FBI Attempts to Make 'Libertarians' the Poster Children for Domestic Extremism

by Eric Blair
Activist Post
Feb. 07, 2012

As the definition of a domestic extremist continues to expand to include activists for peace, animal rights, currency, natural health, liberty and other noble causes, the FBI is ready to make an example out of one group in particular: Libertarians.

The FBI held a press conference Monday to "increase the visibility of the threat" that people who oppose taxes and regulations, government intrusions into their private property, and the desire for sound money allegedly pose to local authorities.

Although the FBI vaguely attempts to label this group as "sometimes known as 'sovereign citizens'", the description sounds an awful lot like me, and millions of other liberty-minded people in America that don't associate with any group.

They also sound like Ron Paul supporters.

According to Reuters:

Anti-government extremists opposed to taxes and regulations pose a growing threat to local law enforcement officers in the United States, the FBI warned on Monday.

These extremists, sometimes known as 'sovereign citizens,' believe they can live outside any type of government authority, FBI agents said at a news conference.

The extremists may refuse to pay taxes, defy government environmental regulations and believe the United States went bankrupt by going off the gold standard.

Notice the resolute use of the word "extremists" but the vague description "sometimes known as sovereign citizens." Yet the description that these "extremists may refuse to pay taxes and defy government environmental regulations" sounds more like General Electric than average liberty activists who the FBI clearly seems hellbent on demonizing.

Additionally, the official mission for Sovereign Citizens is to "Protect Property Rights and American Civil Liberties." As fierce protectors of property rights, they take environmental damage quite seriously. Many would argue that an environmental policy governed by property rights is far more effective than the bloated EPA which is wholly owned by corporate polluters.

"Sovereign members often express particular outrage at tax collection, putting Internal Revenue Service employees at risk," Reuters assumes. Yet, choosing not to pay taxes is by definition a form of non-violent civil disobedience. And no credible threats against individual IRS agents were cited.

Opposing taxes only seems dangerous to those who wish to perpetuate this prison society. I would even suggest that it's far more dangerous to continue to fund an organization who wages murderous wars abroad based on lies, who builds a militarized police state at home, who removes all individual liberty in the name of safety, and who bails out criminal cartels while the innocent suffer. The real extremists would seem to be the ones who support such a blood-thirsty organization, not the people who oppose its wicked ways.

But the FBI does their best to convince us that that sovereign citizens are dangerous extremists by warning us they can turn violent "at the drop of a hat," as Stuart McArthur, assistant director in the FBI's counterterrorism division, said at the press conference.

As evidence, McArthur refers to one incident where two men claiming to be Sovereign Citizens killed two Arkansas policemen after an argument. Because this isolated and highly suspect incident is hardly worthy of labeling an entire philosophical group as violent, McArthur desperately tries to dignify the reason for the FBI's alert with other, even more vague examples:

Last year, an extremist in Texas opened fire on a police officer during a traffic stop. The officer was not hit.

Legal convictions of such extremists, mostly for white-collar crimes such as fraud, have increased from 10 in 2009 to 18 each in 2010 and 2011, FBI agents said.

Eighteen "such extremists" convicted of white collar fraud! That's all you can produce with an $8 billion FBI budget? And you wonder why people think their taxes may be better spent elsewhere?

The FBI and the Reuter's reporter must have forgotten to check the Sovereign Citizens' own website to see their very clear statement in complete disagreement to all allegations made in this article:

We do NOT endorse non-payment of taxes or violence to achieve these changes. We do NOT endorse giving up a social security number and we do NOT endorse violence against the police or the government.

But recently, the feds somehow excused the use of a domestic drone of all things in the arrest of farmers accused of stealing a handful of cattle because the farmers were said to be Sovereign Citizens.

It appears the federal government is trying to make an enemy out of non-violent activists, especially liberty activists. Imagine, people concerned with peace and liberty are the enemy of the FBI. What's the opposite of peace and liberty? War and tyranny. Which side are you on?