‘Sovereign citizen’ movement now on FBI’s radar

“We are focusing our efforts because of the threat of violence,” said Stuart R. McArthur, a deputy assistant director in the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division.

In two recent unpublished studies, the Homeland Security Department and the National Counterterrorism Center ranked the sovereign citizen movement as a major threat, along with Islamic extremists and white supremacists. The FBI assigned a supervisor to coordinate investigations of the movement last year.

“This is a movement that has absolutely exploded,” said Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit organization based in Montgomery, Ala., that tracks domestic terrorists and hate groups. More than 100,000 Americans have aligned themselves with the sovereign citizens, the center said.

Adherents cite a patchwork of beliefs, including that the U.S. is essentially under martial law, that some U.S. constitutional amendments are invalid, and that dollars have been illegitimate since the U.S. Treasury went off the gold standard during the Great Depression.

Most important, some followers believe they are entitled to use armed force to resist arrest and fight police.

The FBI also is investigating followers for alleged mail fraud and harassment of federal officials through nuisance lawsuits and property liens. Such cases are clogging courts in every state, said Casey Carty, who heads the FBI’s sovereign citizen unit.

Until recently, federal officials had steered clear of any extensive focus on right-wing extremist groups. In 2009, some members of Congress complained after a Homeland Security Department report warned that such groups might seek to recruit disaffected military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as others. The report highlighted several groups, including the sovereign citizen movement.

Bowing to the criticism, Homeland Security officials gutted the office that had focused on right-wing extremism. They also canceled planned presentations and shelved a reference guide that the office had produced to inform local police about the movement.

“The topic had become too politically charged,” said Daryl Johnson, who headed the team that wrote the 2009 report.

Remember back in 2009 when the DHS Report on Rightwing Extremism came out and all the headcases in the rightwing blogosphere like Michelle Malkin, Redstate, and Atlas Shrugs, along with such fine “news” organizations like WorldNetDaily and the Washington TImes, all came unglued about it? Unglued and unhinged. Then they started calling themselves rightwing terrorists, because it was cute to do that, bleating that the report was just so unfair, claiming that Janet Reno and the DHS / FBI were labeling HALF THE COUNTRY rightwing extremists for criticizing the Administration over the economy or something. All of which, of course, was a lie.

Here’s a link to that 2009 DHS Report on Rightwing Extremism, or click the image above (warning: PDF). It’s only 10 pages. Read if for yourself. The simple fact of the matter is that there are extremists on the right. Just as there are extremists on the left (ELF, ALF).

You know what the difference is though? The extremists on the left go after property, like houses being built in certain locations. Rightwing extremists kill law enforcement and blow up federal buildings and shoot up Holocaust museums and fly planes into IRS buildings and kill doctors who perform LEGAL abortions – rightwing extremists target and kill people. Big difference.

I suppose there’s no better time than now, election year 2012, for rightwing extremists to start coming out of the woodwork, with their manifestos and their personal armories, to do “God’s work” — or impress their favorite half-term governor, Fox “News” personality, or AM radio entertainer.

And if you read that DHS report and think they’re talking about “average” people like yourself, then here’s hoping that you’re coming up on someone’s radar too.