crack down on false liens filed against federal officials, “but there was really nothing at the state level.” Though he says the practice hasn’t occurred much in his area, the bill closes a loophole in the system in which “you might have a forgery statute that might cover the situation, but it won’t have as high an offense as this.”
Bill Fulton, a former confidential informant for the FBI on the Schaeffer Cox militia case .. http://www.salon.com/2013/01/11/burn_the_houses_down_with_the_cops_and_their_families_inside/ , who has continued to work with law enforcement on sovereign citizen issues, argued to Salon that the idea behind the New York bill is not to stop them from filing the liens but to prosecute before they can file multiple liens. Under the current law, Fulton said, by the time officials catch on to the lien scam, there could already be 20 to 30 fraudulent filings in the system — which could amount to multiple fraud felonies.
“They’re not going to follow the law, but what it will do is allow law enforcement to deal with them before they clog up the court system and before they cause additional problems,” he said, noting that “sovereign citizens have convinced themselves that this is all legal and this is all OK.” The law would be like “early intervention,” Fulton said. ”If we can get them early enough to discourage them, then hopefully they won’t continue down that path.”
Georgia implemented a similar law in 2012, which went into effect last July. The law, pushed by state Rep. B. J. Pak, a Republican, made it a separate crime to file false liens, punishable by 1 to 10 years in prison, a fine up to $10,000, or both. Pak told Salon that though the law is pretty recent, he hasn’t heard of any filings since it’s gone into effect. “I’m hoping no news is good news, that it’s becoming a deterrent.” He added that the next step might be targeting sovereign citizens that have been filing false foreclosures on homes, which Pak says is in the “same kind of wheelhouse.”
For instance, in Georgia itself, 12 sovereign citizens were indicted .. http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/georgia_may_soon_crack_down_on_sovereign_citizen_p.php .. in 2011 on several charges related to an alleged scheme to break into unoccupied homes, file the deeds for themselves, and then file additional fraudulent liens and lawsuits against any law enforcement or public official who tried to kick them out.
In these schemes, the “rightful owner has a hard time getting possession of their house; they have to go through this protracted process to determine which deed is real and which is fake,” Pak said.
Though state governments may be able to effectively utilize deterrence to prevent “paper terrorism,” there are still those more disturbing cases in which sovereign citizens have resorted to violence when confronted with law enforcement. In 2010, for example, two sovereign citizens in Arkansas were killed in a shootout after the two men opened fire with AK-47s during a traffic stop, killing two police officers.
That’s why the FBI has labeled sovereign citizens a “domestic terrorist movement,” and it’s why the White House established .. http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/02/05/working-counter-online-radicalization-violence-united-states .. a new “Interagency Working Group to Counter Online Radicalization to Violence” in February of this year. The group organizes efforts to crack down on potentially violent individuals and movements, like sovereign citizens, ”who use the Internet to recruit others to plan or carry out acts of violence.”
That’s also why local police departments have been taking additional measures to instruct officers on how to deal with sovereign citizens, including hiring specialized trainers like Detectives Rob Finch and Kory Flowers. Finch and Flowers have been making the rounds across the country, training approximately 15,000 police officers and 5,000 public officials in how to recognize and deal with a sovereign citizen who might, when pushed, resort to violence. ”To them, a police officer is just a man in a Halloween costume,” Finch recently told the Los Angeles Times .. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-sovereigns-20130406,0,3800088.story .
Jillian Rayfield is an Assistant News Editor for Salon, focusing on politics. Follow her on Twitter at @jillrayfield or email her at jrayfield@salon.com.
.. it's a very long one i've had on tab for some two weeks .. couldn't decide what to do with it .. now, here it is in full ..
Glenn Beck loves them. Tea Partiers court them. Congressmen listen to them. Meet the fast-growing "patriot" group that's recruiting soldiers to resist the Obama administration.
THE .50 CALIBER Bushmaster bolt action rifle is a serious weapon. The model that Pvt. 1st Class Lee Pray is saving up for has a 2,500-yard range and comes with a Mark IV scope and an easy-load magazine. When the 25-year-old drove me to a mall in Watertown, New York, near the Fort Drum Army base, he brought me to see it in its glass case—he visits it periodically, like a kid coveting something at the toy store. It'll take plenty of military paychecks to cover the $5,600 price tag, but he considers the Bushmaster essential in his preparations to take on the US government when it declares martial law.
His belief that that day is imminent has led Pray to a group called Oath Keepers .. http://oathkeepers.org/oath/ , one of the fastest-growing "patriot" organizations on the right. Founded last April by Yale-educated lawyer and ex-Ron Paul aide Stewart Rhodes, the group has established itself as a hub in the sprawling anti-Obama movement that includes Tea Partiers, Birthers, and 912ers. Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, and Pat Buchanan have all sung its praises, and in December, a grassroots summit .. http://www.nationallibertyunitysummit.com/ .. it helped organize drew such prominent guests as representatives Phil Gingrey .. http://gingrey.house.gov/ .. and Paul Broun .. http://www.paulbroun.com/index2.html , both Georgia Republicans.
There are scores of patriot groups, but what makes Oath Keepers unique is that its core membership consists of men and women in uniform, including soldiers, police, and veterans. At regular ceremonies in every state, members reaffirm their official oaths of service, pledging to protect the Constitution—but then they go a step further, vowing to disobey "unconstitutional" orders from what they view as an increasingly tyrannical government.
Pray (who asked me to use his middle name rather than his first) and five fellow soldiers based at Fort Drum take this directive very seriously. In the belief that the government is already turning on its citizens, they are recruiting military buddies, stashing weapons, running drills, and outlining a plan of action. For years, they say, police and military have trained side by side in local anti-terrorism exercises around the nation. In September 2008, the Army began training .. http://www.northcom.mil/News/2008/090908.html .. the 3rd Infantry's 1st Brigade Combat Team to provide humanitarian aid following a domestic disaster or terror attack—and to help with crowd control and civil unrest if need be. (The ACLU has expressed concern about this deployment.) And some of Pray's comrades were guinea pigs for military-grade sonic weapons, only to see them used by Pittsburgh police against protesters last fall.
Most of the men's gripes revolve around policies that began under President Bush but didn't scare them so much at the time. "Too many conservatives relied on Bush's character and didn't pay attention," founder Rhodes told me. "Only now, with Obama, do they worry and see what has been done. Maybe you said, I trusted Bush to only go after the terrorists.* But what do you think can happen down the road when they say, 'I think you are a threat to the nation?'"
In Pray's estimate, it might not be long (months, perhaps a year) before President Obama finds some pretext—a pandemic, a natural disaster, a terror attack—to impose martial law, ban interstate travel, and begin detaining citizens en masse. One of his fellow Oath Keepers, a former infantryman, advised me to prepare a "bug out" bag with 39 items including gas masks, ammo, and water purification tablets, so that I'd be ready to go "when the shit hits the fan."
When it does, Pray and his buddies plan to go AWOL and make their way to their "fortified bunker"—the home of one comrade's parents in rural Idaho—where they've stocked survival gear, generators, food, and weapons. If it becomes necessary, they say, they will turn those guns against their fellow soldiers.
PRAY AND I DRIVE through a bleak landscape of fallow winter fields and strip malls in his blue Dodge Stratus as Drowning Pool's "Bodies"—a heavy metal song once used to torment .. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2008/02/torture-playlist .. Abu Ghraib detainees—plays on the stereo. Clad in an oversize black hoodie that hides his military physique, Pray sports an Army-issue buzz cut and is seriously inked (skulls, smoke, an eagle). His father kicked him out of the house at age 14. Two years later, after working jobs from construction to plumbing—"If it's blue collar, I've done it"—he tried to enlist. It wasn't long after 9/11, and he was hell-bent on revenge. The Army turned him down. Blaming the "THOR" tattooed across his fist, Pray tried to burn it off. On September 11, 2006, he approached the Army again and was accepted.
Now Pray is both a Birther and a Truther. He believes he is following an illegitimate, foreign-born president in a war on terror launched by a government plot—9/11. He admires soldiers like Army reservist Major Stefan Frederick Cook, who volunteered for a deployment last May and then sued to avoid it—claiming that Obama is not a natural-born citizen and is thus unfit for command. Pray himself had been eager to go to Iraq when his own unit deployed last June, but he smashed both knees falling from a crane rig and the injuries kept him stateside. In September, he was demoted from specialist to private first class—he'd been written up for bullshit infractions, he claims, after seeking help for a drinking problem. His job on base involves operating and maintaining heavy machinery; the day before we met, he and his fellow "undeployables" had attached a snowplow to a Humvee, their biggest assignment in a while. He spends idle hours at the now-quiet base researching the New World Order and conspiracies about swine flu quarantine camps—and doing his best to "wake up" other soldiers.
Pray isn't sure how to do this and still cover his ass. He talks to me on the record and agrees to be photographed, even as he hints that the CIA may be listening in on his phone. Although I met him through contacts from the group's Facebook page, Pray, fearing retribution, keeps his Oath Keepers ties unofficial. (Rhodes encourages active-duty soldiers to remain anonymous, noting that a group with large numbers of anonymous members can instill in its adversaries the fear of the unknown—a "great force multiplier.") For a time, Pray insisted we communicate via Facebook (safer than regular email, he claims). Driving me from the mall back to my motel, he takes a new route. He says unmarked black cars sometimes trail him. It sounds paranoid. Then again, when you're an active-duty soldier contemplating treason, some level of paranoia is probably sensible.
The next afternoon we join Brandon, one of Pray's Army buddies, for steaks. Sitting in a pleather booth at Texas Roadhouse, the young men talk boastfully about their military capabilities and weapons caches. Role-playing the enemy in military exercises, Brandon says, has prepared him to evade and fight back against US troops. "I know their tactics," brags Pray. "I know how they do room sweeps, work their convoys—if we attack this vehicle, what the others will do."
A strapping Idahoan, Brandon (who doesn't want his full name used) enlisted as a teenager when he got his girlfriend pregnant and needed a stable job, stat. (She lost the baby and they split, but he's still glad he signed up.) Unlike his friend, he doesn't think the United Nations must be dismantled, although he does agree that it represents the New World Order, and he suspects that concentration camps are being readied in the off-limits section of Fort Drum. He sends 500 rounds of ammunition home to Idaho each month.
Pfc. Lee Pray vows he'll fight to the death if a rogue US government "forces us to engage."
EVERY YEAR ON [bits original, most bold is mine] April 19, history buffs gather on the village green in Lexington, Massachusetts, to reenact the first battle of the Revolutionary War. For Stewart Rhodes, it was the ideal setting to unveil the organization his followers consider the embodiment of a second American Revolution.
Rhodes, 44, is a constitutional lawyer—his 2004 Yale Law School paper, "Solving the Puzzle of Enemy Combatant Status," won the school's award for best paper on the Bill of Rights. He's now working on a book tentatively titled We the Enemy: How Applying the Laws of War to the American People in the War on Terror Threatens to Destroy Our Constitutional Republic. Raised in the Southwest, Rhodes enlisted in the Army after high school, receiving an honorable discharge after he injured his spine during a night parachute jump. He enrolled at the University of Nevada and in 1998, after graduating, landed a job supervising interns for Congressman Ron Paul. Rhodes has also worked as a firearms instructor and a sculptor—for Vegas' MGM Grand hotel, he produced a fiberglass Minuteman statue—and has practiced law in small-town Montana ("Ivy League quality without Ivy League expense"). He writes a gun-rights column for SWAT magazine. He's a libertarian, staunch constitutionalist, and devout Christian.
It was while volunteering for Ron Paul's doomed presidential bid that Rhodes decided to abandon electoral politics in favor of grassroots organizing. As an undergrad, he had been fascinated by the notion that if German soldiers and police had refused to follow orders, Hitler could have been stopped. Then, in early 2008, SWAT received a letter from a retired colonel declaring that "the Constitution and our Bill of Rights are gravely endangered" and that service members, veterans, and police "is where they will be saved, if they are to be saved at all!"
Rhodes responded .. http://oath-keepers.blogspot.com/2009/05/keeping-your-oath-not-just-following.html .. with a breathless column starring a despotic president, "Hitlery" Clinton, in her "Chairman Mao signature pantsuit." Would readers, he asked, obey orders from this "dominatrix-in-chief" to hold militia members as enemy combatants, disarm citizens, and shoot all resisters? If "a police state comes to America, it will ultimately be by your hands," he warned. You had better "resolve to not let it happen on your watch." He set up an Oath Keepers blog, asking soldiers and veterans to post testimonials. Word spread. Military officers offered assistance. A Marine Corps veteran invited Rhodes to speak at a local Tea Party event. Paul campaigners provided strategic advice. And by the time Rhodes arrived in Lexington to speak at a rally staged by a pro-militia group, a movement was afoot.
Rhodes stood on the common that day before a crowd of about 400 die-hard patriot types. He spoke their language. "You need to be alert and aware to the reality of how close we are to having our constitutional republic destroyed," he said. "Every dictatorship in the history of mankind, whether it is fascist, communist, or whatever, has always set aside normal procedures of due process under times of emergency...We can't let that happen here. We need to wake up!"
He laid out 10 orders an Oath Keeper should not obey .. http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2009/03/03/declaration-of-orders-we-will-not-obey/ , including conducting warrantless searches, holding American citizens as enemy combatants or subjecting them to military tribunals (a true Oath Keeper would have refused to hold José Padilla .. http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2007/08/jose-padilla-trial-dirty-bomb-what-dirty-bomb .. in a military brig), imposing martial law, blockading US cities, forcing citizens into detention camps ("tyrannical governments eventually and invariably put people in camps"), and cooperating with foreign troops should the government ask them to intervene on US soil. In Rhodes' view, each individual Oath Keeper must determine where to draw the line.
The crowd was full of familiar faces from patriot rallies and town hall meetings, with an impressive showing by luminaries of the rising patriot movement. There was Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff who had refused to enforce the Brady Law in the mid-'90s. Also present was Mike Vanderboegh, whose Three Percenter .. http://www.threepercenter.org/ .. movement styles itself after the legendary 3 percent of American colonists who took up arms against the British. Rhodes singled out Marine Charles Dyer, a.k.a. July4Patriot—whose YouTube videos .. http://www.youtube.com/user/july4patriot?blend=1&ob=4&rclk=cti .. [the top one embedded here] ..
advocate armed resistance—as a "man of like minds." When Rhodes finished, Captain Larry Bailey, a retired Navy SEAL, Swift Boater, and founder of the anti-antiwar group Gathering of Eagles .. http://gatheringofeagles.org/ , asked the crowd to raise their right hands and retake their oath—not to the president, but to the Constitution.
*Correction: An earlier version of this story omitted "Maybe you said." We have corrected the error.
Next Page: Last Fourth of July, Oath Keepers were dispatched to more than 30 Tea Party rallies across America.
RHODES' TIMING WAS impeccable. Twelve days earlier, the Department of Homeland Security had issued a report .. http://www.docstoc.com/docs/5410658/DHS-Report-on-Right-Wing-Extremism .. warning that a black president, weak economy, and high unemployment rate had created a "fertile recruiting environment" for right-wing extremists—"disgruntled" vets from Iraq and Afghanistan, the report noted, could bring combat know-how to domestic terrorist groups. Predictably, veterans groups went ballistic, and the report itself became a potent Oath Keepers recruiting tool. "The No. 1 focus of DHS is not Islamic terrorists—it is me and you," Rhodes told followers. "They will unleash the government against you, silence you and suppress you!"
Lee Pray and his pal Brandon were left behind with injuries when their unit shipped off to Iraq. They spend their idle hours preparing for the day the government goes too far.
Oath Keepers collaborates regularly with like-minded citizens groups; last Fourth of July, Rhodes dispatched speakers to administer the oath at more than 30 Tea Party rallies across America. At last fall's 9/12 march on Washington, he led a contingent of Oath Keepers from the Capitol steps down to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Afterward, Oath Keepers cohosted a banquet with the hawkish Gathering of Eagles. This February, a member of the group organized a Florida Freedom Rally featuring Joe the Plumber and conservative singer Lloyd Marcus. (Sample lyrics .. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2H8xHFXC8U : Mr. President! Your stimulus is sure to bust / it's just a socialistic scheme / The only thing it will do / is kill the American Dream.)
Rhodes has become a darling of right-wing pundits. In a column last October, Pat Buchanan predicted .. http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=113463 .. that "Brother Rhodes is headed for cable stardom." Glenn Beck has cited the group .. http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200910190013 .. as a "phenomenal" example of the "patriot revival movement," while Lou Dobbs declared .. http://www.loudobbs.com/programhighlights .. that its platform "should give solace and comfort to the left in this country." Conspiracy-radio king Alex Jones even put an Oath Keepers segment, including footage of the Lexington speech, on his hit DVD Fall of the Republic. "I can't stress enough how much your organization is scaring the globalists," he told Rhodes .. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxjtXY4AXWo&feature=related .. on his show.
All this attention has put Oath Keepers on the radar of anti-hate groups. Last year, the Anti-Defamation League .. http://www.adl.org/special_reports/rage-grows-in-America/oath-keepers.asp .. and the Southern Poverty Law Center .. http://www.splcenter.org/news/item.jsp?pid=415 .. both name-checked the group in their reports on rising anti-government extremism. "They think the word 'patriot' is a smear," Rhodes countered during his Dobbs segment. SPLC's Mark Potok "wants to lump us in with white supremacists and neo-Nazis, and of course make the insinuation that we're the next McVeigh." But such attacks have only raised Oath Keepers' profile. After a combative Hardball interview in October—host Chris Matthews asked Rhodes .. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM9Y44eXET0 .. whether Oath Keepers had the "firepower to stand up against the federal government"—the group says it gained 2,000 members in three days.
As of mid-January, according to Rhodes, Oath Keepers had at least one chapter in every state and was adding dozens of members daily. Some 14,000 people had signed up as members on the Oath Keepers website while more than 15,000, including dozens of military recruiters, had done so on Facebook. And that doesn't include those who, fearing reprisal, do their networking offline. Volunteers are in the process of sending out some 1,000 "constitutional care packages" complete with Oath Keepers patches to soldiers serving overseas.
Rhodes' vision is simple—"It's the Constitution, stupid." He views the founding blueprint the way fundamentalist Christians view the Bible. In Rhodes' America, sovereign states—"like little labs of freedom"—would have their own militias and zero gun restrictions. He would limit federal power to what's stated explicitly in the Constitution and Bill of Rights; any new federal law affecting the states would require a constitutional amendment. "If your state goes retarded," he says, "you can move to another state and vote with your feet." The president would be stripped of emergency powers that allow him to seize property, restrict travel, institute martial law, and otherwise (as the Congressional Research Service has put it) "control the lives of United States citizens." The Constitution, Rhodes explains, "was created to check us in times of emergency when we are freaking out."
Much of this is familiar rhetoric, part of a continuous strain in American politics that reemerged most recently during the 1990s. Back then, a similar combination of recession and Democratic rule led to the rise of citizen militias, the Posse Comitatus movement, and Oath Keepers-type groups like Police & Military Against the New World Order. But those groups had little reach. Nowadays, through the power of YouTube and social networking, and with a boost from the cable punditry, Oath Keepers can reach millions and make its message part of the national conversation—furthering the notion that citizens can simply disregard a government they loathe. "The underlying sentiment is an attack on government dating back to the New Deal and before," says author Neiwert. "Ron Paul has been a significant conduit in recent years, but nothing like Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin—all of whom share that innate animus."
Oath Keepers' strength derives from what Rhodes calls "a very powerful common bond" (the vow of service) as well as the uniform—"a powerful source of credibility and respect" that allows members to "throw their weight into any movement...and tip any election." Rhodes is wary of "old-party asshole RINOs" (Republicans in name only)—he mentions Dick Armey, the former House majority leader turned Tea Party sponsor—who in his view are merely out to hijack the grassroots.
Most Oath Keepers may intend to disobey their commanders only in the instances the group highlights. But the group's ideas also appeal to extremists like Daniel Knight Hayden, whose inflammatory tweets .. http://twitter.com/citizenquasar .. last April ("START THE KILLING NOW!") signaled his intent to wreak havoc at a Tax Day protest. On the morning of April 15 he sent out a tweet touting Oath Keepers, followed by "Locked AND loaded for the Oklahoma State Capitol. Let's see what happens." (The FBI arrested him at home a few hours later; he was eventually convicted for transmitting interstate threats.) Rhodes vigorously denounced Hayden, but the episode hinted at the power of the group's language. Rhetoric like Rhodes' ("Do you want them to kick down your door in body armor?") can have "an unhinging effect" on people inclined toward violent action, Neiwert explains. "It puts them in a state of mind of fearfulness and paranoia, creating so much anger and hatred that eventually that stuff boils over."
In the months I've spent getting to know the Oath Keepers, I've toggled between viewing them either as potentially dangerous conspiracy theorists or as crafty intellectuals with the savvy to rally politicians to their side. The answer, I came to realize, is that they cover the whole spectrum.
ON A CLEAR September evening, I found myself in suite 610 at the Texas Station casino in North Las Vegas mingling with two dozen Oath Keepers state leaders, directors, and hardcore devotees. It was past midnight, but the place—down to the American flag wallpaper in the bathroom—was awake with the sense of a movement primed to burst into the national consciousness. Mississippi director Chris Evans, who sports a long beard and cowboy hat, declared in his pronounced drawl that this gathering was so important to him that for the first time since 9/11 he'd succumbed to the "invasive breach of privacy" required to fly here. Rand Cardwell, who organized multiple chapters in Tennessee, only woke up, he told me, when the government began bailing out big companies and left ordinary people in the cold: "Pain causes action," he said. For others here, the aha moment came with the Patriot Act or when federal troops and contractors confiscated weapons in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
As techies swarmed around laptops discussing website tweaks, two shy Midwesterners who hoped to become state directors told me they were eager to learn recruiting tips. An energetic young veteran griped that hate-crime bills aim to police people's thoughts, and that the "Don't Tread on Me" bumper stickers popular with constitutionalists raise enough suspicion these days to get a person pulled over by the authorities. Over bottled water and microbrews, they swapped tips on how to involve members in state militias, spread viral YouTube videos of soldiers reaffirming their oaths, and reach out to other patriots. They boasted of recruiting at gun shows, approaching politicians and cops, and stuffing leaflets into magazines in veterans hospital waiting rooms.
The three-day conference was called posthaste after Rhodes realized that his group was growing beyond his control. On the first night, over a casino buffet of barbecue, goopy Chinese food, and key lime pie, core members scrutinized printouts of potential organizational structures before heading upstairs to sign legal documents, pick a board of directors, and start nominating state representatives.
Rhodes caught wind of my presence during the introductory meet and greet. Taking me aside, he told me he'd decided reporters weren't welcome. After I protested that the Oath Keepers website had described the conference as open to the public, he offered to refund my $300 entrance fee. Then I told him I'd read his Yale paper and shared many of his concerns about executive power; I really wanted to hear what Oath Keepers had to say. In the end, he agreed to let me stay and eventually invited me to hang out with the inner circle.
The next morning, in a casino ballroom, a hundred or so Oath Keepers exchanged business cards and schmoozed in between speeches about constitutional law, American Revolutionary history, and a soldier's obligation to disobey illegal orders—Nuremberg references on full display. Clad in suits, or slacks with button-downs, most of them could have been attending an insurance convention. One Oath Keeper handed out Gadsden-flag bumper stickers, while others sold T-shirts, baseball caps, and polo shirts featuring the group's minuteman logo and motto: "Not on our watch." There was a raffle, and James Sugra, one of the masterminds behind Ron Paul's fundraising "money bombs," scored a huge framed replica of the Constitution. To enthusiastic applause, a driver in the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series (a hot new cross between NASCAR and monster truck rallies) announced that the Oath Keepers would get free ad space on his car. Their logo would be seen on television sets across America. During the talks, I sat between a libertarian who had biked across America, stopping at police stations to hand out recruiting materials, and a first-generation Chinese American stay-at-home dad from San Francisco who invited me to my local chapter's winter survivalist training and rifle practice—extracurriculars, he assured me.
Next Page: I got a step-by-step tutorial on how the president's socialized medicine agenda would beget a Nazi-style regime.
Oath Keepers is officially nonpartisan, in part to make it easier for active-duty soldiers to participate, but its rightward bent is undeniable, and liberals are viewed with suspicion. At lunch, when I questioned my tablemates about the Obama-Hitler comparisons I'd heard at the conference, I got a step-by-step tutorial on how the president's socialized medicine agenda would beget a Nazi-style regime.
I learned that bringing guns to Tea Party protests was a reminder of our constitutional rights, was introduced to the notion that the founding fathers modeled their governing documents on the Bible, [well, we all know there is plenty on this board re the founding fathers and the bible] and debated whether being Muslim [Muslims do worship the same God] meant an inability to believe in and abide by—and thus be protected by—the Constitution. I was schooled on the treachery of the Federal Reserve and why America needs a gold standard, and at dinner one night, Nighta Davis, national organizer for the National 912 Project .. http://www.thenational912project.net/ , explained how abortion-rights advocates are part of a eugenics program targeting Christians. I also met Lt. Commander Guy Cunningham, a retired Navy officer and Oath Keeper who in 1994 took it upon himself to survey personnel at the 29 Palms .. http://www.29palmssurvey.com/ .. Marine Corps base about their willingness to accept domestic missions and serve with foreign troops. A quarter of the Marines he polled said that they would be willing to fire on Americans who refused to disarm in the face of a federal order—a finding routinely cited by militia and patriot groups worried about excessive government powers.
From the podium, ex-sheriff Mack told the crowd that he wished he'd been the officer ordered to escort Rosa Parks off the bus, because not only would he have refused, he would have helped her home and stood guard there. These days, he said, it's not African Americans who are under attack, but Christians, constitutionalists, and people who uphold family values [big sigh] : This time "it's going to be Rosa Parks the gun owner, Rosa Parks the tax evader, or Rosa Parks the home-schooler."
Mack runs the "No Sheriff Left Behind .. http://sheriffmack.com/ " campaign encouraging state and local authorities to disregard federal laws that they believe violate states' rights. During the 1990s, he successfully eviscerated a Brady Law provision requiring sheriffs to run background checks on handgun purchasers. Another sheriff who spoke, Mark Gower of Iron County, Utah, uses Mack's precedent to refuse to act against property owners who violate the Endangered Species Act. The conference's lifetime achievement award went to Army Specialist Michael New, discharged in 1996 for refusing to wear a United Nations helmet and patch while serving in Germany.
Oath Keepers steers clear of certain issues. Personally, Rhodes would prefer the list of objectionable orders to include detaining foreigners indefinitely at facilities like Guantanamo. [reluctant tick] And while he argues that torture should never be legal, the group takes no official stance on America's war on terror or overseas engagements. After an Oath Keeper who is also a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War .. http://www.ivaw.org/ .. touted IVAW repeatedly on Oath Keepers' Web forum, Rhodes deleted the guy's online testimonial. "The IVAW have their own totalitarian mindset," he told me. "I don't like communists any more than I like Nazis."
On the conference's final day, National 912 Project chairman Patrick Jenkins stepped up to talk about the National Liberty Unity Summits .. http://www.nationallibertyunitysummit.com/ .. his group was organizing in cooperation with Oath Keepers. They would provide a chance, he said, for patriots to forge a common agenda and a plan to carry it out. At the first summit, in December, attendees included representatives of groups from FairTax Nation .. http://www.fairtaxnation.com/ .. to the Constitution Party .. http://www.constitutionparty.com/ .. to Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum .. http://www.eagleforum.org/ . On hand were Ralph Reed Jr. (former director of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition .. http://www.cc.org/ .. and recent founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition .. http://www.ffcoalition.com/ ), Larry Pratt (head of Gun Owners of America .. http://gunowners.org/ ), and Tim Cox (founder of Get Out of Our House .. http://goooh.com/ , an organization praised on Fox News for its goal of replacing business-as-usual incumbents with "ordinary folks"). Most notable were representatives Broun and Gingrey, who according to summit organizer Nighta Davis have expressed willingness to introduce legislation crafted by summit attendees. (So, Davis says, have Steve King .. http://steveking.house.gov/ .. [R-Iowa] and Michele Bachmann .. http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2007/08/jose-padilla-trial-dirty-bomb-what-dirty-bomb .. [almost out] [R-Minn.]. None of the representatives agreed to comment for this story.)
The December gathering was merely a windup. In mid-April, another summit is planned to coincide with a huge gun-rights march and a Tax Day Tea Party rally in Washington organized by Dick Armey's FreedomWorks .. http://www.freedomworks.org/ .. PAC and the American Liberty Alliance .. http://americanlibertyalliance.com/ —whose home page touts Oath Keepers as a key part of "the Movement." Organizers expect hundreds of thousands to turn out. The Oath Keepers will be there en masse.
IN VEGAS, Rhodes took me aside repeatedly to explain that many of those in attendance—including featured speakers like "Patriot Pastor" Garrett Lear ("When a government doesn't obey God, we must reform it") [THEOCRACY: much on the board about theocracy minded Americans, too] — might not represent Oath Keepers' official message. He and his Web staff have been overwhelmed, he told me, by the amount of policing required to keep people from posting "off message" commentary encouraging violence or racism. Last December, they shut down one forum because too many posters were using it to recruit for militias. The Constitution, of course, allows citizens to form militias so long as their intent is to defend and not overthrow the government, but active-duty soldiers can lose security clearances or get demoted for associating with them. Rhodes advises members to go ahead and join—just not in Oath Keepers' name. "As a matter of strategy, it is best to keep the two separate," he wrote in a post.
There may also be serious downsides for a soldier who follows through on his Oath Keepers pledge. Disobeying orders can mean discharge or imprisonment. "You have every right to disobey an order if you think it is illegal," says Army spokesman Nathan Banks. "But you will face court-martial, and so help you God if you are wrong. Saying something isn't constitutional isn't going to fly."
A soldier like Charles Dyer, who in his July4Patriot persona advocated armed resistance against the government, could risk charges of treason. As a Marine sergeant based out of Camp Pendleton, Dyer posted videos to YouTube last year, his face half-covered with a skull bandana. "With the DHS blatantly calling patriots, veterans, and constitutionalists a threat, all that I have to say is, you're damn right we're a threat," he said .. http://www.youtube.com/user/july4patriot?blend=1&ob=4&rclk=cti#p/u/7/J_1HAvaWnqg .. [embedded here]
in one. "We're a threat to anyone that endangers our rights and the Constitution of this republic...We're gathering in defense of our way of life." For a while, he ran a training compound in San Diego, teaching civilians his Marine combat skills.
Dyer, who with Rhodes' blessing represented Oath Keepers at an Oklahoma Tea Party .. http://www.youtube.com/user/july4patriot?blend=1&ob=4&rclk=cti#p/u/6/M3mghRiZB3w .. rally on July 4, was charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice with uttering "disloyal" statements. He ultimately beat the charge, left the Marines, and reappeared unmasked on YouTube encouraging viewers to join him at his makeshift training area in Duncan, Oklahoma—"I'm sure the DHS will call it a terrorist training camp." In January, Dyer was arrested .. http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2010/01/patriot-hero-dyer-july4patriot-goes-down .. on charges of raping a seven-year-old girl. When sheriff's deputies raided his home, they found a Colt M-203 grenade launcher believed to have been stolen from a California military base. He now faces federal weapons charges and is being hailed by fringe militia groups like the American Resistance Movement as "the first POW of the second American Revolution."
Shortly after I asked Rhodes about Dyer—before his arrest hit the news—his testimonial vanished from the group's website. Rhodes once endorsed Dyer in glowing terms, but now claims he was never a member because he hasn't paid dues. Yet Dyer publicly referred to himself as an Oath Keeper, and Rhodes had previously insisted—to Lou Dobbs and anyone else who would listen—that you didn't need to pay dues to be a member.
In an interview prior to Dyer's arrest, Andrew Sexton, another uniformed YouTube .. http://www.youtube.com/user/oefsofsoldier?feature=chclk .. [couldn't embed to play] .. star who argues the need for armed resistance, criticized Dyer for making himself a target. Sexton, an Army reservist who served in Afghanistan with US Special Operations Command, also keeps his Oath Keepers ties under the radar. Most soldiers, he told me, don't talk openly about such things, but it's easy enough to tell which ones have been woken up. The Department of Defense, Sexton added, will be shocked by the number of service members willing to turn against their commanders when the time comes. "It's an absolute reality," he says. He views last April's DHS report on right-wing extremists as a "preemptive attack because they know it's coming."
Rhodes isn't calling for violence—indeed, he insists that his group is about laying down arms rather than turning them on citizens. Yet when he writes that "the oath is like kryptonite to tyrants, as the Founders intended. The time has come for us to use it to its full effect," some followers take that as a call for drastic action.
Chip Berlet, of the watchdog group Political Research Associates, who has studied right-wing populist movements for 25 years, equates Rhodes' rhetoric to yelling fire in a crowded theater. "Promoting these conspiracy theories is very dangerous right now because there are people who will assume that a hero will stop at nothing." What will happen, he adds, "is not just disobeying orders but harming and killing."
Rhodes acknowledges that there are certain risks. Freedom "is not neat or tidy," he says. "It's messy." For example, he concedes that "there may be a downside" to police refusing to engage during a riot situation. "Someone could be beaten or raped, but the potential risks involved are far less dangerous than having soldiers or police always do whatever they are told."
LEE PRAY thinks Rhodes downplays the threat Oath Keepers represents to a rogue administration. "They have to be careful because otherwise they will be labeled as terrorists," he says. "You have to read between the lines, but I wish they were more up-front with their members."
It's not hard to see the appeal of Oath Keepers for guys like Pray and Brandon, frustrated young men nervous about their future prospects. They signed up to defend the greatest country in the world, only to be cast aside. Even their injuries were suffered ingloriously. Brandon can't sit for long after being flung from a pickup truck; Pray now walks with a cane, possibly for good. The men sincerely believe their country is headed for disaster, but as broken warriors they are powerless to do anything about it. They have tried writing to Congress, signing petitions, and voting, all to no avail. Oath Keepers offers a new sense of pride and comradeship—of being part of something momentous.
And when the time comes, Pray insists he is battle ready. "If the government continues to ignore us, and forces us to engage," Pray says, "I'm willing to fight to the death." Brandon, for his part, is resigned about their odds fighting the US military. "If we take up arms, realistically we would lose, and they would label us as terrorists," he says. Pray nods sadly in agreement. But they'll take their chances. They consider it their duty.
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